LEAVING CERTIFICATE/Accounting: A long morning of number crunching left Leaving Cert accounting students tired but, for the most part, happy yesterday.

"It is a very long paper, with a lot of work in it," Sister Mary O'Connell of the Business Studies Teachers Association said.

"At this stage of the exams, the tiredness is really beginning to show, but at least it's a morning paper and I hope it will stay that way. After the biology yesterday afternoon a lot of students were really worn out," she said.

Her students in St Joseph's Community College, Kilkee, Co Clare may have left the exam hall feeling somewhat drained but overall they were happy with the exam, she said.

"The higher level paper held no unpleasant surprises. The question on depreciation was on cost, which is the easier area, although it did involve quite a bit of number crunching. Question 3 had a bit too much work in it for 60 marks and part (v) was a bit ambiguous," she said.

Question 4 came up in last year's paper, but Sister O'Connell felt it was also a bit long with eight sets of transactions for just 60 marks. The (b) part of Question 6 was perhaps "a bit unnecessary" in what was already a long question she said, but the question on Club Accounts was quite popular. "All in all it was a good exam, but it is a difficult three hours in terms of how much they have to do."

Mr John Crilly, a teacher in Ardee Community School, Co Louth, said it would be hard to find fault with the higher level paper. "The questions were fairly standard and quite fair. I couldn't really see anything wrong with them," he added.