More time for Business and History!!! Something must be done

Mushy

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

That's such an unbelievably lame argument. The Leaving Cert is supposed to test what you know in your chosen subjects. It's not designed to be a test of how fast you can make your hand move to write something. Selecting people for college places on that basis would be utterly ridiculous.

What's your deal, anyway? How did you do in the LC? It's all very well to say this if you're someone who is able to write faster than average, and your place in college isn't hanging in the balance. It's not that easy for everyone and the LC shouldn't discriminate on the basis of physical ability to write at a certain speed.

...Or perhaps you didn't get your course for this same reason, and are now pissed that future students might not have that burden to bear?

Grow up. If you can make posts like this, you've clearly missed the point of the whole education system.

But if ya know the stuff, 3/4 pages in 40mins is not that difficult, believe me, as I said, I've done it before. You dont need to be able to write the fastest. In my class, I was the slowest writer, but got the best score in the class. So goes to show ya dont have to be the fastest writer. Sure if ya write faster and fill it with irrelevant stuff, it goes for nothing and your wasting time.

My deal is they say they trying to dumb it down, I dont agree with that. But if they change the length of these exams cos of some sore hands, well, its not dumbing down, but its making it easier by a good deal. can ye not accept something thats tough, and try tackle it instead of working to change it, that prob wont happen? I got 390 in the LC, I didnt feel the need to be rushing every answer, but still got everything done within the time easily enough.

No, I got my course comfortably. Maybe you will grow up and realise that it wasnt actually that bad. Only time will tell. I'd be very surprised if in a year you still thought history was quite bad.

PrivateEye

After (nearly completely!) doing the LC, I say dumb it down as much as they want.

Wouldn't wish all that on my worst enemy.

As for Bat O' Keefe replying...
Think members of the Fianna Fail party will be busy enough tomorrow ****ting it all day to respond to emails :pac:

hatrickpatrick

But if ya know the stuff, 3/4 pages in 40mins is not that difficult, believe me, as I said, I've done it before. You dont need to be able to write the fastest. In my class, I was the slowest writer, but got the best score in the class. So goes to show ya dont have to be the fastest writer. Sure if ya write faster and fill it with irrelevant stuff, it goes for nothing and your wasting time.

Well I'm a fairly fast writer in my class and I know my stuff, yet I managed to write only 3 pages for my best essay today. Maybe you write bigger or something, or you're just very lucky, but a vast number of people aren't.

My deal is they say they trying to dumb it down, I dont agree with that. But if they change the length of these exams cos of some sore hands, well, its not dumbing down, but its making it easier by a good deal

So you're saying it's right that you're being tested on your ability to write fast and NOT on your knowledge of your syllabus?

Hypothetical example
Candidate A: Knows the course reasonably well, and is able to write with lightening speed, managing to write totally coherent 4 page essays without needing to stop to think

Candidate B: Knows the course inside out but can't write as fast as A and needs a minute or two to plan the essay in order for it to make the most sense.

Candidate A gets into college, candidate B doesn't, not because of a lack of knowledge but because one is slightly faster at writing paragraphs than the other. It's not "making it easier", it's making it fairer.

can ye not accept something thats tough, and try tackle it instead of working to change it, that prob wont happen? I got 390 in the LC, I didnt feel the need to be rushing every answer, but still got everything done within the time easily enough.

Well done, good for you. Think how you'd feel though if you knew everything on the course and didn't have time to write it all, then missed your place in college because of it? And no, "accepting it" is fine if it doesn't matter, but not getting into college could seriously **** up people's lives. I can understand it being hard to empathize since you got your course, but you can't speak for people who need very high points and can't get them because of a detail like time.

No, I got my course comfortably. Maybe you will grow up and realise that it wasnt actually that bad. Only time will tell. I'd be very surprised if in a year you still thought history was quite bad.

Depends, doesn't it? If I have to repeat because this didn't go so well I definetely will still be pissed about it. Luckily I think it did go well enough, but I know people who didn't think so and seeing crap like this really pisses me off...

Mushy

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Well I'm a fairly fast writer in my class and I know my stuff, yet I managed to write only 3 pages for my best essay today. Maybe you write bigger or something, or you're just very lucky, but a vast number of people aren't.



So you're saying it's right that you're being tested on your ability to write fast and NOT on your knowledge of your syllabus?

Hypothetical example
Candidate A: Knows the course reasonably well, and is able to write with lightening speed, managing to write totally coherent 4 page essays without needing to stop to think

Candidate B: Knows the course inside out but can't write as fast as A and needs a minute or two to plan the essay in order for it to make the most sense.

Candidate A gets into college, candidate B doesn't, not because of a lack of knowledge but because one is slightly faster at writing paragraphs than the other. It's not "making it easier", it's making it fairer.



Well done, good for you. Think how you'd feel though if you knew everything on the course and didn't have time to write it all, then missed your place in college because of it? And no, "accepting it" is fine if it doesn't matter, but not getting into college could seriously **** up people's lives. I can understand it being hard to empathize since you got your course, but you can't speak for people who need very high points and can't get them because of a detail like time.



Depends, doesn't it? If I have to repeat because this didn't go so well I definetely will still be pissed about it. Luckily I think it did go well enough, but I know people who didn't think so and seeing crap like this really pisses me off...

I will say it in one...timing is everything in history. If the preparation has been done properly, there will be no problems. Timing for this should be drilled into students by the teachers.In my school, we did at least 5 essays a week, be it in class or at home, all had to be done in under 40mins. do that from at latest November, and there should be no complaints about time. You cant expect to show up on he day knowing how long ya have for an essay but not having prractised it over and over. Yeah, its boring, I really wanted to drop it, but now Im majoring in it in college, so works both ways, its well worth it!

superLeetive

turgon wrote: »

Ok lads, totally agree, did history today should be at least 30 minutes longer. We should get an online petition going definitely. But not for more than 2 or 3 subjects - lets make it reasonable.

I'm a constituent of Batt O'Keefe (live about half a mile away from him) if that can be any help.

I'm up for getting some sort of a campaign going as it's very unfair. Get an online petition going and then when it's had a lot of interest we could write a letter to the SEC/Dept. of Ed explaining it and giving a link to the website...bit of media coverage wouldn't go a miss either.

orangetictac wrote: »

Maybe a petition would force them to change the marking scheme and give a1's to all......maybe

If we could get them to only count each candidate's 3 best Qs in Business or something....

hatrickpatrick

I will say it in one...timing is everything in history. If the preparation has been done properly, there will be no problems. Timing for this should be drilled into students by the teachers.In my school, we did at least 5 essays a week, be it in class or at home, all had to be done in under 40mins. do that from at latest November, and there should be no complaints about time. You cant expect to show up on he day knowing how long ya have for an essay but not having prractised it over and over. Yeah, its boring, I really wanted to drop it, but now Im majoring in it in college, so works both ways, its well worth it!

Timing was, indeed, drilled into all of us from day one in fifth year, but the fact is that no matter how many essays we did, nothing changed - people averaged around 2-3 pages, and the exact same was duplicated in the exam yesterday - my shortest essay was just over 2 pages and my longest one was 3.5 . Had I forced myself to write any faster, my handwriting would have been so illegible that any examiner would have been obliged to fail me on the grounds of having no clue WTF I was writing about.

It's simply ridiculous - the leaving is supposed to test how well you know your subject, NOT how fast you can write about it. Allowing people to miss out on college even when they actually knew enough to get an A1 is more than appalling.

turgon

Well heres my news...

Good all Batt O'Keefe rang the school the other day (its where his children went afaik). So hes asked for 6 pupils to go to Dublin on the 1st to attend a meeting about the timetable. So Im going on an (all expenses paid whooooo) trip to Dublin. Will be arguing the case that some exams should be longer such as History. And Buisness even though I dont do it.

My mother voted for him in the election so hed better agree :mad::mad::mad::mad:
Only messin!!!

~Candy~

turgon wrote: »

Well heres my news...

Good all Batt O'Keefe rang the school the other day (its where his children went afaik). So hes asked for 6 pupils to go to Dublin on the 1st to attend a meeting about the timetable. So Im going on an (all expenses paid whooooo) trip to Dublin. Will be arguing the case that some exams should be longer such as History. And Buisness even though I dont do it.

My mother voted for him in the election so hed better agree :mad::mad::mad::mad:
Only messin!!!

woo..go u !!:p

jennyq

I didn't really have a problem with business timing to be honest, I was writing up to near the end but I got a chance to read over the paper quickly. Maybe I was just lucky with my questions but I'd still say English II is the most difficult for time despite the extra 20 minutes. I don't actually know how I would have coped without that 20 minutes & even then I wasn't quite finished. I could probably have written less, but it wouldn't have been as good then so it's difficult to know how to balance it.

superLeetive

turgon wrote: »

Well heres my news...

Good all Batt O'Keefe rang the school the other day (its where his children went afaik). So hes asked for 6 pupils to go to Dublin on the 1st to attend a meeting about the timetable.

Yes Batt O'keefe will be holding a review of the LC timetable on Tuesday, July 1st in the Dept. of Ed buildings on Marlborough Street (parallel to O'Connell Street), Dublin. Any students that have an interest in communicating their views on changes that should be made to the timetable are welcome to attend.