After a promising start to the maths exams last Thursday, the Junior Cert students at Bishopstown Community School, Co Cork, were a little apprehensive heading into paper 2 yesterday.

"They were fairly nervous going in," said Maria Kelly, who teaches maths at the school. Her ordinary-level students "found paper 1 reasonably easy, so they were hoping paper 2 wasn't going to throw a spanner in the works."

Overall, she said, ordinary-level paper 2 held no major horrors, but it was a tougher than paper 1. "Question 1 was good and manageable, which helped to settle them down, but then moving on to question 2, things got more difficult."

Question 2, she said, would have benefited from an extra part in both sections (b) and (c), to help lead the students through the question.

"There was rather a big jump between parts (i) and (ii) in both sections. Students doing ordinary level tend to just stop answering the question if they get to an obstacle like that. An extra part could have kept them going and led them to the answer."

Question 5 was far more student-friendly, she said. "In contrast to question 2, the structure encouraged the student to finish."

Cammie Gallagher of St Jarlath's College, Tuam, Co Galway, praised the ordinary-level paper for not placing the diameter in a horizontal line in the circle questions.

"Ordinary-level students tend to think that a diameter has to be completely level on the horizontal axis; placing it diagonally is a welcome change, and the students didn't seem confused by it."

The students at St Paul's Community College in Waterford were also less happy with paper 2, but teacher Thomas O'Connor said the ordinary-level paper was similar to other years. "It all comes down to the students' own ability and how they applied their knowledge."

The higher-level paper was also "more testing" than paper 1, O'Connor said, but he felt that most students should have been able to cope. "The latter parts of the question were more testing than they were in paper 1."

Question 1 was quite straightforward, but questions 3 and 4 on geometry were tough. Students have difficulty with the geometry questions that are based on theorems anyway, he said.

"Paper 2 requires more work and preparation, which often puts people off because they think they'll forget the theorems, but it's a perception problem more than anything.

"I think overall there's a sense of relief that the major hurdle of maths is out of the way."