Armed with bottles of water and high-energy drinks, 160 students at Crescent College Comprehensive, Limerick, tackled their first Leaving Cert Irish and maths exams yesterday.

The reactions were generally favourable, although the wording of questions in the pass maths paper raised a few eyebrows.

Nevertheless, many who did that exam left before the official time had elapsed, minus the exam paper, so they had to wait until midday before carrying out the inevitable post-mortem.

During the wait, some relaxed on the grass in the sunshine. When the paper was finally produced, the values of `k' were raised in question 6: "Use your graph to find the range of real values of k which f(x)=k has more than one solution".

"How are you meant to get `k' when `k' is not even in the question?" Liam Brown asked. Nobody was answering that one. It was illustrative, they said, of the wording of questions in a different way to other years.

"On first impression of the paper, I really thought I was in trouble. I thought it was phrased differently to the papers of the last four on five years," said John McAvinue.

The honours maths paper was also generally considered satisfactory. Ellen Dudley found it very easy and finished at 10.45 a.m.

"The general reaction was very do-able," Richard McNamara said. "We will see how the next paper goes. It will be make or break."

Later, he said the honours Irish essay titles had been awkward. "You had to really think to work in the stuff you prepared to suit the titles."

Clodagh McNamara did the essay on true love, agreeing that this is what is missing from life today by writing about the Celtic Tiger.

For one student, the exam was well behind her. "F..k, I hate Irish," she said.