Easter Revision Courses

D. Coughlan

Does anyone have a opinion on revision courses during easter in places like Bruce.All my freiends seem to be going but i think i would be better off just studying what i already know instead of waisting my holidays at UCC.Plus it costs 380 for five subjects and lasts a full week.

md99

you be your own judge, we can't say on whether or not they would benefit you personally.

They may be of benefit to the dilligent student whose willing to work, and of little benefit to the slacker who tthinks that by just doing the course he's upping his grade percentage... that said they could also serve as a distraction to the dilligent student who doesn't need to take the course and would be better off revising at home..

rorymcn

I did christmas ones in the institute and i seriously think they brought me up a grade or four(history). Even if you're gonna work your ass off working, if you're studying the wrong thing, it won't be much help!

ZorbaTehZ

Only person worth asking is yourself, mate.
Personally though I try to stay away from these things because they cost such a horrendous amount of money.

Mackleton

Im going to the two individual saturdays done in Bruce for the orals, each one is the saturday before the oral and my sister did it and found them invaluable, but it's all subjective..

Hopkirk

Ya then can be very useful but only if you make them useful for yourself,
I'm only doing one, Economics, in UCC. Only started today and its been a great help. Really narrows it down, Cuts all the Book bluff and shows you what you need to know,

JC 2K3

It seems these intensive revision courses are suited to students who can't take notes properly and can't read a paragraph in a textbook and realise what information is actually worth learning.

LC students really need to be taught how to study properly, you can always tell which students are going to go to revision courses/grinds by the type of notes they take.

I shake my head whenever I see students with neatly arranged, colour coded A4 pages with perfectly handwritten full sentences copied straight out of their textbook and definitions highlighted and underlined.

They spend so long making those useless notes and learn hardly anything. They clearly are working hard and want to attain good grades, but just don't know how to do it. The reason they find revision courses so good is that they're essentially spoonfed a concise version of the course for the subject.

Anyone who thinks Institute notes are the best thing ever clearly simply doesn't know how to study a textbook properly.

And OP, at this stage unless you're absolutely fúcked and know nothing there's no reason to go to one of these courses. The amount of hype and pressure surrounding these courses coupled with the prices they chage makes them an absolute scam IMO.

RandolphEsq

Im not a big fan of those revision crash courses. I find it distracting and it disrupts my own studying because it is a different teacher to what Im used to explaining how the LC works.
Im staying at home getting all the notes in order and doing my own revision

Limerick Dude

Yeah Im doing 4 courses. Had English today, was very good, went through technique on all the questions, bit of an eye opener because it shows how i was doing some questions completely wrong. Worth the money I thought!

Oh yeah, doing mine in Kilmartins in Limerick.

cookiemonst3r

Mackleton wrote:

Im going to the two individual saturdays done in Bruce for the orals, each one is the saturday before the oral and my sister did it and found them invaluable, but it's all subjective..

are you doing the german course in Bruce?? Do you know what they're gonna be doing??

cocoa

the revision courses are as far as I know, geared towards a certain type of student, the one who's getting the easy stuff wrong. If you have big gaps in your knowledge or understanding and you don't feel you can or want to fix it yourself, the course might help clarify some things. But there's a lot to be said for the wisdom that it is a lot easier to raise from a C3 to a B1 mostly through greater understanding and clarification done on the teacher's part than it is for a teacher to bring you those last steps from A2 to A1, that bit is mostly up to the student. As has been said many times already, a revision course's worth really does depend on the student.

i luv 2 shop

was thinking of doing them in the institute @ easter...but how many are in a class? don't want to do if there's going to be more than 40.

K4t

I'm doing french oral, french (my french teacher is awful) and business (do it outside of school and need help with the abq)

I went to an English course a few weeks ago and it was terrible. The notes were good but we may aswell have just taken them and left. The rest was useless.
I think they are a superb money making scheme tbh. The LC has become a gold mine over the last few years and the market is going to thrive during the recession when people think they need grinds and revision courses to get more points.

I always maintain that the people who don't need these courses are the extremely motivated students and the extremely intelligent students.

leesmom

there will be more than 40 the courses are always jammed,personally i would say you are better off staying at home studying, rather than getting a load of new notes thrown at you just 8 weeks before the leaving

mardybumbum

JC 2K3 wrote: »

Anyone who thinks Institute notes are the best thing ever clearly simply doesn't know how to study a textbook properly.

Aidan Roantrees Applied Maths notes are the best thing ever

Stev_o

i luv 2 shop wrote: »

was thinking of doing them in the institute @ easter...but how many are in a class? don't want to do if there's going to be more than 40.

It would be more then 40 but it's irrelevant as if they even think your distracting them they ll throw you out. Plus 99% of the people that go are serious about what they are doing and don't want to ruin a course which is costing their parents alot of money by talking.

cocoa

mardybumbum wrote: »

Aidan Roantrees Applied Maths notes are the best thing ever

roflmao, applied maths is one of the courses almost entirely based on knowing how to do things, as opposed to knowing things, and you think notes are important... Good luck with that.

Kournikova

I was thinking about doing them at the Institute at Easter.

But I don't know wether to do subjects that I am Ok at to try and get an A or do subjects like Business and try to bring them up to like an average level.

mardybumbum

cocoa wrote: »

roflmao, applied maths is one of the courses almost entirely based on knowing how to do things, as opposed to knowing things, and you think notes are important... Good luck with that.

Thanks for the luck cocoa!:D
But im afraid its too late. I finished my LC last year. Took up applied maths in a year, taught myself, and got an A1 (higher level I may add).

So "roflmao" all you like.

JC 2K3

cocoa did the same - without Aidan Roantree's notes.

pwned.

mardybumbum

Damn, I did get fairly owned there.
But the point still stands. Roantrees notes are superb.
Im well aware that Applied Maths is a subject that cant be "learned off", and roantrees notes aren't designed for that.

cocoa

mardybumbum wrote: »

Damn, I did get fairly owned there.
But the point still stands. Roantrees notes are superb.
Im well aware that Applied Maths is a subject that cant be "learned off", and roantrees notes are'nt designed for that.

heh, while I acknowledge that good notes can be helpful, in applied maths in particular there is simply no substitute for doing questions. Also I'd agree with JC that any amount of 'excellent notes' can be trumped with proper student application. The whole point here is to get things into your head, any intermediary steps are beside the point and sometimes distract from the actual goal.

mardybumbum

cocoa wrote: »

heh, while I acknowledge that good notes can be helpful, in applied maths in particular there is simply no substitute for doing questions. Also I'd agree with JC that any amount of 'excellent notes' can be trumped with proper student application. The whole point here is to get things into your head, any intermediary steps are beside the point and sometimes distract from the actual goal.

Thats true with most of the subjects, but I found that neither Murphy's or Conliffe's books covered the course fully, whereas the institute notes did.
If you managed to teach yourself applied maths without any other help whatsoever then fair fooks to ya. Wouldn't have worked for me though.

cocoa

mardybumbum wrote: »

Thats true with most of the subjects, but I found that neither Murphy's or Conliffe's books covered the course fully, whereas the institute notes did.
If you managed to teach yourself applied maths without any other help whatsoever then fair fooks to ya. Wouldn't have worked for me though.

heh, it's a long time now since I did it but I was working from murphy's book, exam papers and the web. I've never seen roantree's notes though I've heard they're good. I assume they layout the concepts in a more concise and clear manner than murphy's book does, and possibly nail down a few problems which he doesn't quite cover. I admit I'd be curious to know if he covers the full 10 topics or the minimum 6, although I hear times are changing and many questions handle more than one topic, forcing students to study more than six.

... And so the thread is hi-jacked...

Speaking more generally, I can only speak on my own behalf and about what has proven effective for me personally. I fully acknowledge that other people could be and most probably are different and may need to learn differently. Now, personally, I have never found any amount of teaching or notes to be anywhere near as effective as simply doing my own work, whether it was solving problems in order to learn a certain method or finding and learning the important information from a text. All any exterior element, whether it is a person, text, notes or video, can ever do is provide the necessary information, the ability to find, pick out, learn and use this information can lie only with the student.

mardybumbum

cocoa wrote: »

....

I think he only covers five topics in his notes, but the guy really should have his own textbook out.
I agree that no amount of teaching is as effective as a bit of hard work, and I dont believe that my original post contradicts that.
But I do think that the majority of students would not be able to devise a method for solving some of the harder wedge questions, or "closest approach" questions in relative velocity without the help of a teacher or concise text.
These were two things I never had and that is why I turned to the notes.

In an attempt to remove this "pwnage" appendage that JC was so kind to bestow upon me, I did take up two other subjects during the year and really didnt have the time I would have liked to devote towards applied maths.

Sorry for hijacking the thread.

cocoa

mardybumbum wrote: »

I think he only covers five topics in his notes, but the guy really should have his own textbook out.
I agree that no amount of teaching is as effective as a bit of hard work, and I dont believe that my original post contradicts that.
But I do think that the majority of students would not be able to devise a method for solving some of the harder wedge questions, or "closest approach" questions in relative velocity without the help of a teacher or concise text.
These were two things I never had and that is why I turned to the notes.

In an attempt to remove this "pwnage" appendage that JC was so kind to bestow upon me, I did take up two other subjects during the year and really didnt have the time I would have liked to devote towards applied maths.

Sorry for hijacking the thread.

You're right about the harder questions, murphy's book does leave some things out that the student needs to either extrapolate from what's given (possible, but difficult) or find elsewhere. I can't remember which of those options I did but I would be surprised if it's not possible to find plenty of good examples online. I know I put up full solutions to the entire 2007 paper on zulunotes...

Don't worry about the pwnage mate, none intended An A1 is an A1, academic achievement is realistically meaningless and my dad is an engineer There, see how simple life can be?

JC 2K3

Well, I only got an A2, so the real pwnage lies upon me.

The internet was the most valuable resource besides the book, I found.

ironclaw

I was going to do that revision course for App Maths are Easter in the Institute... And then was told it was €250 for 90 mins for 5 days. And the hour there and back. So 2 hours wasted for 90 mins actually there.

I'm all for revision courses and notes etc, but €250 is extortion

EDIT: My mistake its €275. Thats €1.63 a minute. And we're giving out about top paid bank execs?

JC 2K3

In fairness, they're a completely optional extra, and if people are willing to pay that amount of money then they're perfectly entitled to. It's not extortion, the people who pay it are just a bit silly.

Stev_o

ironclaw wrote: »

I was going to do that revision course for App Maths are Easter in the Institute... And then was told it was €250 for 90 mins for 5 days. And the hour there and back. So 2 hours wasted for 90 mins actually there.

I'm all for revision courses and notes etc, but €250 is extortion

EDIT: My mistake its €275. Thats €1.63 a minute. And we're giving out about top paid bank execs?

They go through alot of paper believe me. Im guessing alot of that money is going towards the slave labour camps in the amazon to cut down enough trees to keep the supply of paper going.

Suaimhneach

JC 2K3 wrote: »

It seems these intensive revision courses are suited to students who can't take notes properly and can't read a paragraph in a textbook and realise what information is actually worth learning.

LC students really need to be taught how to study properly, you can always tell which students are going to go to revision courses/grinds by the type of notes they take.

I shake my head whenever I see students with neatly arranged, colour coded A4 pages with perfectly handwritten full sentences copied straight out of their textbook and definitions highlighted and underlined.

They spend so long making those useless notes and learn hardly anything. They clearly are working hard and want to attain good grades, but just don't know how to do it. The reason they find revision courses so good is that they're essentially spoonfed a concise version of the course for the subject.

Anyone who thinks Institute notes are the best thing ever clearly simply doesn't know how to study a textbook properly.

And OP, at this stage unless you're absolutely fúcked and know nothing there's no reason to go to one of these courses. The amount of hype and pressure surrounding these courses coupled with the prices they chage makes them an absolute scam IMO.

You've just described my brother. I'm trying to organise a last minute place on a course for him this coming week or next week. Does anyone have any recommendations for somewhere to do this?

I found these two sites: http://www.leavingcert.ie/easter_revision.htm

http://www.southdublingrindschool.com/courses.html

Can anyone recommend these or elsewhere?