Leaving Cert honours maths students will have been satisfied with their exam today which was described as being "a lot easier" than last week's paper 1.
The State Exams Commission was forced to defend paper 1, sat by an estimated 8,500 students on Friday, after teachers and students described it as the toughest and most challenging in years.
The commission said that following discussions with the chief examiner in maths, it was satisfied that the questions were "within the parameters of the syllabus".
This morning's paper 2 was described as being "very good" and teachers noted that those troubled by a particular question would have been able to look at options elsewhere if they had done their homework.
"The general consensus was that it was a lot easier than Friday," said John Brennan of the Ballinteer Institute in Dublin.
"Question one on the circle was lovely, the vectors question was nice. Trigonometry was fine and question six [on probability] was good."
Brigid Cleary of St Flannan's College in Ennis said the higher level paper would have rewarded students who worked hard. "It was a very good paper," she said. "There was nothing unreasonable and nothing unfair. Students were mostly happy especially if they did the probability questions."
Almost 40,000 students sat the ordinary level paper 2, which was also said to have been a reasonable test.
Ms Cleary said that students had found it a "very fair" paper. "Ordinary level students said they were happy. There was nothing that would stand out," she said.
Mr Brennan said that the consensus suggested paper 2 at ordinary level was on expected lines and would have pleased most students.
"One of the comments was that the trigonometry was nice and that would normally have been found to be difficult. The probability question was lovely. The paper was on expected lines and a lot of students were happy."
