The reaction of students to the paper from students at Christ the King School on South Douglas Road, in Cork, was largely positive with most students reckoning that the Higher English Paper I was far easier than the pre-leaving paper.

Ms Ita O'Sullivan (18), from Douglas - who is active in the Union of Secondary Students - was pleasantly surprised by the wide choice of essay titles while she also thought Paper II was OK - despite the fact that Emily Dickinson didn't appear in the poetry question.

"I think that surprised most people - there's usually one woman poet and Sylvia Plath was on last year's paper, so a lot of people gambled that Emily Dickinson would come up this year but it was Sylvia Plath again, but Derek Mahon also came up and that suited me," said Ita.

Her friend, Ms Julie-Ann Corkery (18), from Rochestown, was also quite happy with both papers even though she had a quibble with paper I and felt there wasn't a great selection of essays. She was, however, quite pleased with paper II.

"I was quite happy with the poetry even though Emily Dickinson didn't come up, she was the only one that people were expecting to come up that didn't but I did Gerald Manley Hopkins and I was happy with that," said Julie Anne.

Ms Nessa Daly (18), from Douglas, was also pleased with the choice of essays in Paper I.

"I did the essay on the plight of people being rejected and Gerry Ryan inspired me. I had been listening to him on Tuesday talking about Travellers, so I wrote about Travellers - Gerry Ryan is my man!

"The poetry was OK too - we had eight poets on the course and I had concentrated on Patrick Kavanagh and Derek Mahon and both came up - I did Kavanagh.

"The Silas Mariner question was a bit tricky but overall, it wasn't as bad as it could have been," she said.