The Leaving Certificate Italian paper was “quite challenging at times” but overall was “balanced with very student-friendly options”, teachers have said.Chiara Biondi, an Italian teacher at Alexandra College, Milltown, Co Dublin, said the higher-level exam was “balanced in terms of both the themes and the vocabulary”.Biondi said the paper was “quite challenging at times, as it should be, but it also had very doable parts”. Erika Capello, a teacher at the Institute of Education, said the paper’s “tricky, specific approach to AI in schools was balanced with very student-friendly options”.Biondi said the main theme of AI was “quite topical and definitely something students can relate to”, which would have helped form their opinion writing.Capello said the first two questions in section A were “quite tricky”. While the third and fourth were copy and paste from the text, during the final question in English they would be strained to find a fourth insight. That challenge however was balanced by a “nice selection of literary passages” in section B. “There was lots of choice in this section, and all of them were accessible,” Capello said.The most challenging part of the exam, Biondi said, was the task of writing a complaint letter in section C, which “requires more skill”, but the choice of an application letter instead reflected what was an “inclusive paper” overall.[ Leaving Cert holidays: ‘If you unwisely decide to get a tattoo, please check all spellings with me first’Opens in new window ]Biondi said the paper gave “scope for everyone to show off their ability” while also making room for the top students to “push ahead”.Capello said after a trickier written paper, “this aural will have been a nice finale to their Italian Leaving Certificate”.Capello said the multiple-choice questions at the beginning were “very manageable”, but some students “might get caught out by ‘ananas’ meaning pineapple and not as they may suspect bananas”.A “clear” dialogue between two friends on “familiar themes” such as the differences between Ireland and Italy and free time was followed by a final interview with an athlete on the importance of sport.