Leaving Cert '11/'12 Off-Topic 2

Wesc.

Thing about geography is you've a huge amount of choice so you'd get away with it.

Looking back on the geoecology section, I reckon if people had a general knowledge on the whole section it would benefit more than learning off essays on them. It's sickening just to think of the hours upon hours I've spent learning off geography essays and in the exam I answered on only 4.. making up my other answers on the spot.

Well it's over anyway no point really wondering how we'll do 'till August.. But the geography will be way down and that's for sure.

Canard

finality wrote: »

The way people are complaining about papers being unpredictable is kind of annoying me at this point. Exams should be unpredictable, they're supposed to be a genuine test of your knowledge of the course. If you only learn half the course because that's what you think will come up, in my opinion you don't really deserve a high grade because you haven't put the work in and ultimately don't have a good knowledge of the course. Honestly, a student who gets an A1 should know 90% of the material on the course.

If you've put the work in and know the course to the standard you should, you'll do well. I honestly think it's a good thing that a full knowledge of the course is being valued as opposed to narrow sections of it. I don't know where people are getting the idea that having predicted and studied half the course, they're somehow entitled to an A1 and the SEC are depriving them of it by making use of the full syllabus when making the exams. If you know the material there's nothing the SEC can throw at you that you won't be able to answer, they have to abide by the syllabus.

What PF said. In fairness to my geography teacher he was ridiculously thorough and it was even pulling his grade averages down to not focus on what was obviously coming up - but this year was awful. They asked things like folding on their own and I really dont know if there are 30 marks to be gotten there.

I think one question was familiar to me and we had done countless amounts of them, ones that hadnt been asked, but there was an awful twist in everything. He always insisted on headings when no else did, and they actually made us use them this year - but nothing familiar.

I mean yeah English is being classed as "the hardest exam this generation" and the only reason is that, weh weh weh, Plath and Heaney didnt come up. There was never any reason why Plath would come up rather than Kavanagh...but the GV+V 70 marker, as I said last night, only seemed to reward anyone using Key Notes. The Hamlet q's werent nice either imo.

At the end of the day the SEC messed up their chance to use the full syllabus when they didnt do it from the start. It's completely unfair to make questions this specific - if a student knowing 90% of the course deserves an A1, does someone who knows 60% not deserve their C2? Because I know far more than 60% of the geography course and I'll be shocked to get a C3 after how it went.

Stalin and rugby

All blacks pissed on Ireland - final score 42-10

Meowth

finality please, I know you're exams are going well for you and I'm happy for you but you do not realise how condescending you sound!! and it really is annoying coming on this yesterday hearing someone say "ugh I ONLY got 90% in maths" I'm delighted for you but please that's brilliant and you really shouldn't be complaining I'm not tryin to be mean but once an exam goes bad for you, you'll see what I mean. just don't paint everyone with the same brush either the only skimming of the course I did was learning 4 poets instead of 5 and I got caught out badly

FaoiSin

One redeeming quality of that paper yesterday was the beautiful 7 (c) on the Newton Raphson and 2 (c) on inequalities. They took about 4 minutes each.

8 (c) however. My friend and I both went to the back to look at integration and nearly **** ourselves :P

Togepi

YeaaahFaoiSin wrote: »

One redeeming quality of that paper yesterday was the beautiful 7 (c) on the Newton Raphson and 2 (c) on inequalities. They took about 4 minutes each.

8 (c) however. My friend and I both went to the back to look at integration and nearly **** ourselves :P

Agreed, and agreed! If it wasn't for my slope repeatedly coming out wrong in 7 (c), I'd possibly have gotten 50 and 50 for question 2 and 7! :eek: Whereas I got no more than 20 for question 8. Worst part is, the ones who were clever enough to figure out that (c) part will probably only get 10 extra marks for their hard work. :cool:

Bears and Vodka

Historykitten wrote: »

finality please, I know you're exams are going well for you and I'm happy for you but you do not realise how condescending you sound!! and it really is annoying coming on this yesterday hearing someone say "ugh I ONLY got 90% in maths" I'm delighted for you but please that's brilliant and you really shouldn't be complaining

Not to be butting in but I'd like to make a point that everybody has their own aims. For some people the only way to get their course is to get A1s in particular subjects they can get them in and if they feel they got any less they know they 'failed' in their own sense.
To put in perspective, I have 4 Honours subjects left to do, I sort of need to get A1/A2s in all of them to get my first choice. Even if I get B1s in all of them I know thats a great result, but it's no good to me.

Every student has their own aims.

Eathrin

Also, just because you know less than 90% of the course doesn't always mean you shouldn't get an A1.
Knowing less than that and achieving a high grade has its own merits.

Eathrin

Togepi wrote: »

Agreed, and agreed! If it wasn't for my slope repeatedly coming out wrong in 7 (c), I'd possibly have gotten 50 and 50 for question 2 and 7! :eek: Whereas I got no more than 20 for question 8. Worst part is, the ones who were clever enough to figure out that (c) part will probably only get 10 extra marks for their hard work. :cool:

Which pisses me off!

Meowth

subz3r0 wrote: »

Historykitten wrote: »

finality please, I know you're exams are going well for you and I'm happy for you but you do not realise how condescending you sound!! and it really is annoying coming on this yesterday hearing someone say "ugh I ONLY got 90% in maths" I'm delighted for you but please that's brilliant and you really shouldn't be complaining

Not to be butting in but I'd like to make a point that everybody has their own aims. For some people the only way to get their course is to get A1s in particular subjects they can get them in and if they feel they got any less they know they 'failed' in their own sense.
To put in perspective, I have 4 Honours subjects left to do, I sort of need to get A1/A2s in all of them to get my first choice. Even if I get B1s in all of them I know thats a great result, but it's no good to me.

Every student has their own aims.

I'm sorry I needed a B1 in maths to get my course as it is a requirement and I paniced and messed up finality did great she got an A1 and you can't get much higher, you don't realise how horrible it is to see someone just complain about an A1 finality this isn't anything personal I just get annoyed with people doin this I realise you may have wanted better than only 90% but you got a top grade and should be proud

Wesc.

Togepi wrote: »

Agreed, and agreed! If it wasn't for my slope repeatedly coming out wrong in 7 (c), I'd possibly have gotten 50 and 50 for question 2 and 7! :eek: Whereas I got no more than 20 for question 8. Worst part is, the ones who were clever enough to figure out that (c) part will probably only get 10 extra marks for their hard work. :cool:

I don't think so. That paper wasn't that hard in all fairness, I think they'll keep to the marking scheme on that. Minimum 15 marks anyway.

I do think that they'll reduce the marks for 3 (c) (ii) however, it was quite difficult and I was lucky to get it out in the last minute!

FaoiSin

Wesc. wrote: »

I don't think so. That paper wasn't that hard in all fairness, I think they'll keep to the marking scheme on that. Minimum 15 marks anyway.

I do think that they'll reduce the marks for 3 (c) (ii) however, it was quite difficult and I was lucky to get it out in the last minute!

Gorgeous paper alright. Completely representative of bygone years and my teacher had me well prepared for all obscurities.

Luno

Realistically, two years isn't long enough to cover the geography course entirely. I don't think it's fair to put the blame on teachers. I've no doubt that if mine had had enough time that he wouldn't have went through the option question entirely, allowing us to understand it a bit better and have a fairer chance in the exam.

Mysteriouschic

It's not only students look at the predictions even the teachers do and go by what they think will come up like overpopulation always comes up. And human interaction with the rock cycle.
I mean nobody expected technology impacts to show up. I'm not sure if thats even in my book.

People only make the predictions because they want to pass and get the grades they needs . And then when sec decides to throw in a question thinking "oh we should make that harder" then throw in a question that never appears . It's not such a bad thing that people try it's only because they want to get into college or wherever . I don't think you should rely on them but when there is a trend in the way the papers are people are going to start focusing on that trend .

Wesc.

YeaaahFaoiSin wrote: »

Gorgeous paper alright. Completely representative of bygone years and my teacher had me well prepared for all obscurities.

It really was. The (c) part in Q4 was more of an (a) part than (c) part like :P I thought overall it was really nice, apart from Q5 (c) (i) and the rest of 6 (c)... but I can't complain! Hopefully paper 2 will be just as nice.

Cruel Sun

finality wrote: »

The way people are complaining about papers being unpredictable is kind of annoying me at this point. Exams should be unpredictable, they're supposed to be a genuine test of your knowledge of the course. If you only learn half the course because that's what you think will come up, in my opinion you don't really deserve a high grade because you haven't put the work in and ultimately don't have a good knowledge of the course. Honestly, a student who gets an A1 should know 90% of the material on the course.

If you've put the work in and know the course to the standard you should, you'll do well. I honestly think it's a good thing that a full knowledge of the course is being valued as opposed to narrow sections of it. I don't know where people are getting the idea that having predicted and studied half the course, they're somehow entitled to an A1 and the SEC are depriving them of it by making use of the full syllabus when making the exams. If you know the material there's nothing the SEC can throw at you that you won't be able to answer, they have to abide by the syllabus.

I agree with you somewhat, but what they did on English Paper 2 was not exactly fair (I'm not biased, I didn't get caught out btw). They didn't pick random poets, they got the two poets that everyone learned and took them off. It wasn't random at all. If it was fair every possible topic that could come up on every subject would be drawn randomly. But instead they've just tried to catch people out with awkward questions (Geography) that weren't even covered in the book.

Yeah, I agree make it random, but this is an exam, there's no need for bull**** questions that aren't even properly covered. We want unpredictablility, yes, not an exam with trick questions.

Eathrin

Wesc. wrote: »

It really was. The (c) part in Q4 was more of an (a) part than (c) part like :P I thought overall it was really nice, apart from Q5 (c) (i) and the rest of 6 (c)... but I can't complain! Hopefully paper 2 will be just as nice.

4C was easy but actually took me a good few lines to get to the final answer, perhaps I went a longer way about it.
5C wasn't too bad.
In hindsight, I really should have gotten 6C seeing as I was on the right track.

I wasn't very sure of how to do Q1Cii

Canard

I agree with Martin completely. Unpredictability yesterday would be as simple as igneous rocks, isostasy, the desert climate in atmosphere-ocean, a european urban area...but no. They did put the urban area back on, and made it impossible. There's being unpredictable and then there's being a cnut.

Wesc.

Eathrin wrote: »

4C was easy but actually took me a good few lines to get to the final answer, perhaps I went a longer way about it.
5C wasn't too bad.
In hindsight, I really should have gotten 6C seeing as I was on the right track.

I wasn't very sure of how to do Q1Cii

Yeah I did Q1C ii a few different ways. Firstly by differentiation (max and min are on opposite sides of the x-axis) and then by dividing and got t<0 each times.

I was cracking up in the exam trying to figure out 5 (c) (i) because I knew it would have been simple but I couldn't figure it out. The second part came up a few years ago so that was grand. Didn't matter though I probably won't count that question.



Studying today isn't really working out. I've had Oisin i Tir na nOg on front of me since 10 this morning ffs :P

Hayezer

Looking back at Maths P.1 im seeing I got more and more wrong. For Q1 C)i Was I right in multiplying kx-t by (k^2x^2+k (random letter) ) and letting it equal to the equation they gave you? Cancelled a bit and did matching up, thats generally what I do for the Q1 C)'s as they're normally the same every year.

Togepi

Going over Paper 1 I think I got a C2, not a C1. So now I need an A2 in Paper 2 to get a B3 overall. Not a chance.

Hayezer

Togepi wrote: »

Going over Paper 1 I think I got a C2, not a C1. So now I need an A2 in Paper 2 to get a B3 overall. Not a chance.

Pretty much same here . Fact that I didn't learn root x from first principles is killing me, learned 1/x, sin and cos

c28omzk7ihsxv0

Root x is the only one I learned off . But near the end I skipped a small step, would I lose marks for that?

(Going from when it was a three story fraction to the end result (1/2(x) ^-1/2) )

finality

Historykitten wrote: »

finality please, I know you're exams are going well for you and I'm happy for you but you do not realise how condescending you sound!! and it really is annoying coming on this yesterday hearing someone say "ugh I ONLY got 90% in maths" I'm delighted for you but please that's brilliant and you really shouldn't be complaining I'm not tryin to be mean but once an exam goes bad for you, you'll see what I mean. just don't paint everyone with the same brush either the only skimming of the course I did was learning 4 poets instead of 5 and I got caught out badly

I got caught out on the poetry too. My Kinsella essay was absolutely crap, I would've done much better on Plath or Heaney. I actually knew Rich and Kavanagh to a decent standard but the questions on them absolutely didn't fit in with what I'd learned. I'm just not going to blame the SEC for that, it's not an unfair paper just because our predictions were wrong. I've probably dropped about 2 grades from my mock in English because of the poetry and bad timing, but that's my fault not the SEC's. I'm not putting myself on a pedestal looking down on all the people who got caught out, I got caught out myself I just think the SEC conspiracy theories are kind of annoying.

leaveiton

Togepi wrote: »

Going over Paper 1 I think I got a C2, not a C1. So now I need an A2 in Paper 2 to get a B3 overall. Not a chance.

In a similar boat Without knowing the marking scheme I'm estimating that I got anywhere between a C2 and a B3 in that paper. Said to myself today that I'd focus so much on paper 2 over the weekend and perfect it to bring myself up to a B3, but I don't think I'll be able to now.

reznov

Sure unpredictability is fine, and should be promoted, however, in some case people that put in hours upon hours to learn courses like geography for example, ended up doing poorly. Did they work their ass off? Of course. A guy in my school literally studied the crap out of geography without relying on predictions and came out frustrated. Exam papers for previous years were similar enough, with general concepts being asked which is what should be encapsulated by an exam. Difficult to remember the small details while managing 7 to 8 subjects. The human brain after all does have a tendency to forget. Maths yesterday was fine I thought, part Cs being the tricky sections. But wording questions awkwardly isn't exactly improving examination standards.

QueenOfLeon

Martin_94 wrote: »

I agree with you somewhat, but what they did on English Paper 2 was not exactly fair (I'm not biased, I didn't get caught out btw). They didn't pick random poets, they got the two poets that everyone learned and took them off. It wasn't random at all.

Back in the time of writing the paper, they wouldn't have any idea what students were planning on concentrating on. Every year predictions crop up for English with various theories, and fair enough, students cutting back a bit will concentrate on what teachers/other students encourage them to do.

I'm not one of the "you should have learned 5 poets!!" brigade, but I don't think you're correct in saying that the SEC took Plath and Heaney off the paper when they heard about students learning them. Whatever poets they decided to put on the paper in November are the ones that you saw the other day. They had 8 to choose from, and they chose 4. If they had only put 3 on, then I'd agree that they were out to get ye! :P

reznov

Exams are not indicators whether you worked or not. Numerous variables exist which affect exam performance, and as a result it's not fair to judge someone who did poorly on the final day as "lazy" or "relying on predictions".

FaoiSin

If you think about it logically they could sit down at the start of the year and predict what others would predict. I mean I don't even understand the line of thinking behind predicting Plath. Heaney seemed likely but they probably could see that. One I never really heard mentioned was Kinsella which was strange because he'd never been asked before. I predict Kinsella for next year as well tbh.

Eathrin

reznov wrote: »

Exams are not indicators whether you worked or not. Numerous variables exist which affect exam performance, and as a result it's not fair to judge someone who did poorly on the final day as "lazy" or "relying on predictions".

Not at all, and we have numerous examples right here in this thread.