subjects for leaving cert

torifoster97

hi, recently moved over from England and i am starting 5th year in september. i am looking to pursue medicine and am wondering what subjects are good to take over here as in england you only take three.

also i was just wondering what is the difference between maths and honours maths??

and what are the compulsory subjects

thanks

MomijiHime

Most students do 6-8 subjects for leaving cert. Compulsory subjects are English, Irish (you can be exempt from this if you don't have any Irish) and Maths, though some schools make a foreign language compulosry too.
A lot of university courses require you to have studied specific lc subjects so you should check out the websites of different medical courses to find the requirements.
I haven't actually started lc maths yet but I'd advise you to do higher level unless you find maths extremely difficult. For doing higher level maths, you'll get an extra 25 points (625 is the max. amount of points you can get, and points decide what courses you can do -medicine is needs very high points) so even if you get a C in HL maths you'll get more points than if you got an A in OL.

This was a kind of lazy explanation but I hope it helped somewhat and you settle into the Irish education system ok

is mise spartacus

*You need a HC3 in Chemistry (you have to do chemistry and either biology or physics)*

and you also need to do the HPAT which is an admissions test. Your leaving cert results and HPAT result are combined for your entry to medicine. (I think the points are like 730+?) hope I helped a bit. You also need to do a language

*ignore this OP, I apologise for being incorrect

Raspberry Fileds

is mise spartacus wrote: »

You need a HC3 in Chemistry (you have to do chemistry and either biology or physics) and you also need to do the HPAT which is an admissions test. Your leaving cert results and HPAT result are combined for your entry to medicine. (I think the points are like 730+?) hope I helped a bit. You also need to do a language

Only UCC Medicine requires Chemistry.

is mise spartacus

Raspberry Fileds wrote: »

Only UCC Medicine requires Chemistry.

I was going by UCC as that is all I know of, sorry for the confusion OP

rainbowtrout

torifoster97 wrote: »

hi, recently moved over from England and i am starting 5th year in september. i am looking to pursue medicine and am wondering what subjects are good to take over here as in england you only take three.

also i was just wondering what is the difference between maths and honours maths??

and what are the compulsory subjects

thanks

All subjects for Leaving Cert are available at Higher Level and Ordinary Level. Commonly they are called Honours and Pass.

Ordinary Level is a more basic version of the Higher Level course. Everything in the Ordinary level course would be covered in the higher level course but in more detail, and there may be topics on the higher level course that don't appear at all on the Ordinary Level course.

For compulsory subjects like English, Irish (I'm assuming you're English so you will be exempt from Irish) and Maths, schools divide classes on the basis of whether or not they are doing Higher Level or Ordinary level from the start. For subjects with smaller numbers students doing Higher and Ordinary Level are mixed in together with everyone following the Higher Level course as it covers both, and at the end of 2 years you choose which level you want to sit for your exams.

It would be similar to the way there are AS and A levels in England. AS level would be like our ordinary level only that you complete all the work in year one and go on to A level in year 2. We do everything over 2 years and you choose the level at the end of the two years. Although as I said, for some subjects with large numbers students choose which level they are going to do at the start of fifth year based on what they did for Junior Cert (our version of GCSEs).

Biology, Chemistry and Physics would be obvious choices for medicine. You don't have to have all three. Some universities in Ireland require 2 science subjects and some only require one. Some universities here also have a foreign language requirement for entry so it might be wise to take French/German/Spanish as a subject for this reason.

As was already mentioned, we also have an aptitude test called the HPAT which you sit during 6th year, if you are applying for medicine. It is similar to the GAMSAT exam in the UK. The score you get on that combined with the grades you get in your Leaving Cert exams will determine if you are accepted for medicine or not.

That part is not important now. Get in contact with the school you are enrolling in and find out what subjects are available to you. At this stage of the year the school will have timetables organised for september and you will be able to choose subjects from different blocks.

You will need at least 6 subjects for Leaving Cert. If you are not taking Irish, you might consider taking an extra subject outside school.

If you were achieving A*-C grade in maths at GCSE Level you should be looking at Higher Level Maths.

Realistically you will need to do all of your subjects at higher level if you want to get into medicine in Ireland as Leaving Cert grades are translated into a points score for admission to university here and Higher Level grades are awarded more points than ordinary level grades.


Also unlike the UK where there are several different exam boards that set A level exams, our exams are centrally organised by the State Examinations Commission (part of the Department of Education). Everyone in the country sits the same exams at the same time each year. All past examination papers for all subjects at Higher Level and Ordinary Level are available online for free as well as their marking schemes.

If you want to have a look at them to see the difference between levels go to https://www.examinations.ie/index.php?l=en&mc=en&sc=ep

Click on the Terms & Conditions box.

Choose Exam Papers> A Year> Leaving Cert (not Leaving Cert Applied)> Subject from the drop down lists that appear. Once you have chosen a subject links for four papers will appear. EV after a paper stands for English version and IV for Irish version. In English and Maths there are two papers to sit at each level so there will be more papers there.

Hope that helps.