Leaving Cert HL Maths Help Needed

Arleamaris

Hey guys! I'm a bit desperate at the moment. I'm currently in 6th year, and i'm studying higher level maths.

My main problem is that I rarely understand the questions. I am adamant about staying up at higher level, simply because I need the points. The questions in my maths book are usually fine, however I can rarely answer even the simplest questions in the papers. The marking schemes don't really come in handy either, because I do not understand the methods themselves, or why specific steps are taken.

My main problems lie with paper 1. Paper 2 seems to be alright, although I have some bumps here and there, however it at least makes sense to me. Paper 1, on the other hand, does not.

To get to the point, I honestly need help and advice when it comes to my maths paper. Although I know I almost definitely will not fail the paper since paper 2 will be my savior, I still need a miracle in terms of paper 1. Any forms of advice will be greatly appreciated. I was thinking about possibly getting a revision book, however I don't really know which one would be the best. My school does after-school classes for maths, but that doesn't really help me either, since we just look over the papers and the marking schemes, which I can easily do at home anyway. I was thinking about starting up grinds, but i'm not sure if it would be worth it, since it's quite late in the year, with the mocks currently going on.

Anyway, sorry for writing a marvelous novel. As I said before, any forms of help would be amazing. Thanks in advance!

Scully96

for me, i have the sample exam papers with a book of the solutions from educate.ie and they certainly seem to help, the solutions book is essential if you want to see what methods are used and what examiners are looking for. for grinds, i wouldn't recommend going to the institute or attending revision classes either after school or elsewhere, one on one grinds for maths in particular is the best way to learn maths and it certainly worked for me. if you don't want to pay a lot for a grind you could ask a friend who did well in maths before, thats what i did haha but ye, one on one maths for help is certainly the way forward and i'd definitely recommend the educate.ie sample papers and also the solutions book. good luck in your exams! hope this helped,

Conor

Kremin

There are always people here that can help you. Is there any questions in particular you're having difficulties with? I can try help.

Arleamaris

Honestly, it would be impossible for me to be specific in any way. I have found that I understand things a lot easier when they are in the form of an image or a diagram, which helps me out with paper 2, therefore I have a far greater understanding of it. We were taught in one of the worst ways possible. The teacher would do a sample question from the book on the board, and would tell us to essentially copy the method, and apply it to other questions. She never really explained why she was doing specific steps, therefore I never really got an understanding of the specific areas. I don't really want to be "that" student who just blames the teacher, but telling me to just copy and paste the method from the example in the book isn't really acceptable, in my opinion.

After briefly flicking through the papers, I find that I struggle the most with complex numbers, sequences and series, and logs. I find the phrasing (or lack thereof) of the paper quite frustrating, too. I've noticed that I become so overwhelmed when the question mainly consists of symbols and numbers. Hopefully my little rant is in any way helpful. Thanks.

Kremin

Arleamaris wrote: »

Honestly, it would be impossible for me to be specific in any way. I have found that I understand things a lot easier when they are in the form of an image or a diagram, which helps me out with paper 2, therefore I have a far greater understanding of it. We were taught in one of the worst ways possible. The teacher would do a sample question from the book on the board, and would tell us to essentially copy the method, and apply it to other questions. She never really explained why she was doing specific steps, therefore I never really got an understanding of the specific areas. I don't really want to be "that" student who just blames the teacher, but telling me to just copy and paste the method from the example in the book isn't really acceptable, in my opinion.

After briefly flicking through the papers, I find that I struggle the most with complex numbers, sequences and series, and logs. I find the phrasing (or lack thereof) of the paper quite frustrating, too. I've noticed that I become so overwhelmed when the question mainly consists of symbols and numbers. Hopefully my little rant is in any way helpful. Thanks.

A lot of maths teachers (at least in my experience) are actually really good at maths, they just can't teach it. Like my friends OL maths class... for proofs he just wrote them on the board and assumed everyone would understand them and skipped on. He is very good at maths though, he can do questions quite rapidly.. he just has difficulty explaining why and how something works/is used.

That's why I think maths is my best subject. My teacher takes time to explain concepts and makes sure we all understand them instead of just diving straight in and showing us the golden method that will work in all cases!

Arleamaris

Kremin wrote: »

A lot of maths teachers (at least in my experience) are actually really good at maths, they just can't teach it. Like my friends OL maths class... for proofs he just wrote them on the board and assumed everyone would understand them and skipped on. He is very good at maths though, he can do questions quite rapidly.. he just has difficulty explaining why and how something works/is used.

That's why I think maths is my best subject. My teacher takes time to explain concepts and makes sure we all understand them instead of just diving straight in and showing us the golden method that will work in all cases!

I know exactly how that feels. My maths teacher honestly does understand what she is talking about, but she just seems to assume we do, too. Then you have those guys who just want to move on, despite the fact that neither the class, or they themselves actually know what's going on. Their logic boggles my mind.

In any case, do you have any advice for someone like me, who honestly does not understand the concepts? Although using the same golden method may work for some people, it just frustrates me, because I personally want to understand what i'm doing before I start answering questions. I suppose that's mainly what somewhat fuels my growing dislike for maths. Alas, i'll have to power on, and find some way to make it work.

Kremin

Arleamaris wrote: »

I know exactly how that feels. My maths teacher honestly does understand what she is talking about, but she just seems to assume we do, too. Then you have those guys who just want to move on, despite the fact that neither the class, or they themselves actually know what's going on. Their logic boggles my mind.

In any case, do you have any advice for someone like me, who honestly does not understand the concepts? Although using the same golden method may work for some people, it just frustrates me, because I personally want to understand what i'm doing before I start answering questions. I suppose that's mainly what somewhat fuels my growing dislike for maths. Alas, i'll have to power on, and find some way to make it work.

The golden rule was kind of a joke, honestly the questions change year to year and methods you use need to change with them. I can only give advice on what worked for me, but when I was doing exam papers I would often use examit to get the solutions. Sometimes they were useless and sometimes they were great. If I was ever stuck I searched for the question on google. I've only been using boards for a few weeks now but so far I've received a lot of help from people regarding some questions.

I'm not saying this applies to you but sometimes it's just nerves that get to people in exams. Like my friend looked at the exam papers, he knew exactly what to do but started panicking and ended up using the trapezoidal rule on a cubic equation. I'm sorry if my ramblings haven't helped at all, if you ever need help or are confused by a question PM me or post it on here, pretty much always someone can help.

lotus2

Sounds like you need to go through the concepts with someone one to one. The exam questions in paper one are unusally not very difficult maths but are really testing your understanding of the concepts. Maybe a couple of sessions with your teacher or grinds is what you need.