Junior Cert Spanish: Higher-level Spanish students found yesterday's Leaving Cert written paper fair, but the aural was reported to be "extremely difficult".

As with last week's French aural, students found the tape very hard to follow, although it was not the quality of the tape that was in question yesterday but the speed of the dialogue and the subject matter.

"As well as finding the content of the tape hard to follow, there was very little time in between exercises for students to review their work," said ASTI subject expert Ms Maire Ní Chiarba. "Even the very strongest students found the aural very taxing."

Students enjoyed the written component of the paper which contained some interesting material on drugs, fear of flying and the growing popularity of the Spanish language around the world. Spanish is still a minority language on the Irish senior cycle, with 1,804 students entered to sit yesterday's exam. That figure is up by 200 on last year however, and there are larger numbers of Spanish students coming through from the junior cycle than in the past.

"Spanish is available in more schools than ever and students are taking an interest as they realise what a prominent language it is internationally," said Ms Ní Chiarba, who teaches in Coláiste an Phiarsigh in Cork.

Yesterday's ordinary-level paper went very well with plenty of pacy material from a holiday in Madrid with the Beckhams to Madonna's first foray into publishing.