Honours maths?

Tiroskan

Just got my mocks back and did the worst in this out of everything; 21%. -dies- I'm taking all honours anyway, so I don't really need the honour in maths, but I don't want to give up, which is what it feels like when I think about dropping to pass. The teacher said that I'm going to have to work my arse off between now and then and realistically I haven't been working until now, but I was wondering if I do work could I at least pass? Or would it even be worth it, would it take too much time? I'm kind of wary about going down to pass as well because I think I'll be so bored because it'll be too easy that I won't be interested enough to study either. Kind of a catch 22.

sd123

^^ If you failed it at this stage, and find it too difficult, you should definitely consider changing to an Ordinary Level class. The question you have to ask yourself is how much do you want to do Higher maths, and why do you want to do higher level if you're failing? Do you have a genuine interest in it or do you just want to do higher so you can say that you sat all higher subjects and/or higher maths? If you really want to do higher for yourself, you have to put alot of work into it, esp if you're failing. You have to focus on trying to understand what you're doing and not just learning off methods etc.

If you're unwilling to do all this, I believe O.L would be your best option. With regards being bored, you could aim for an A1 in an O.L paper to keep yourself occupied. This would probably take up much less time than trying to scrape a D in a Higher paper which will give you more time to concentrate on your higher subjects, this way you can maximize your points. Either that or forget about working at maths altogether, and be happy with whatever grade you get in O.L.

The point is that you should try to maximise your points and not struggle at a subject just to get a D, while other subjects are suffering. However, if you really want to do higher level, go for it, but be careful about failing. The last thing you want come August is an E or F for Maths with high points overall. It happend a guy in my school, all because he was too 'proud' to sit an O.L paper. He got over 450 points.

Chunky Monkey

Failed it in my mocks too last year. Was told to go down to pass. Of course I've always defied any teacher who said that (yes I'm proud) but it meant putting the work in. The fact that you said OL looks boring I'm assuming you don't find it too hard, you just haven't worked at it? Now's the time to start so.

Have you got text and tests? Go through the examples. Try them without looking at the answers and then do them again if you get it wrong. Then do all the revision exercises at the end of the chapters, then do all the exam papers. I can't stress enough the importance of doing them. Concentrate particularly on the C parts because they're worth more marks and are the ones more likely to catch you out.

If you can't be bothered to do all this of course you might as well drop down. Either way good luck

Alanstrainor

Last year i failed my mock paper and got like 34%, I studied my ass off and in the end got a C1 in honours. I wouldn't be so proud to completely right off dropping to pass, but if you're willing to work at it you could certainly make the grade at the honours.

EDIT: As said above do ALL the past papers you can get your hands on, i did an unbelievable amount of papers last year, and it's probably the best practice. Good Luck to ya

Jayeire

Certainly drop back to pass. I dropped back last yr, 3 months before the LC and it was one of the best decisions I've made. I had been previously doing 8 honours subjects, and maths was just unneccessary pressure tbh.
You'll feel a burden lifted if you drop back and you still have plenty of time to adapt to the ordinary level course.

kangaroo

I did my Leaving Cert a long time back. But I recall something them bringing in a rule (or maybe it was just talking about bringing in a rule) that an E in Honours would be considered as a pass for some/all colleges? Anybody know whether this is true? In my day, I think a lot more people would have stuck with the Honours if this had been true.

Overheal

If you dont need the Honor and youre doing that poorly consider dropping now: if you drop out any later than this you will not learn all of the differences between honors and pass math in the time allowed.

Cokehead Mother

Overheal wrote: »

If you dont need the Honor and youre doing that poorly consider dropping now: if you drop out any later than this you will not learn all of the differences between honors and pass math in the time allowed.

Area = h/3(F + L + TOFE)

Then everything else you don't deal with at honours was on the JC course. Do the vectors option.

OP, do a full exam with the help of your book and correct it with the marking scheme. (2001 - 2007 are on examinations.ie)

If you get less than say 35, you might as well go for ordinary with less than 3 months to go.

If you can get 35, you'll probably be able to get a D1+ by doing back to 1995 over the next few weeks. It probably won't take too much time. Say 5 hours a week.

But would that time be better spent on maximising your points? That's really up to you.

NewApproach

I am also in this dilemma.
Just got 37% in Hons Maths in the Mock, and don't know whether to drop or not.
I'm doing 8 subjects at the moment (pass Irish inc, and may drop to pass French also, rest higher).
The way I see it is that I will have to burst my backside to get a C in Hons, whereas for little work I could get a B in pass. The danger of failing it would also be there throughout, which would be a disaster.
On the other hand, I've come this far, and would it would feel like an awful waste of time and effort to give up at this stage.

Thoughts?

Cokehead Mother

You'll pass honours. Just do it.

The Walsho

I know a lot of people who dropped to pass maths and still have a difficult time with some stuff, so don't underestimate that, and at this stage it'd be quite late to be dropping and trying to pick up any course differences there are.
Honours maths only has a 4% failure rate.

NewApproach

The Walsho wrote: »

Honours maths only has a 4% failure rate.

Surely that is because most people who are in a danger of failing tend to do pass...

carlowboy

NewApproach wrote: »

I am also in this dilemma.
Just got 37% in Hons Maths in the Mock, and don't know whether to drop or not.
I'm doing 8 subjects at the moment (pass Irish inc, and may drop to pass French also, rest higher).
The way I see it is that I will have to burst my backside to get a C in Hons, whereas for little work I could get a B in pass. The danger of failing it would also be there throughout, which would be a disaster.
On the other hand, I've come this far, and would it would feel like an awful waste of time and effort to give up at this stage.

Thoughts?

You were 1% off a D3 in it believe it or not. The passing grade is 38%.

Mark200

Cokehead Mother wrote: »

Area = h/3(F + L + TOFE)

Then everything else you don't deal with at honours was on the JC course. Do the vectors option.

Isn't there a simpsons something....I duno. There's a few things that are different anyway.

You know yourself whether you worked or not. You should know yourself whether you have the ability to do well in honours maths.

I got 42% in my mocks, but in all honesty I didn't work at all. My teacher told me I have the ability to be a B student. I'm working my ass off now to get at least a C. I hope to get a B.


It also depends how you're doing in your other subjects. If you need to improve on many of your other subjects, can you really afford to spend so much time on trying to pass higher maths?

I think you should take the safe option with ordinary level maths, and devote more time to getting higher marks in your other subjects.

dan719

carlowboy wrote: »

You were 1% off a D3 in it believe it or not. The passing grade is 38%.

Wheer do peolple get their information, this was all over boards last year too...40% is a pass. Not 10%, not 38%, not 39.4%, it's 40%. Go to SEC to check if you want. It's irrelevant if it's higher maths or not(oh just to indicate my opinion counts- I go an A1 in LC Honours maths)

sd123

dan719 wrote: »

I go an A1 in LC Honours maths)

Is that all....

dan719

Hey sd123 it was really 96%, but I didn't want to be big headed you know...:D. How's med?

Mark200

dan719 wrote: »

Wheer do peolple get their information, this was all over boards last year too...40% is a pass. Not 10%, not 38%, not 39.4%, it's 40%.

Yup. (Didn't see that post when i made mine).

Sheedy

It's not worth it!
I've been there- did the honours maths, did honours everything else & worked my arse off...ended up scrapin an honours in maths but not even using it towards my points. It was my biggest mistake ever not to drop to ordinary. In the end, I missed out on the course I was aiming for by 15 points which i probably could have gotten if I had spent less time on maths and more on my other subjects. It's a ridiculously hard subject to take on, and it's pointless unless you're going on to study maths or science or something in college. Went for law myself...huge lotta help that maths was

sd123

dan719 wrote: »

Hey sd123 it was really 96%, but I didn't want to be big headed you know...:D. How's med?

Fair enough, that's pretty impressive seeing that I got a (measley) 90.67%, damn, you kicked my ass! .

Ah yea, med going fine, finally getting into a routine of actually studying, I'll have to wait to see how the easter exams went. I heard you transferred from TP to maths and economics (i think), how goes it??

rgt320q

In the same boat here, got 32% in my mocks. I need either a HL D3 or a OL B3 for my course, which do you think would take the most pressure off? I did some questions from the OL paper I and managed to ace those. My problem isn't understanding the material it's the remembering of methods and formulae.