The Leaving Cert is finally finished, and most students are celebrating.

"It's both an end and a beginning," said Exam Times Leaving Cert diarist Daithi Mac Sithigh, who sat his applied maths exam yesterday at Colaiste Rathin, Bray, Co Wicklow. "I have mixed feelings. Some exams only grilled us on a small part of what we had learned. You wonder if the information is wasted or if it will be useful in the future.

"There's a certain amount of sadness that this phase is over, but I'm looking for the next stage. I'm job-hunting, so I hope I won't have to work in first year in college."

He said the applied maths exam is more about method than learning off by heart. "It was fair enough, though a couple of end parts of questions were difficult," he said of the higher-level paper.

ASTI subject representative Mr John Maher said the higher-level paper was well received by the 16 students who sat the exam in Portmarnock Community School, Dublin.

"Students would have to manage their time well to complete the paper, as some questions were demanding. Question 2, on relative velocity, and question 9, on hydrostatics, were difficult," he said. A Co Wicklow teacher with three students sitting the exam said his students were very happy with a fair paper, though question 7(b) posed some problems.

At ordinary level, Mr Maher said well prepared students should had few difficulties.