Leaving Cert Geography: post-mortem: A sizeable proportion of higher- level Leaving Cert students will have been pleased by the first question on the geography paper, which was described as "textbook" - provided you had the right book.
"Most students would be very familiar with the map in the compulsory map work question. It's a map of Carlow and it's very similar to the map used in the most popular of the geography textbooks," said Mr Jackie Brennan, a teacher at Rockbrook Park School, Dublin, and skoool.ie expert. The rest of the paper was also "fairly predictable", said Mr Brennan.
"I was very pleased with this paper. It really allowed students to display their knowledge of the subject."
The last part of the map question asked students to account for three marked contrasts between the upland and lowland areas and may have been a bit confusing, but was "nothing a good student shouldn't have been able to handle".
Good quality photos were used where appropriate and the final regional geography question, which is also compulsory, had a particularly topical tourism question. "This is the sort of thing most students will have prepared - a good question to get."
ASTI geography spokesman Mr James Staunton also found the higher-level paper "quite fair".
"A lot of it had come up previously, particularly in the physical section. The regional part was nice and not as long as usual."
The map reading section may have proved difficult for some, however, but it was "fair enough" for higher level.
The ordinary-level regional geography question was, in parts, more difficult than the higher level, Mr Brennan said.
"On the higher-level paper you were allowed to select the country of your choice to discuss, whereas for ordinary there were four or five named countries."
Mr Staunton thought students would have been happy with the selection of countries offered in the regional question and would have found the question on sewage treatment in the Ordnance Survey section "very topical".