Silence reigned at St Enda's Community School, Limerick, yesterday when the Leaving and Junior Cert exams kicked off to a quiet and calm start. The 160 students taking the exams were "very well behaved", according to school caretaker, Mr Pat Hickey. "I wish they were always as quiet," he said. Leaving Cert students were ashen-faced as they trooped out of the morning higher level English paper. Their pallor had little to do with exam fear, they assured The Irish Times. Long hours of study and a lack of fresh air were the causes, they said. The first English paper was "alright" and what they had expected. Niall Connery appreciated the fact that "the essays were all related to each other and a number of the topics (stress, for example) regularly appear in the media".
Michael O'Doherty said that the paper was fine, "not as bad as I expected". English was his forte and he had finished early. He did, however, admit to feeling jittery first thing in the morning. "I couldn't sleep last night - and I was up late studying the night before. By 6.30 a.m. yesterday morning, he was ready for school. "Just in case," he said. Darren Quinn also reported being unable to sleep. He had studied for 10 hours the day before and was "exhausted".
"Its a relief to get the first exam over and done with," was Siobhan Howard's comment - and everyone agreed. Barbara Fitzgerald had felt sick all morning but settled down when she saw the paper.
The higher level Leaving Cert students said that they were feeling less enthusiastic about the afternoon's English paper. "There are four essays to do in three hours," noted Maurice Moloney. "That's a lot. I am prepared but its hard." "It depends on the wording of the question, commented Siobhan Howard. "You can only prepare so much."
St Enda's students sitting yesterday morning's ordinary level English paper were reasonably pleased with it. However, Ciara Fitzgerald said that the proscribed prose was difficult and hard to understand. "I wasn't impressed," she declared. The essays, though, were "grand". James O'Halloran agreed. "They gave us a good range of essay titles," he noted. These students were remaining cool under fire and weren't particularly worried, they said.
St Enda's students sitting Junior Cert English were also mostly calm about the exams. They said that school principal Mr Pat O'Connor had helped them with their breathing exercises before the exam. "That calmed us down and got us concentrated," commented Joanne Deloughrey, who had also practised the exercises at home the day before. Joanne had gone to bed early but had taken hours to get off to sleep.
Raymond O'Carroll, on the other hand, had stayed up late watching television, although he had done some work earlier in the day. Harry Minogue described the paper as "not too hard. They ask a lot of you. You have to read the questions two or three times; they were quite complicated". James Butler described himself as "quietly confident" after the first Junior Cert paper. Noelle Mulcahy, though, predicted that the afternoon's English paper two would be more difficult.
Dean Malone, P J Lyons and Eoin Murphy had been working hard and were also pleased with their first Junior Cert papers. As the students moved quietly out of the exam hall and off to lunch, St Enda's principal, Mr O'Connor, breathed a sigh of relief. "We've got off to a good start," he said. "If they don't get panicky on the first day, the mystique fades away and students settle into a routine. The exams become a test of stamina because of the number of papers they have to sit in a diverse range of subjects."
