JUNIOR CERTIFICATE/Business Studies: Junior Cert students were "taking care of business" all day yesterday with both morning and afternoon business studies papers.

Students were pleased with how much time they spent on the higher-level morning paper, skoool.ie expert Mr Alan Cashell said.

"They felt this was due to the number of questions demanding specific answers. They commented that the words List, Name and What predominated."

The majority of questions were very standard he said, but there was a new format for the budget question, which met with student approval.

Ms Norah Martyn said the Business Studies Teachers Association welcomed the new element of choice in the short questions. "We still make the point that there should be a choice between questions in that section but the choice within the questions does help somewhat," she said.

Overall, her students in Marian College were happy with the long questions, Ms Martyn said, however the use of the terms Caveat Emptor and C.A.R confused some.

The question on the National Wage Agreement also presented problems. Students were happy with higher-level Paper 2 in the afternoon which was as expected, she said.

Ordinary-level students had just one business paper yesterday and it was a fairly predictable, Mr Pat Morris in Coláiste Críost Rí, Cork, said.

"It ran along similar lines as former years and it was well laid out." Space on the paper for answers is a particularly good feature, he said.

"I would like to see this extended throughout the paper as it helps students see how much they should write."

Ms Martin said her students found Section B of the ordinary-level paper quite long. "Most of the questions were fine but 4, 5 and 7 were difficult."