Dublin's tangled web of streets spread across yesterday's geography paper. The Ordnance Survey map stretched northwards to Santry, and south as far as Churchtown.

The colour aerial photograph which also accompanied the paper focused on Dublin's inner city, with grey buildings and streets complemented by a steel-grey river Liffey.

Mr David Boyd, a geography teacher in St Andrew's College, Booterstown, Dublin, said this was unexpected and possibly off-putting, as the maps in the past tended to concentrate on small urban centres, flanked by rural hinterland. Almost all of the students commented on it in their post-exam "post mortem", he added.

Far from this being an advantage to Dublin students, he said they might be tempted to include information which they had from personal experience rather than information presented on the map.

Dublin aside, the higher-level paper was relatively fair, Mr Boyd said. "To some degree, it was topical, including political change in Africa and the slightly more obscure organic marketing." As usual, the paper offered a good choice and there were no complaints other than the compulsory OS question.

Mr Tony Fryer, who teaches in CBS Youghal, Co Cork, was also of the opinion that students - in this case, rural students - were somewhat disconcerted by the appearance of a major urban centre in question 1. The physical geography question was fine, he said, although students might have been put off initially by the cluttered diagram in part (a). Part (c) (ii) might pose a difficulty for some students.

The only other quibble he had was with question 4 (b) (ii) which asked students to "examine the continued growth, in Ireland as in Europe generally, of the organic food market". Many students would be relying on their general knowledge to answer this, he said.

The ASTI subject representative, Mr Joe Whyte, said the higher-level question tested cognitive skills rather than just requiring a regurgitation of facts. It was "topical and relevant" and should reward students who had read the questions carefully.

Teachers agreed that the ordinary-level paper was straightforward and fair, though students had to deal with the same OS map and aerial photograph as the higher-level students.

Mr Boyd noted that the layout, which was improved last year, continues in the same student-friendly vein. The paper should not have presented students with any major difficulties.