LEAVING CERT ENGINEERING: The almost 5,000 students sitting Leaving Cert engineering experienced two rare phenomena yesterday: a relatively easy exam paper and some Irish sunshine.

However, the engineers probably deserved these breaks, because some of the practical tests they sat earlier this year were described as extremely difficult by teachers.

In contrast to the music paper, this paper was the epitome of clarity and tidiness, and there were few complaints from those emerging from the exam halls.

Up to 50 per cent of the marks for engineering were allocated for the practical tests (plus a design project) and this helps to reduce, at least to some degree, the pressure on students in the written paper.

According to Mr John Joe McGuinness, a teacher in Boyle, Co Roscommon, the paper was "very doable", and if students had done the work, they would have been fine.

He said that the diagrams chosen by the Department of Education examiners enhanced the paper and assisted students in some of the more difficult questions. "The most difficult thing this year was the six-hour test in May. It was more an endurance test than an exam. It was one of the most difficult seen for many years," he said.

Question one - comprising short questions - provided students with plenty of choice, he said, and most would have been able to select the 10 required questions.

A question on motors used in printers and scanners was fair and familiar to most students, he said. The question on the testing of materials was hard in parts, but overall was a fair question, he added.

Question three asked about heat treatment and Mr McGuinness said it was a "nice" question with few pitfalls. A question on metals combining was difficult, however, particularly a section on aluminium and how it is extracted from ore.