maximum points?

Canard

I think the best idea would be to make OL easier, but that's a bit...stupid, considering the already huge gulf between HL and OL maths. I did HL maths and I found it to be the most difficult of all my subjects but I knew what I was getting into and I wanted the extra points - if someone's pissed over having to solve equations that are pointless, then just drop to OL and voila, your problem is solved.

HL is hard, thats why there was such a low take up rate. I dont know how it compares to international standards but I assume it was at its standard for a reason. Then again, project maths sort of destroys any point to maths at all, making it too hard for people like me who dont really care for maths and too basic for people who want to do it in college so I would question that "standard".

And Zaffy didnt say those equations were important for a successful economy...but as he said, maths is in general. A friend of mine is doing economics in tcd this year and needs a HC3 in maths. 25 points for HL Irish is beyond pointless and would be even more unfair than the people who get extra marks for answering through Irish.

TheBegotten

The idea behind extra points is NOT to incentivise people to do HL maths but to increase the standard of maths and science in the country. The idea is to reward comprehension of maths rather than encourage rote learning. Lowering the difficulty of the exam is counter-productive. Unfortunately, if you're not good at that, well sorry. Find somewhere that could use your skill set.

P.s. extra points for an arts subject is ludacrious. Have fun finding an economy that'll reward your knowledge of hurlamaboc or the signifigance of orange.

finality

validusername1 wrote: »

I clearly said ''hypothetically'' when I used Irish as an example. Also, if you read on, you'd see that I said ''I understand that Maths is an important life skill, but the majority of LC maths serves no purpose besides for the exam.. After school, if a person is not doing further study in maths or engineering, they are never going to have to solve things like ''Show that kx – t is a factor of 3 3 2 2 2 k x − k tx + ktx − t where k and t are non-zero real constants'' ever again.'' So I don't know why I should bother repeating myself? You're trying to say that questions like ''Show that kx – t is a factor of 3 3 2 2 2 k x − k tx + ktx − t where k and t are non-zero real constants'' are needed for a successful economy? Ha, right whatever ya say :rolleyes:

When am I ever going to use Le Chatelier's principle in real life? What use is an understanding of radioactivity? When will the ability to analyse Hamlet come in handy? When am I going to need to know how to dissect a heart?

Very little of what's taught in school is used later on in life, yet somehow it seems to be only maths which is seen as pointless.

Also, kx - t isn't a factor of that. Just saying.

Dwellingdweller

Patchy~ wrote: »

I think the best idea would be to make OL easier, but that's a bit...stupid, considering the already huge gulf between HL and OL maths. I did HL maths and I found it to be the most difficult of all my subjects but I knew what I was getting into and I wanted the extra points - if someone's pissed over having to solve equations that are pointless, then just drop to OL and voila, your problem is solved.

HL is hard, thats why there was such a low take up rate. I dont know how it compares to international standards but I assume it was at its standard for a reason. Then again, project maths sort of destroys any point to maths at all, making it too hard for people like me who dont really care for maths and too basic for people who want to do it in college so I would question that "standard".

And Zaffy didnt say those equations were important for a successful economy...but as he said, maths is in general. A friend of mine is doing economics in tcd this year and needs a HC3 in maths. 25 points for HL Irish is beyond pointless and would be even more unfair than the people who get extra marks for answering through Irish.

Yis all need to get over this, tbf. The extra marks are pretty much negligible from a B3 up, because after 70% you're only awarded 10% of the marks you didn't get. I.E if you get 280/400 which is just about a B3, you only get 10% of 120. Which is 12. 12 extra marks. Come on like. It's practically nothing.

And it decreases as you go up, when you get to the high Bs and As it's irrelevant. It's pretty much just a safety net for stupid people who are fluent at Irish not to fail subjects at Honours level. Like, say someone gets 150/400 (a fail), then the bonus marks are just enough to get that person a pass. So yeah, I'm a fluent Irish speaker but I did all my exams in English because I'm expecting good grades and the extra effort in learning them all in Irish would just not have been worth it.

But 25 extra points for Irish would be totally retarded too. There's a reason why HL Maths has gotten the 25 extra points, but the only thing the SEC and CAO need to be careful about is that course points don't get inflated by it. They'll probably realise a year or three too late that the HL maths points are inflating points for all colleges and do something overly drastic to fix it, like lower entry points for every course. Wouldn't surprise me. :rolleyes:

Canard

I'm not saying its a huge difference, but its still pretty unfair...I mean its not like they had to learn Irish to that standard then sit the exam. They speak it as a first language just like English except not all of us do. We all answer it in a language we're comfortable with, and in something like French or even maths, there is so little English/Irish to be written that those extra marks shouldnt even apply. I just think its a completely backwards thing to do, especially since most fluent Irish speakers will already have a HL A1 in the bag.

Like what if someone did their maths exam through English, failed, then someone who did it through Irish failed harder but got brought up for doing it in Irish, got into college instead? Unlikely but I'd say it's happened. Thats an argument for another day though. :P

Dwellingdweller

TheBegotten wrote: »

The idea behind extra points is NOT to incentivise people to do HL maths but to increase the standard of maths and science in the country. The idea is to reward comprehension of maths rather than encourage rote learning. Lowering the difficulty of the exam is counter-productive. Unfortunately, if you're not good at that, well sorry. Find somewhere that could use your skill set.

P.s. extra points for an arts subject is ludacrious. Have fun finding an economy that'll reward your knowledge of hurlamaboc or the signifigance of orange.

Lol at the hurlamaboc reference. I agree with ya, if they're going to teach Irish literature on the course they'd be better off teaching actual Irish literature, something like Caisleain Oir or the Táin Bó Cúailnge. Arts subjects are very important though, you can't just have automatons who derive and integrate all day. Maths is fascinating but it's only one half of the equation, so to speak.

However increasing the points for HL maths isn't going to increase the standard of maths and science at all. Nobody expects someone coming out of 2nd level to have an intricate knowledge of any field, especially Maths. That's the kind of knowledge you pick up in university. Better standard of Science and Maths? Ha? Science subjects and Maths are on the LC so that you can use them to get into college and ACTUALLY study them, in depth. The LC just scratches the surface of these topics.

Also, I don't understand this mad rush to turn people into Maths and Science geniuses by 22/23 years old. Learning is a lifelong experience, and trying to compress what might take one person years to fully grasp, and another months, into a crude one-size-fits-all system just invites disaster. The pressure that's put on people in our culture to know what they want to do when they're 18, and then fully apply themselves to it in 4 short years of study, is mad. Why not relax, work steadily, accumulate the knowledge over time instead of burning yourself out. That's how knowledge is built up over time.

There's no doubt that there's a cultural aversity to Science and Maths in Ireland (and much of the West) but that can be changed easily with time. If the government feel so strongly about the cultural attitude towards these things I'm sure they can just nationalise a few radio stations when we have our next housing boom. In the meantime, if you have an interest in Science and Maths, it's a good thing, it means you're preparing for the future. If not - develop one, pronto :P

finality

Dwellingdweller wrote: »

But 25 extra points for Irish would be totally retarded too. There's a reason why HL Maths has gotten the 25 extra points, but the only thing the SEC and CAO need to be careful about is that course points don't get inflated by it. They'll probably realise a year or three too late that the HL maths points are inflating points for all colleges and do something overly drastic to fix it, like lower entry points for every course. Wouldn't surprise me. :rolleyes:

They can't lower entry points because they have no control whatsoever over them. I think there should be a sticky about the way the points system functions.

Dwellingdweller

Patchy~ wrote: »

I'm not saying its a huge difference, but its still pretty unfair...I mean its not like they had to learn Irish to that standard then sit the exam. They speak it as a first language just like English except not all of us do. We all answer it in a language we're comfortable with, and in something like French or even maths, there is so little English/Irish to be written that those extra marks shouldnt even apply. I just think its a completely backwards thing to do, especially since most fluent Irish speakers will already have a HL A1 in the bag.

Like what if someone did their maths exam through English, failed, then someone who did it through Irish failed harder but got brought up for doing it in Irish, got into college instead? Unlikely but I'd say it's happened. Thats an argument for another day though. :P

You'd actually be very surprised :P Most of my class barely scraped high Cs/Bs in the mocks. And they'd speak Irish every day at home and at school. English is still spoken more though. It's like 60/40, in favour of English. As well as that the Irish around here is pure pidgin, people have conversations half in Irish and half in English. Plus there's the fact that most of the people in Ireland who'd speak Irish more than English probably haven't opened a textbook on Irish grammar in about 40-50 years. And they don't understand it any better than someone who's not fluent, really.

Irish native speakers such as myself (in my experience) struggle with understanding the grammar of the language as much as anyone else. Having a fluent convo in Irish with another native speaker is more of a case of saying 'fúck it' and just motoring on, who cares if you make a few mistakes. It's a very instinctive language at the spoken level, no one gives a flying shíte if you leave out a few seimhiús and urús here and there, that's not what Irish is about. But the exams try and make it like that even though Irish has never developed a 'formal' aspect like the Romance languages have.

Jeez I should do a thesis on this stuff, wadya think? :pac:

finality wrote: »

They can't lower entry points because they have no control whatsoever over them. I think there should be a sticky about the way the points system functions.

Yes they can. Why else would they be there? If they don't control the entry points then there should be no reason for the CAO to exist.

From what I know the CAO functions in one of two ways. It either:
1) Aggregates the points of all the applicants for a course, sticks the numbers in a function, the function spits out a value which is the cut-off point for the course.
2) The applicant who got in on the lowest points, their points become the cut-off point.

I've never seen anything to suggest it's definitely one or the other, but if it's #1 then the CAO definitely have control over the system and can change it to suit whatever changes they might want to make. If it's #2 (which I've seen people say before on here, I think it was you), then fair enough the CAO can't do f**k all about it. But some kind of mechanism has to be brought in to prevent points inflation, otherwise people who don't do HL maths will be put at a severe disadvantage in the LC and points for nearly every course will end up skyrocketing.

Canard

Even still, I just think getting marks for it is unfair. I wont lose marks in geography for spelling words wrong so I doubt I'd lose marks for spelling them wrong through Irish, and I'm quite good at Irish too so its not as if I'm one of those people complaining because its out of my grasp, but on the whole I dont think extra marks / points are fair (though the HL maths points are, it was to match international standards as said already).

And the CAO points works like this: 60 apply for a course, 50 meet the matriculation, 20 places - highest 20 points get it, lowest of the 20 becomes the cutoff. Because no one can control someone's points (in theory an arts course could become 625), no one can lower them.

QueenOfLeon

finality wrote: »

They can't lower entry points because they have no control whatsoever over them. I think there should be a sticky about the way the points system functions.

Erm...there is :P

AllyMcFearless

It's a serious predicament, because if it does effect points then people that aren't taking HL will be short.. although in my opinion, I reckon it'll stay that you CAN achieve 625 but the highest for any course won't exceed 600.

Because with the extra 25 points, it should shift some pressure off people as those 25 points can boost up other subjects majorly.

I dropped to pass maths the year before it was announced, glad I did but also kind of disappointed as it was so easy. Should be an in between level..

iluvgreenday246

finality wrote: »

When am I ever going to use Le Chatelier's principle in real life?

What?? Le chateliers principle is the basis for industrial chemistry Its actually vital if you go into that area but its just that some things in maths are based on what seem like almost imaginary concepts that cant be used anywhere in any job

Togepi

Dwellingdweller wrote: »

Having a fluent convo in Irish with another native speaker is more of a case of saying 'fúck it' and just motoring on, who cares if you make a few mistakes. It's a very instinctive language at the spoken level, no one gives a flying shíte if you leave out a few seimhiús and urús here and there, that's not what Irish is about.

This is why I (used to) love Irish! The Leaving Cert (round two especially) has put me off it completely, when it used to be my favourite subject. I would love it if they put a little less emphasis on perfect grammar, but mainly, they need to get rid of the prós and poetry completely. It's useless if you want to know how to speak Irish. It would be epic if they got random fluent Irish speakers who didn't teach the language to mark students in the orals. Obviously that'd be impossible, but it would be a brilliant way of stopping rote-learning.

FaoiSin

I'm hoping they'll be lenient on the grammar marking in Irish this year. The only reason I learn essays by heart for it is so I don't make mistakes. It's too hard to get everything done on the day with perfect grammar especially if you're not fluent.

Dwellingdweller

Togepi wrote: »

This is why I (used to) love Irish! The Leaving Cert (round two especially) has put me off it completely, when it used to be my favourite subject. I would love it if they put a little less emphasis on perfect grammar, but mainly, they need to get rid of the prós and poetry completely. It's useless if you want to know how to speak Irish. It would be epic if they got random fluent Irish speakers who didn't teach the language to mark students in the orals. Obviously that'd be impossible, but it would be a brilliant way of stopping rote-learning.

Ah I know, Irish is so fun to speak properly like What I think they should do is make Irish a 25 bonus points subject but make the prós and filiocht sections actually... Decent. Like, have proper Irish books for prós, (make a single text question similar to Hamlet in English or something), make the poetry a challenge and improve the standard of essay writing.

However even though the future of Irish lies in it as a spoken language, having a really good technical knowledge of it is great too. I think there should be more emphasis on actually knowing what's going on, grammar-wise. And Irish should definitely be optional - but add in the 25 extra points and a literature course which is actually challenging to balance it out.

Also, guess I got told about the CAO thing. :pac: But, measures should still be taken to prevent grade inflation, in my opinion.

F9Devil

Dwellingdweller wrote: »

What I think they should do is make Irish a 25 bonus points subject

Togepi

Dwellingdweller wrote: »

Ah I know, Irish is so fun to speak properly like What I think they should do is make Irish a 25 bonus points subject but make the prós and filiocht sections actually... Decent. Like, have proper Irish books for prós, (make a single text question similar to Hamlet in English or something), make the poetry a challenge and improve the standard of essay writing.

However even though the future of Irish lies in it as a spoken language, having a really good technical knowledge of it is great too. I think there should be more emphasis on actually knowing what's going on, grammar-wise. And Irish should definitely be optional - but add in the 25 extra points and a literature course which is actually challenging to balance it out.

Also, guess I got told about the CAO thing. :pac: But, measures should still be taken to prevent grade inflation, in my opinion.

Definitely don't think they should give 25 extra points for Irish. Ever. :P I'm leaning more towards making it optional for the Leaving at this stage (never thought I'd say that). Surely people will be more likely to keep it on with 40% for the oral! But I think there should just be four or five subjects for the Leaving, so if that was the case it would obviously have to be optional.

As for Maths, if they're giving 25 extra points, they shouldn't be making the course easier.

Dwellingdweller

Togepi wrote: »

Definitely don't think they should give 25 extra points for Irish. Ever. :P I'm leaning more towards making it optional for the Leaving at this stage (never thought I'd say that). Surely people will be more likely to keep it on with 40% for the oral! But I think there should just be four or five subjects for the Leaving, so if that was the case it would obviously have to be optional.

As for Maths, if they're giving 25 extra points, they shouldn't be making the course easier.

Hmm, there's a secondary agenda at play though, which is keeping Irish alive in young people. I'm quite blessed with Irish because I'm fluent, etc, but it seems like most people who've sat the LC see Irish as a terrible thing that should just be gotten rid of. Pretty sad really.

The reason I suggest that 25 extra points should be given is because it's an important part of our heritage. The reason I suggest that it should be made optional at the same time is so people who don't want to do it don't have to. But it should be made more comprehensive as well. Like, there are a lot of non-fluent Irish speakers who sit the LC and scrape through Irish . The paper is too easy for fluent speakers and too hard for non-fluent speakers.

As well as that, people don't really take an interest in Irish. They just learn what they have to for the exam. That's mostly because it's hard to take an interest in it unless you live in the Gaeltacht, it's not a language spoken all over the world like French, English, etc. so people don't really feel like it's useful to them.

And yeah, HL maths should definitely stay at the same level of difficulty as it's at now!

F9Devil wrote: »

You didn't see the bit where I suggested making it optional, did you. :rolleyes:

Togepi

People would still be forced to do it though, just for the 25 points! It would basically be compulsory for anyone able to pass it at higher level. And it would give a completely unfair advantage to people who are fluent.

As for Maths, I meant they shouldn't make it easier than it was last year, which they are by introducing Project Maths!

Dwellingdweller

Togepi wrote: »

People would still be forced to do it though, just for the 25 points! It would basically be compulsory for anyone able to pass it at higher level. And it would give a completely unfair advantage to people who are fluent.

As for Maths, I meant they shouldn't make it easier than it was last year, which they are by introducing Project Maths!

Yeah that would give fluent speakers (like me!) a bit of an unfair advantage. :pac: Whatever, I'm just thinking out loud here haha. I thought Project Maths was making maths harder overall? That's the gist I've been getting :P

FaoiSin

Project Maths is harder than the old Paper 2 imo. The old Paper 2 was quite predictable.

Togepi

Dwellingdweller wrote: »

Yeah that would give fluent speakers (like me!) a bit of an unfair advantage. :pac: Whatever, I'm just thinking out loud here haha. I thought Project Maths was making maths harder overall? That's the gist I've been getting :P

Is it? I dunno, like the old paper was obviously predictable, but that doesn't mean it was easier, predictions don't always work out. :P I thought the new paper was easier, last year the highest Maths grade in our school was a C, this year that'll be one of the lowest! Then again, last year's class had two different teachers over the two years, so that messed things up a little for them. BUT, this year there's surely a few weaker students in the class because of the bonus points, so you'd think they'd fail the new course, but they won't, whereas they might have failed the old one.

I find the new course way easier than the old one anyway, but when it comes to Maths I'm different to most people. I'm usually the one who comes up with a different way of getting the answer, or who ignores the formula 'cause it makes more sense to me to just think about the problem.

finality

QueenOfLeon wrote: »

Erm...there is :P

I read it, it doesn't explain how the entry points for a course are arrived at. :P

iluvgreenday246 wrote: »

What?? Le chateliers principle is the basis for industrial chemistry Its actually vital if you go into that area but its just that some things in maths are based on what seem like almost imaginary concepts that cant be used anywhere in any job

Yes but I'm not going into industrial chemistry so it's useless to me. Maths is vital for many fields, engineering, computer science, actuarial science, physics, chemistry, anything in finance, further study of maths itself of course... People only think maths is useless because they're not taught its applications. Like we're taught how to do calculations involving matrices and complex numbers but we're never taught what they're used for.

F9Devil

Dwellingdweller wrote: »

You didn't see the bit where I suggested making it optional, did you. :rolleyes:

I did, it's still the worst idea. Irish is the last subject that should receive an extra 25 points.

Canard

The best incentive for HL Irish would honestly be to make it like the rest of the languages, and unless there's some awful implication of that there's no reason not to do it...40% for the oral is a step in the right direction though! But imagine if you could use it to matriculate instead of Irish + a European language, and imagine if the exam was just things like reaction pieces. Everyone would love it because it'd be so much more doable, and yeah 14 years preparing for that is a bit much, but imo its far harder than French.

Namlub

Dwellingdweller wrote: »

Ah I know, Irish is so fun to speak properly like What I think they should do is make Irish a 25 bonus points subject but make the prós and filiocht sections actually... Decent. Like, have proper Irish books for prós, (make a single text question similar to Hamlet in English or something), make the poetry a challenge and improve the standard of essay writing.

However even though the future of Irish lies in it as a spoken language, having a really good technical knowledge of it is great too. I think there should be more emphasis on actually knowing what's going on, grammar-wise. And Irish should definitely be optional - but add in the 25 extra points and a literature course which is actually challenging to balance it out.

Also, guess I got told about the CAO thing. :pac: But, measures should still be taken to prevent grade inflation, in my opinion.

Why though? In my experience, the reason Irish as a subject gets so much criticism is because it isn't taught as a language, it's taught like English when frankly, the majority of students outside of Gaelscoils/Gaeltachts aren't at that standard and making it even more literature-heavy would just turn people off even more.

Canard

The literature is the worst part. It was actually only after the mocks that I realized 25/30 marks go for your information and 5 for your Irish...where's the sense in that

Namlub

Ohhh, I was wondering how I got full marks for my Geibheann answer...

partyatmygaff

Namlub wrote: »

Why though? In my experience, the reason Irish as a subject gets so much criticism is because it isn't taught as a language, it's taught like English when frankly, the majority of students outside of Gaelscoils/Gaeltachts aren't at that standard and making it even more literature-heavy would just turn people off even more.

There's an issue with removing the literature from the Irish course.

The SEC and Government (Although they would never admit it) know fully well that Irish will never regain its position as Ireland's primary language. Teaching it as a tool of communication like French instead of it being the culture/history/language subject that it is now would make mandatory Irish a complete and utter waste of time.

I can appreciate being taught Irish history/culture through the country's old language. At least there's some interesting (If at times trivial) knowledge being taught in the subject.

Togepi

partyatmygaff wrote: »

I can appreciate being taught Irish history/culture through the country's old language. At least there's some interesting (If at times trivial) knowledge being taught in the subject.

Well they've gotten rid of Stair na Gaeilge now so we're not learning much about Irish history or culture anymore. I actually found the Stair fairly interesting, but the way it was taught was pointless. "Here, learn these paragraphs off and write them down." The only part of it I actually remembered was the bit I learned in the Gaeltacht, where they explained it through Irish, so it was actually interesting. Even people who don't just rote learn everything for Irish don't learn a whole lot from the poetry and prós. Maybe a little from An Triail, but that's it.