JUNIOR CERTIFICATE/Irish: Junior Cert students met rather po-faced Irish papers yesterday. There was no World Cup, no traditional summer fare; instead there were questions on global warming, climbing accidents and the evils of television.

"The higher-level paper was very serious, there was nothing whimsical about it at all," Treasa Ní Chaonola, a teacher in St Michael's, Ballsbridge, Dublin, said. "The comprehension on the North Pole melting and the Kyoto agreement was very contemporary, but Junior Cert Irish would normally be far lighter."

What it lacked in laughs, the paper made up for in variety, and Ní Chaonola's students were generally happy with it. "It was an exacting paper, but it was honours standard and the students were well able for it," she said.

Hilari De Barra, a teacher in St Louis Secondary School in Dundalk, Co Louth, felt the shorter length of higher-level comprehension piece was an improvement on last year, but he felt the questions could have been clearer. "I had hopes the questions would direct the students toward the appropriate paragraphs a bit more. It was a bit off-putting, especially for those going for a C."

His students were happy with the aural section, which they found easy to understand. The third Comhrá was more difficult, he said, and students were asked to write quite a lot in a short space of time.

The students in Falcarragh Community School, Co Donegal, were very happy with the aural section, teacher Hugo Martin said. "The tapes were nice and clear and they had no problems."

His students also found the higher-level written paper very accessible. "There was a good range of essays and it was very predictable. Those sitting ordinary level found it well within their reach, "in the mode of past papers", Martin said.

There were no problems with the ordinary-level paper in St Michael's, Ní Chaonola said, but again it was a "very serious no-nonsense paper".

De Barra was happy with the layout and use of graphics on the ordinary paper, but he thought the comprehension on Helen Keller was a bit difficult.