LEAVING CERTIFICATE ENGLISH PAPER 2 - ORDINARY LEVEL:A "BALANCED and reasonable" paper awaited students of ordinary level English on Saturday, who took the paper two days later then scheduled after the original exam was withdrawn.

“This paper followed the patterns of previous years and students were expecting to see Sassoon, Larkin and Bishop. They were not disappointed,” said one teacher.

“This was an accessible paper for ordinary level candidates,” said Alan Thompson of Abbey Vocational School. “It was a candidate-friendly effort. Most students would have answered on Larkin or Bishop and there was nothing untoward in the line of questioning.” Teacher Anne Gormley remarked on a particularly agreeable question on Macbeth.

“The inclusion of Siegfried Sassoon would have been a pleasant discovery for the ordinary level students, and not unexpected,” said Sheila Parsons. “His strong themes and direct messages about war are popular among students at this level.” Other texts on the exam included Brian Friel’s Philadelphia, Here I Come!, Mark Hadden’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time and Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. The paper also featured an unseen poem, Sentimental Moment, by Robert Hershon.

More than 17,000 students sat Saturday’s ordinary level English paper, which amounts to nearly two out of five candidates overall.