Students sighed with relief on completion of the engineering - materials and technology exam yesterday. After 16 days, they could smile.

The consensus was that it was a fair paper - at both levels. Dr Lawrence Smyth of Falcarragh Community School, Co Donegal, and TUI subject representative, was "reasonably happy. I liked the presentation on the higher level. It's improved since 1997 when some graphics were added." He was happy with question 1(a) and questions 3, 4 and 5.

"I thought question 2 was a bit long because in part 1 they were asked to analyse four different graphs," said Mr Smyth. The whole question seemed to have about nine different parts.

The ordinary-level paper was "very fair." He said it was a pity that the diagrams in question 2 were not labelled "to help the students."