Several Leaving and Junior Certificate students at Sandford Park school in Ranelagh, Dublin, were just happy to have yesterday's maths Paper 1 over and done with by yesterday afternoon.

Some students taking higher level Leaving Cert maths described it as tougher than in previous years, with the paper including several particularly difficult sections.

By comparison, their counterparts taking yesterday's ordinary level paper were satisfied with its overall content. Indeed, several stated that they had left the exam hall well before the allotted time had elapsed.

But perhaps the biggest concern was expressed by Junior Cert higher level students at the school, who criticised the length of yesterday's maths Paper 1 and the difficult phrasing of some questions.

"It took longer than I had expected it to take. I didn't have lots of time to go back over my answers," said Ivan Yu (15).

"I just thought it was a pretty difficult exam this year."

Brinsley Doran (15) sat yesterday's ordinary level exam, which he called "pretty easy".

Timothy Alkin (18) said he found the questions on the higher level Leaving Cert paper to be "more difficult than on the past papers".

"I was able to do most of it, but I hoped to do better than I did," he said. "I don't think I'll be counting it for my points, but if I was counting it, it would have thrown me." His schoolmate, Shahin Nikroo (18), found the paper to be "okay" overall. "It was decent enough . . . but it wasn't too easy either," he said.

Richard Gow (18) had only dropped down from higher to ordinary level maths at Christmas in an effort to ease his overall workload. As a result, he said he had not studied past papers at this level.

"It was very easy, a very fair paper," he said. "I didn't really get stuck on anything. I was out 45 minutes before the end."