PRESENTATION SECONDARY SCHOOL, DUBLIN:MANY OF the 40 Leaving Cert students at Presentation Secondary School in Dublin privately claimed not to be nervous on the first day of their exams yesterday, but one pupil made her feelings public by throwing up shortly after receiving the first English paper.

The unfortunate female student at the all-girl secondary school, at Clarence Mangan Road in the Liberties area, was on her way to the toilet, before getting caught short and vomiting on the threshold of the class door.

For the pupil and those inside, it was a dramatic diversion from the task at hand, namely English, Paper I, but to her credit the ill youngster composed herself before returning, as powder was placed on the floor to remove any distracting smell.

And as students trickled out from the exam hall from 11.45am, many Leaving Cert pupils at the Presentation school, which has more than 300 students, said the side show provided light relief and added they found this year’s English papers to be agreeable in the main.

For Linzi Carter (17), from Dublin’s York Street, one of the hardest parts of yesterday’s first hurdle was actually getting out of bed in the first place.

Despite years of early starts as part of her formal education, Linzi confessed to hating “getting up in the morning” and still finds it difficult, she said.

The wannabe fashion consultant remarked of the higher level English paper: “I found it was okay and none of it was hard really. It was a good exam to start off. You can’t prepare for it and study for it as you don’t know what is coming up.”

Classmate Sarah Larkin (17), from Drimnagh, said the first of her seven higher level subject exams was fine and said she liked the essay choices on the English paper yesterday morning.

She said she wrote a short composition “about a rebellious teenager”, but said she did not like parts of the comprehension exercise.

Kellie Masterson (18), said the essay topics on the higher level English paper were problematic for her.

“Nothing stood out for me, but overall I didn’t think the exam was too bad. And I preferred this year’s paper to last year’s.”

Creative writing enthusiast Carla Ward (16), from Pimlico in Dublin, declared the higher level English paper to be “great”.

“I picked the last essay that had the words ‘my camp, my small launch, my treehouse’.

I wrote about a young guy who finds his wife at a camp and, just, the different events that happened. I want to go to UCD to study English and Maths and be a secondary teacher. I need 345 points. I love English and I like maths and I like helping people to understand things,” explained Carla.

Charlene Byrne (17), one of 19 students who completed the ordinary level English paper at the school, said she felt she performed “alright”, and her own three-page composition related to a girl who was trapped in a plane after a crash, prompted by the essay’s words of “he had no choice”.

Charlene, who wants to be a legal secretary, insisted she was not nervous before the English exam, but said she was anxious prior to the home economics test in the afternoon.

A total of 14 students at the school sat the two hour English and Communication assessment as part of the Leaving Certificate Applied.