Help, Advice on repeating Maths

BaZmO*

At the moment I am seriously thinking about going back to repeat my Leaving Cert Maths exam and I was wondering what way would I go about doing it and whether anybody else has done this. I’m in full time employment so it’d have to be at night.

The weird thing about is I’ve actually studied Engineering in College as a night course in Bolton Street and maths has always been the subject that I’ve struggled with the most. I reckon that if I went back and just concentrated on Maths it would help me out no end, especially if I want to go back to college (which I do).

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

rainbow kirby

Well if you've already done some college maths, then surely doing the LC maths paper again would be somewhat of a backward step! Though if you really want to do it again, then you could do it by distance learning, afaik Dorset College offers that. Or else you could just enter as an external candidate for the exam, and take a year of grinds in the evenings or on Saturday mornings at a grind school. Also, if you just want to reinforce what you've done already, get your hands on a copy of "Engineering Mathematics" by K.A. Stroud and work through some of the problems.

BaZmO*

Thanks for your response rainbow kirby.

Yeah I know it does sound like a backward step, and although I did do maths in college I really really struggled with it, mainly due to the fact that I didn't have a good enough foundation knowledge to work with. I feel that if I was to go on and continue in college without taking a step backwards it would just compound the problem. So in a way, one step back for two steps forward.

I like the idea of maybe doing it by distance learning although I think I'd prefer to be class based. How does it work if you actually sit the exam do you get credited for it officially. I always thought that you had to repeat your whole LC for that to happen?

rainbow kirby

You do get credited for it, as in if you're applying to another course, you will enter the original time you did the LC, plus the year you took the maths exam separately on the CAO form to make sure the CAO sees both grades (important if you're applying to a course with a minimum maths requirement).

External candidate information

jaspersmiley

If your trying to get into a college course and need more points than you got the first time round, you will need to repeat 6 subjects again as only one sitting is taken into account. However, as already mentioned, if Maths is a requiremnt of a course you're aiming for, then you can repeat just maths and the result you get will be taken into account, but you wont be able to use it to increase points you got in the first sitting.

You could try Kilroys college distance learning program too. Get the revision books and go through those. Also theres a Maths Solutions Book available that gives the solutions to papers for the last 10 years... its great and really shows how to work through the questions to get maximum points.

I dont think its a step back. Its a wise move cos if you cant cope with leaving Cert maths, you're at a huge loss in college cos they dont go into too much detail and it sreally left up to yourself. With Kilroys, they send you skeleton notes, you do the study, then answer questions and submit them to be corrected. then they send you them back corrected with advice and the next batch of notes.

Best of Luck.

BaZmO*

That's brilliant guys. That's exactly the info I was looking for.

Cheers.

B.