LEAVING CERT CHEMISTRY: Prospects for the sciences would seem to be getting sunnier with chemistry, the final science exam of the Leaving Cert, receiving a warm welcome from students and teachers.

Leaving Cert students entered the chemistry exam with some trepidation yesterday, wondering whether it would follow the path of the reviled biology paper or the more benign physics exam.

There was much relief all round as chemistry turned out to be a fair, if lengthy, paper. "The first student who left the exam told me it was a lovely surprise to find such a nice science paper after doing the biology exam," said Mr Randal Henly, of Mount Temple School.

This is the first year the new chemistry syllabus has been examined and teachers said it boded well for the future of Leaving Cert science. "It certainly is an improvement and there should be very few complaints about this year's papers," Mr Henly said. "Hopefully, it will do something to get the word around that chemistry isn't a difficult subject."

The papers were straightforward at both higher and ordinary level, he said. "There is no ambiguity about what exactly is being asked, as has sometimes been the case." Question 1 on the higher-level paper, on titration, marked a good start for students, as it was "nearly ordinary-level standard".

Mr Ted Forde, of Ringsend Technical Institute, said: "It was a fair but difficult paper overall."