The second technical drawing papers were greeted with relief by pupils and teachers and were described as being far less difficult than the first papers.
Michael John English, spokesman for the Association of Materials Technology and Graphics Teachers, said the higher-lever paper was fair. The exception was question 2 on roof geometry. "It was very difficult and students were hard-pressed to figure it out," he said.
Pat O'Dwyer of Kenmare Vocational School, Co Kerry, said question 1 - on the picture plane - was very time-consuming and took one student over 55 minutes to complete. Question 2 caused confusion with its use of dihedral angles, he added.
He said the ordinary-level paper was "very well laid out" but question 5 left students disgruntled. He said they were asked to get the inter-penetration of a cylinder and a roof. This was unexpected and caused serious problems for some students.
Question 7 asked students to draw a complete outcrop. "The outcrop comes up quite a lot, but normally they just have to draw a part of it," he said.