LEAVING CERT GEOGRAPHY: HIGHER AND ORDINARY LEVEL:IT WAS a happier day for students emerging from the higher-level Leaving Cert geography paper yesterday than it was for their peers at ordinary level.

While the higher-level paper was roundly welcomed by teachers as being "topical and along predicted lines", the exam at ordinary level was criticised for including questions that were "too specific".

"The higher-level paper was very, very good," said James Campbell, head of geography in Blackrock College, who also teaches in the Institute of Education. "Students were happy enough. More or less everything that was predicted appeared."

Jack Keane, ASTI subject representative and teacher in Rice College, Ennis, concurred. "There was a very good variety of questions on the paper.

"Some of the questions were very similar to those from last year and the year before."

Earthquakes, EU expansion, sustainable development and global warming; the paper was nothing if not topical.

"That helped the students out I think," Mr Keane said. "Students from Clare would have been pleased to see the Burren appear on both the higher and the ordinary-level papers."

The regional geography section provided a challenge in particular the (c) parts of those questions. "Weaker students would have been thrown by those questions," Mr Campbell said.

TUI representative Dr Tom Hunt welcomed the fact that more than a third of marks available from yesterday's paper were skills-based. "That's good to see. It's impossible to learn everything off by heart now."

In the options section of the paper, most students take the geo-ecology unit.

"Students were asked to describe and explain the main characteristics of one biome they have studied. It doesn't get much more user-friendly than that," Dr Hunt said.

Dr Hunt also praised the layout of the paper.

Students at ordinary level may not have been quite as pleased with their paper. "It was straightforward in parts," said Mr Campbell, "but there were more specifics asked of the students at ordinary level than there were at higher level."

According to Dr Hunt, the geography syllabus at ordinary level does not specify which regions students must look at when studying regional migration for example.

"In question 10 (c), students were asked specifically about migration from the west of Ireland to Dublin.

"While most students probably studied those areas, there is a possibility that some students studied regions that were more local to them," Dr Hunt said.

"Specifying the region could in theory create problems for those students. Naming places like that is aimed at helping students I'm sure, but it is a bit restrictive."

He added: "There was a lot in the paper and that made it doable, but the ordinary-level paper was maybe more challenging for the ordinary-level students than the higher-level paper was for higher-level students."

With almost 25,000 candidates, geography is still one of the most popular subjects at Leaving Cert level.

It is the third most popular subject at higher level, with almost 21,000 students having sat the paper of that standard yesterday afternoon.