If Junior Cert students sitting yesterday's geography papers were a bit confused by the Ordnance Survey map of Sligo, they had a right to be. So said Mr George Smith, TUI subject representative and a teacher at St Rynagh's College, Banagher, Co Offaly. The eastings at the bottom of the map were separated from the map itself by the linear scale. It was quite distracting, he said.

"Very tough and demanding," was how Mr John Mulcahy, who teaches at Bishopstown Community School, Co Cork, and is the ASTI's subject convenor, described the higher-level paper. "I have a lot of sympathy for the students," he said. "There was too much reading on the paper and it was too long. A paper like this will not encourage pupils to take geography at higher level."

The questions, which covered the whole course, were fragmented and lacked a common thread or theme, he said. The newspaper reports in section 2, question 1, for example, were merely a distraction. Students could answer the questions without them.

Section 1, question 16 - employment pie charts - was "very complex and way beyond what you would expect for that age group".

At ordinary level, the paper was very reasonable and fair and covered a broad range of geography topics, Mr Smith noted. In particular, he welcomed the emphasis on geographical skills, including grid referencing, distance measurement, sketching and the identification of features.

Meanwhile, 677 students sat the Junior Cert environment and social studies exam.