Leaving Cert: ordinary level English:While the Leaving Cert has been criticised by some pundits as being too "female friendly", teachers said yesterday's ordinary level paper may have had too much testosterone for some female students with its heavy stress on sports competition, true grit and success.

Opening with an excerpt from Michael Smith's biography of Tom Crean, the Antarctic explorer, the paper continued the theme of physical challenge with an interview with athlete Derval O'Rourke and an invitation to write a sports report based on one of a series of photographs featuring a jockey, a Paralympian athlete and a GAA competition winner.

"The interview with Derval O'Rourke was deep and engaging and the entire paper gave a very upbeat and positive view of life," said ASTI subject convenor Sheila Parsons. "Students were asked to define their own understanding of success."

Composition titles on the ordinary level paper drew in topics on brave decisions, taking risks and the role of sport in Irish life. Paper II provoked an interesting response from teachers.

Skoool.ie representative Philip Campion found some of the questions to be unusually challenging. "The students were asked about very precise moments in Macbeth, for example, " said Mr Campion.

The comparative section of the paper, often seen as one of the more challenging elements of the exam was "nothing too surprising", said Ms Parsons.

The poetry selections were reasonably predictable and some could even have been handled as unseen poetry if a student was unfamiliar with the selections.

The unseen poem, however, was difficult. According to Mr Campion, swapping the unseen poem on the higher level paper with the poem on the ordinary level paper "might have been fairer to ordinary level students."