THE SILENCE was broken shortly before 12.30pm when the Sion Hill Leaving Cert girls began emerging from the exam hall, chattering and laughing, relief etched on many faces.
“I’m so happy,” one exclaimed with a broad smile, while another munched on a roll, clearly hungry after the near three-hour marathon.
There was a mixed reaction to English paper 1 but the bulk of students at the Blackrock, south Dublin, school who spoke to The Irish Timeswere remarkably upbeat.
Alice Moynihan was beaming. “Really good, really happy, I was really happy with the essay topics,” she said. “It was much better than I thought.”
Pupils sitting the higher level paper were greeted with a range of texts on the theme of “the future”, with one of the tasks challenging students to write a letter to future generations expressing their hopes for Earth in 2050.
Alice urged mankind to resolve difficulties plaguing the present such as the shortage of oil and encouraged people to have more respect for each other – indicating a potential diplomat.
Her friend Gillian Brett seemed a little dejected as she didn’t have time to finish the exam, but remained in good humour.
“I didn’t have enough time, it was a really nice paper and it suited me really well, but I just ran out of time,” she said.
Gillian took the sensible option of going for a walk on Tuesday night to clear her head after weeks of intense studying, but she intended last night to have her nose firmly stuck in the books preparing for today’s literature- focused English paper II.
“I won’t get any sleep tonight,” she said. “I’m just praying that Yeats comes up.”
Meggan Harrison said she panicked when she opened the paper and saw a passage taken from the science fiction novel Fahrenheit 451.
“I panicked when I saw the science fiction piece because I was like, oh no, and then when I saw these pictures I got kind of panicky. But then, once I read over it, it was grand,” she said. “It went very well, I was very happy.”
She was relieved the exams were finally under way, allowing her to begin ticking off subjects for which she no longer had to study. “I can’t spread my time well at all, it’s impossible,” she said.
Claudia Fitzsimons will no doubt feel a shiver if she ever picks up any of Seamus Heaney’s works.
One of the exam texts was an extract from Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaneyby Dennis O'Driscoll, which she concentrated on but found tough.
“I didn’t really know about him, so that’s why it sort of stumped me,” she confessed.
Her friend Michelle Harrison claimed the paper went well, even though English was not one of her strongest subjects.
With the first exam down, attention was gradually shifting to the second English paper, with most students indicating that the elation and chat marking the end of the first exam would soon give way to intense last-minute cramming.
The relief expressed by the pupils was mirrored by English teacher Carol-Ann O’Gorman.
“Very accessible paper, very nice start for the first exam,” she said. “It’s a very fair and balanced paper. There’s something in it for everybody.”
