The leaving cert system is not only unfair, it's illogical and it's getting worse.

leaveiton

Dapics wrote: »

I'm pretty sure i answered that question properly and constantly hit the marking scheme.... however the state of what i wrote nearly made me cry.... absolute dribble, was rushing and wasn't able to use great expression.
Hopefully though , the GV+V question was answered pretty badly by everyone else and i'l get a good grade in it.
The phrasing for the question was just disgusting, however i sware to god if the examiners allow and correct a pre-prepared essay thats A1 certified that dosen't hit the marking scheme in any way,that dosen't make one bit of reference to the question whatsoever: any way whatsoever i will go mad.

I would hope that the examiners correct it properly... they would want to.

Because any pre-prepared answer that dosen't make one bit of reference to the question should get 0/0.

They will mark it properly, why on earth wouldn't they? Examiners aren't idiots, they're going to know if the answer doesn't fit the question.

finality

Dapics wrote: »

I'm pretty sure i answered that question properly and constantly hit the marking scheme.... however the state of what i wrote nearly made me cry.... absolute dribble, was rushing and wasn't able to use great expression.
Hopefully though , the GV+V question was answered pretty badly by everyone else and i'l get a good grade in it.
The phrasing for the question was just disgusting, however i sware to god if the examiners allow and correct a pre-prepared essay thats A1 certified that dosen't hit the marking scheme in any way,that dosen't make one bit of reference to the question whatsoever: any way whatsoever i will go mad.

I would hope that the examiners correct it properly... they would want to.

Because any pre-prepared answer that dosen't make one bit of reference to the question should get 0/0.

I'd say an essay that doesn't answer the question properly will lose a lot of purpose marks. I think if you answered the question you should do quite well, that's the main thing really.

I painstakingly referred to the question in every paragraph of my literary genre essay, I really think that showing you understand the question is how you will get high marks.

Monsieur Folie

Owen_S wrote: »

The results for most subjects tend to just naturally create a bell curve(as do a lot of things when you are talking about a lot of people).

The scenario you mentioned is unlikely, but happens to an extent in some subjects. The marks would be 'negatively skewed'(google image search).
Applied maths would be an example of such a subject(most people that take it would have an interest in maths/physics).

Thanks. I had assumed from what I'd heard that it was something they forced to make for good statistics. After reading some of the replies I now realise that it's a natural phenomenon and that when it doesn't form the expected bell curve, it leads them to suspect the exam might have been too easy or too hard, correct? That makes a lot more sense! I think I understand now!

As for people saying we should specialise at 15: No! I am all for a broad education. When else in life will you have such easy access to such a broad range of knowledge and information? Once you get to college you start picking subjects and suddenly the geography classes you always found interesting but never intended to pursue to third level are gone forever..

I do however feel that as a compromise to the ongoing debate regarding Irish would be that it could be kept mandatory but no longer examined. I know in most scenarios it would probably just lead to a waste of space doss class in the timetable but it would mean there is a continued opportunity to learn for those that want it, without the pressure of sitting an exam in a subject that you don't actually need or want or will probably ever find useful to progress. Ideally I would like to see it become a non-mandatory subject like the rest of the languages (excluding English of course). It's only there in a patriotic bout to keep the language alive, it doesn't really serve us any purpose.

English and Maths should remain mandatory because they are useful skills to have regardless of where you end up, although I think the way English is structured could be looked at again. Less texts to study, more chances to show off our creative flair. That'd be nice. One can dream. :rolleyes:

Dapics

Patchy~ wrote: »

In fairness the 30/40 one wasnt extremely different to the standard question, I dont think anyone should have been caught out by it unless they were literally planning to regurgitate an essay. Not gonna lie, I was planning that judging by how static the question had been, but it wasnt a shock: aspects? Fine. Emotional response? I never had one, I'm not too emotionally invested in my texts, but with the GV+V being bleak in my texts I just pretended I was left extremely upset. :pac:

I'd say they could tighten up on relevance though, and once purpose falls, everything falls with it.

The problem with it was you had to answer in the past tense... the impact it had on you and how it helped you form a general vision and viewpoint of the text.
The author didnt form the vision and viewpoint.... your emotional response did.

I sware if that question aint marked correctly I will report it to the SEC and register a formal complaint.
I think it had to be answered in the past tense which is why is was so difficult

Perhaps im being critical but i have a very funny feeling the examiners will not take this into account and subsequently will not correct it properly.

Bears and Vodka

So far I only did Maths and English exams and what struck me as being different was only that the English Paper 2 was a bit more specific than usual, thats all. People make such a big deal out of it.
I bet people back in 2008ish were shocked to see "Give a personal response on ____ poetry" questions disappear.
SEC have every right to ask the questions in any way they like as long as its on the syllabus.
Although I would like to see them phrase questions better, especially in English Paper 2 and Honours Physics. I had to read the Comparative questions a few times before they made any sense to me.

finality

Monsieur Folie wrote: »

Thanks. I had assumed from what I'd heard that it was something they forced to make for good statistics. After reading some of the replies I now realise that it's a natural phenomenon and that when it doesn't form the expected bell curve, it leads them to suspect the exam might have been too easy or too hard, correct? That makes a lot more sense! I think I understand now!

As for people saying we should specialise at 15: No! I am all for a broad education. When else in life will you have such easy access to such a broad range of knowledge and information? Once you get to college you start picking subjects and suddenly the geography classes you always found interesting but never intended to pursue to third level are gone forever..

I do however feel that as a compromise to the ongoing debate regarding Irish would be that it could be kept mandatory but no longer examined. I know in most scenarios it would probably just lead to a waste of space doss class in the timetable but it would mean there is a continued opportunity to learn for those that want it, without the pressure of sitting an exam in a subject that you don't actually need or want or will probably ever find useful to progress. Ideally I would like to see it become a non-mandatory subject like the rest of the languages (excluding English of course). It's only there in a patriotic bout to keep the language alive, it doesn't really serve us any purpose.

English and Maths should remain mandatory because they are useful skills to have regardless of where you end up, although I think the way English is structured could be looked at again. Less texts to study, more chances to show off our creative flair. That'd be nice. One can dream. :rolleyes:

If Irish weren't examined students would complain it was a waste of time and teachers would eventually become disheartened and the subject would suffer, plus many schools would simply not teach it in an attempt to improve LC results in examinable subjects.

One idea could be... you know how we already have pointless religion classes which generally equate to discussions on social issues? Why not do those in Irish? They cover, by and large, things we're expected to be able to write essays on, so teaching religion through Irish would surely be a great way of improving standards of the language and actually getting students to enjoy speaking it.

Of course it'll never happen, for one thing I wonder how many religion teachers can speak Irish?

lorrieq

Anybody claiming we should just have learnt everything off and we'd be grand can **** off!

For example, the geography exam. My textbook didn't cover half of those questions sufficiently. Probably didn't even have one or two.
Check the syllabus you say? I haven't seen a syllabus in my ****ing life. We're going by what the teachers teach us. Which is not everything on the course.

Togepi

Patchy~ wrote: »

...Not only that, they went out of their way to make this year hell...

Dapics wrote: »

...The fact is that the SEC shouldn't have done what they did this year and never should until the LC is gone and thrown in a skip...

Darren.993 wrote: »

...I absolutely despise the way the SEC have handled this. People say the Leaving Cert isn't there to catch you out, but that's EXACTLY what they've done this year. People have worked hard and spent hours learning off information on topics that came up every single year just to have them suddenly vanish. Not even teachers, in fact even the books in some cases haven't covered certain topics that have come up in this years exams. I just think it's really unfair that they sprang it on us without a warning...

The exams aren't over yet guys - most people have only done three or four papers. You're all acting as if every single exam has been done and every single one of them has aimed to catch students out.

Everyone just needs to relax and concentrate on the rest of their exams. If you're all still adamant that this years' exams were horrendously unfair after they're over, then complain to the SEC or something. Going on about them now is just making other people worried that every exam is going to be really unpredictable when they're probably stressed enough as it is! Chill out a little, if the exams were harder than usually than they'll change the marking scheme so everyone does well.

Edit: Why in the name of jaysus won't this post properly without messing the quotes up??

leaveiton

lorrieq wrote: »

Anybody claiming we should just have learnt everything off and we'd be grand can **** off!

For example, the geography exam. My textbook didn't cover half of those questions sufficiently. Probably didn't even have one or two.
Check the syllabus you say? I haven't seen a syllabus in my ****ing life. We're going by what the teachers teach us. Which is not everything on the course.

Well to be fair all you'd have to do to find the syllabus is google "leaving cert geography syllabus"

partyatmygaff

lorrieq wrote: »

Anybody claiming we should just have learnt everything off and we'd be grand can **** off!

For example, the geography exam. My textbook didn't cover half of those questions sufficiently. Probably didn't even have one or two.

Check the syllabus you say? I haven't seen a syllabus in my ****ing life. We're going by what the teachers teach us. Which is not everything on the course.

At the end of the day, it's your exam, not your teacher's. It's ultimately your responsibility to make sure you're prepared for the exam.

As negligent and useless as some teachers may be, there's (For now at least) very little that students can do about it other than work around it.

In some ways, it's good practice for college. In college, your lecturers set and correct your exams. There are no set textbooks and in some cases there may be nothing in the way of "notes" for the subject. All you get are the lectures, the past papers and a list of books (Each thousands of pages long) that you need to use to extract the relevant information. Essentially, what i'm trying to say is that you need to both do the work and make sure that you're doing the right work. For the LC, your teachers are meant to guide you as to the "right work" that you should be doing for the subject but as you're probably already aware that doesn't always happen and students are forced to pick up the slack.

finality

Dapics wrote: »

The problem with it was you had to answer in the past tense... the impact it had on you and how it helped you form a general vision and viewpoint of the text.
The author didnt form the vision and viewpoint.... your emotional response did.

I sware if that question aint marked correctly I will report it to the SEC and register a formal complaint.
I think it had to be answered in the past tense which is why is was so difficult

Perhaps im being critical but i have a very funny feeling the examiners will not take this into account and subsequently will not correct it properly.

The author does form the vision and viewpoint. They wrote the text, they created the characters, they decided whether it was bleak or uplifting. Your emotional response is shaped by your understanding of the general vision and viewpoint.

As for answering in the past tense, the tense of your answer has nothing to do with demonstrating your understanding of the texts. Someone writes "this makes me feel disheartened" instead of "this made me feel disheartened"? They're not identifying with the question to any lesser extent. If I were a corrector I'd deduct a mark at most for an incorrect tense... it's really not hugely important.

And how will you know how the question is marked? :P

lorrieq

leaveiton wrote: »

lorrieq wrote: »

Anybody claiming we should just have learnt everything off and we'd be grand can **** off!

For example, the geography exam. My textbook didn't cover half of those questions sufficiently. Probably didn't even have one or two.
Check the syllabus you say? I haven't seen a syllabus in my ****ing life. We're going by what the teachers teach us. Which is not everything on the course.

Well to be fair all you'd have to do to find the syllabus is google "leaving cert geography syllabus"

Well I mean I would have if I had known there was a need. But past papers didn't suggest a really wide syllabus. Always the usual suspects. Then BAM!

I mean come on. Give us a warning. The past papers are misleading, this is out of the blue. It is unfair.

QueenOfLeon

partyatmygaff wrote: »

All you get are the lectures, the past papers and a list of books (Each thousands of pages long) that you need to use to extract the relevant information.

And for some courses, you don't even get these, or even descriptions as to the layout of the paper! :P

Astrozombies

lorrieq wrote: »

Anybody claiming we should just have learnt everything off and we'd be grand can **** off!

For example, the geography exam. My textbook didn't cover half of those questions sufficiently. Probably didn't even have one or two.
Check the syllabus you say? I haven't seen a syllabus in my ****ing life. We're going by what the teachers teach us. Which is not everything on the course.

"examine the positive and negative impacts of colonialism on a developing country you've studied"
I mean what was that all about, they literally only list 4/5 lines of SPECIFIC neg/pos impacts for Brazil in my book, how is anyone meant to get 30/30 for that? unless you actually go to the trouble of looking it up on the internet but why would you, why bother if it's not on your course in detail? and has never been asked before.
I wrote about colonialism in Brazil, and briefly about the impacts it had, chances are I wont have answered the question properly and will loose alot of marks.
Sue Honan's probably ripping her hair out over that geo exam...

Dapics

finality wrote: »

The author does form the vision and viewpoint. They wrote the text, they created the characters, they decided whether it was bleak or uplifting. Your emotional response is shaped by your understanding of the general vision and viewpoint.

As for answering in the past tense, the tense of your answer has nothing to do with demonstrating your understanding of the texts. Someone writes "this makes me feel disheartened" instead of "this made me feel disheartened"? They're not identifying with the question to any lesser extent. If I were a corrector I'd deduct a mark at most for an incorrect tense... it's really not hugely important.

And how will you know how the question is marked? :P

Fair enough.

That was just my interpretation of it.
Here's hoping maths paper 2 goes well, really need to study more probability now though.

partyatmygaff

lorrieq wrote: »

Well I mean I would have if I had known there was a need. But past papers didn't suggest a really wide syllabus. Always the usual suspects. Then BAM!

I mean come on. Give us a warning. The past papers are misleading, this is out of the blue. It is unfair.

I had the exact same thing happen to me in one of my exams this year. Seven years of the exact same question (Almost word for word every year) and then two completely new questions on completely different sections of the module this year. A lot of people spent their time preparing excellent essays for the usual questions but ended up having to write essays on the spot during the exam on something they had barely looked over.

Annoying? Definitely. Unfair? Not really. The past papers aren't the syllabus after all.

Dapics

Astrozombies wrote: »

"examine the positive and negative impacts of colonialism on a developing country you've studied"
I mean what was that all about, they literally only list 4/5 lines of SPECIFIC neg/pos impacts for Brazil in my book, how is anyone meant to get 30/30 for that? unless you actually go to the trouble of looking it up on the internet but why would you, why bother if it's not on your course in detail? and has never been asked before.
I wrote about colonialism in Brazil, and briefly about the impacts it had, chances are I wont have answered the question properly and will loose alot of marks.
Sue Honan's probably ripping her hair out over that geo exam...

Very simple question I thought.

All you had to do was describe the various economic/social/cultural/infrastructural/adminstrative/historical positives and negatives.

I got around 18 S.R.P's on it. I know they hit the marking scheme as I described how each point I made could be interpreted to have impacted positively/negatively and how each point could be associated with the history of colonialism.

For instance I wrote how Britian brought education to India whilst also enforcing economic slavery therefore creating the population divide between poor and rich that is evident in India today. If a person had an understanding of the topic and were not relying on pre-prepared answers i would think they would be able to answer it very effectively.

Im sure you did fine, dont worry about it.

Canard

But clearly people have done it and gotten away with it. Why is that fair? I'm not saying it should be encouraged but if the SEC are so horrified by the thought then they really shouldnt have let it happen. Those patterns could not have been accidental.

finality

Dapics wrote: »

Fair enough.

That was just my interpretation of it.
Here's hoping maths paper 2 goes well, really need to study more probability now though.

I could be wrong, I just can't see them deducting many marks for an incorrect tense unless the whole answer seemed learnt off and didn't really answer the question.

Probability's actually starting to come together for me... now to cover the rest of the course

Dapics

partyatmygaff wrote: »

I had the exact same thing happen to me in one of my exams this year. Seven years of the exact same question (Almost word for word every year) and then two completely new questions on completely different sections of the module this year. A lot of people spent their time preparing excellent essays for the usual questions but ended up having to write essays on the spot during the exam on something they had barely looked over.

Annoying? Definitely. Unfair? Not really. The past papers aren't the syllabus after all.

I had to make up six of my geography questions up on the day, not even mentioning the fact I had to make up an answer on deforestation.

I think this new approach by the SEC will actually benefit me as I dont rely on pre-prepared essays to get my marks, il have a few learned off, but mostly just depend on my intuition and broad knowledge of the courses.

So yes, I agree with your statement man, I feel alot of people can relate to it.

shane7218

The people on this fourm saying that we should learn everything of the syllabus can f**k off. Do u know how much stuff is on the syllabus for one subject not to mention 8. Trying to catch people out is pathetic and the people who agree wouldn't be all talk if they had to do it!!!

Dapics

finality wrote: »

I could be wrong, I just can't see them deducting many marks for an incorrect tense unless the whole answer seemed learnt off and didn't really answer the question.

Probability's actually starting to come together for me... now to cover the rest of the course

Im actually having to redo every single question in my maths book... I just dont get it.

Thank god its only worth 25 marks, less than 8 percent of the paper.
Im sorted for everything else, trig will be very hard and its there I hope to get 50/50 thereby performing the best out of my batch and hopefully showing the examiner I deserve a B

Namlub

I think we all know how much stuff is on the syllabus since we're doing the LC tbf

partyatmygaff

shane7218 wrote: »

The people on this fourm saying that we should learn everything of the syllabus can f**k off.

You don't have to learn everything on the syllabus. You only need to learn everything on the syllabus if you desperately want 100%. For those even aiming for an A1, being smart about what you learn and selectively focusing on the areas of the course that you think are the most important is more than enough.

Do u know how much stuff is on the syllabus for one subject not to mention 8.

Do you? They use a lot of words in the official syllabi but practically, all you need is a good textbook that covers everything in the syllabus. There's a lot of material but it's more than manageable considering the amount of time you have to do everything.

Trying to catch people out is pathetic and the people who agree wouldn't be all talk if they had to do it!!!

No one's trying to catch anyone out. As for people who agree with the SEC being less predictable... when I sat the LC last year I'll admit I hated the SEC for making the exams less predictable. Fearing the unknown added to the stress of the exams. That said, seeing as how I wasn't relying on predictions it didn't have any tangible effect on my grades.

K_1

shane7218 wrote: »

The people on this fourm saying that we should learn everything of the syllabus can f**k off. Do u know how much stuff is on the syllabus for one subject not to mention 8. Trying to catch people out is pathetic and the people who agree wouldn't be all talk if they had to do it!!!

The vast majority of people here are either doing the leaving or did it recently, so yes, we do understand.

I fully agree with setting unpredictable papers, the exams are a farce if people know whats coming up, and I am doing the leaving at the moment..

lorrieq

@partyatmygaff

I'm tempted to tell you to get a life.

meesh140

This whole project maths thing is a joke...
It really is
I sat my leaving back in 09 and I got an A2 in maths
I then went to college, level 8 in computer studies and maths was a core module, came out of 1st year with 74% and it was not easy
So many are saying that project maths is about logic and preparing students for 3rd level maths, but that is not the reality
This year I'm sitting the leaving again, and because of this project maths crap there is no way in hell I'm gona get that A again, and paper 2 will be my downfall
I am so angry because maths was my favourite subject, this 'experiment' maths course has not only made me hate maths now but my grade thus my points is going to be lower this year
I firmly believe that project maths was the typical Irish lazy way out of a problem
There was never anything wrong with the ordinary level paper
It was very do able
Sad part is there are so many struggling at higher level needing points, there should really be nearly a middle level between higher and ordinary level because the gap is far too big
Also another f*ck up is the introduction of bonus points...
There will be a higher failure rate this year because there will be so many students hoping to just pass to get the extra points
The sec are gambling with people's futures
Obviously it's that persons choice what paper they sit, but still it's not a good idea. It's risky
I can see the arguement that more time is spent working on higher maths, but not if your naturally good at maths? Why get the bonus points then? What's the difference then for someone that's bad at languages but needs honours Irish for teaching? All their time will go into that and no bonus points
Again like I said it is the lazy way out which is so typical of this country at the moment

When I get my maths result in August I really am going to want to wave it in one of the secs faces and say PROJECT MATHS DOESN'T HELP ANYONE
A2 to B2, there's your proof....

Rant over

partyatmygaff

lorrieq wrote: »

@partyatmygaff

I'm tempted to tell you to get a life.

And obviously you couldn't resist temptation? :P

N64

It would be great If the Irish government could scrap the LC and go for a system of continuous assessment like what some of the Scandinavian states have implemented.

Most of my teachers are totally against the LC system as well so its not just the students.

lorrieq

partyatmygaff wrote: »

lorrieq wrote: »

@partyatmygaff

I'm tempted to tell you to get a life.

And obviously you couldn't resist temptation? :P

Nah, here I'm kidding. It sounds like you did well in your leaving. Its hard for us lads doing the bare minimum when the exams are tough!