***2015 LC Maths Paper 1 - Ordinary Level - June 5th***

randylonghorn

You feel like that now, but you would be surprised how much you probably did get down. You would be surprised how attempt marks can build up in maths; the correctors are trying to give you marks for any knowledge you show, not crucify you because you didn't get it out completely.

It's like this: you can give up and flush it down the loo, or you can focus on Paper 2, and hope for the best.

Which sounds like the plan with *some* chance of bearing fruit?

jgirl18

Did anyone actually run out of time? I did because it took me so long trying to figure out stuff to even write down. I can't believe that question on equilateral or whatever it was. Racking my brain for something that I hadn't even the foggiest. I don't recall ever seeing such a question but there you go. I definitely didn't expect to leave any blansks on that paper. Again not good reflection on ordinary levels students ability in my opinion. We all could have done a whole lot better.

otter13

I'm praying paper two goes well, I honestly held back tears in that exam. All I am hoping for is a pass and I did both mocks and passed them(examcraft easy paper DEB difficult but not near as bad as that) I got small parts of questions right but there was so much of that paper I couldn't even attempt... 😞

STEEL COMET

What y'all get for q1 c??? €1= $1.24 and €1=£0.83. Find the dollar to sterling rate ie. 1$=£ x.xx

I got £0.59

sushua

Chicharito11 wrote: »

Iv been told that but it's not really worth anything to me, some questions were so hard and random I could barely put down any attempts at them.

Same with me.. I know you're supposed to write something for everything but there was so many things that I just had no idea so just left blank definitely didn't pass ugh

otter13

sushua wrote: »

Same with me.. I know you're supposed to write something for everything but there was so many things that I just had no idea so just left blank definitely didn't pass ugh

Same as me, normally I can attempt it and get a low partial credit but for so many I just had no idea where to begin, that's why I am most worried about not passing... That paper really had an effect on people who aren't strong at maths

Ainemc18

DottiSka wrote: »

I feel so glad knowing I at least got the same answer as someone else. I had to use the Quadratic formula for that question and I got the same answer as you.

Oh thank god, I got them values aswell, feeling slightly less depressed

Paddyg96

I dropped down from higher a few months back and gave up maths as a subject in class, just did other work in it. Found the exam relatively easy but I can see why people found it hard.

For a lot of my C part answers I just worked it out in my head / calculator, as they didn't specify that you had to show work if I get the right answer do I get full marks?

Also I got 50,000 km for the last one

ShaunDaSheep

STEEL COMET wrote: »

What y'all get for q1 c??? €1= $1.24 and €1=£0.83. Find the dollar to sterling rate ie. 1$=£ x.xx

I got £0.59

haha thats what i got too. pretty sure we got it wrong though but oh well

Bsd

Anyone have some solutions?

patriciaf6

Paddyg96 wrote: »

I dropped down from higher a few months back and gave up maths as a subject in class, just did other work in it. Found the exam relatively easy but I can see why people found it hard.

For a lot of my C part answers I just worked it out in my head / calculator, as they didn't specify that you had to show work if I get the right answer do I get full marks?

Also I got 50,000 km for the last one

Can you explain how you get 50,000 and also how you get value at 7.5 years? It's an exponential graph but I can't find a pattern without approximating only?

ShaunDaSheep

to get the value of her car after 7.5 years did anyone just take away 20% from the 6 year price and then 10% away from the 7 year price to get the half a year ?

STEEL COMET

STEEL COMET wrote: »

What y'all get for q1 c??? €1= $1.24 and €1=£0.83. Find the dollar to sterling rate ie. 1$=£ x.xx

I got £0.59

124 cents = 83p
1cent = 83/124 = 0.669p
100cent(1$) = 0.669*100 =66.9p
1$ = £0.67

leavingcert15

1.50÷15=0.01
1.5÷10=0.15
25000-22500=2500
0.01x+2500=0.015x
2500=0.05x
X=2500÷0.05
X=50,000km
sickened i left it out in the exam seeing how easy it is now

simplyno1

Although it is true what is being said that the marking scheme will be adjusted accordingly, SEC really are at fault here... The same goes for the HL paper. It was far too easy. The difficulty of the OL paper can't be fixed by changing the marking scheme. An A or B OL student could end up with a D on this test, because they panicked at the difficulty and didn't even attempt alot of stuff. A D or C student could end up with a B1 because they attempted everything and the marking scheme will favour those who attempted everything. Saying SEC shouldn't be slandered over this is just stupid... that paper was ridiculous and it will mean ALOT of students get unfairly marked.

Kremin

simplyno1 wrote: »

Although it is true what is being said that the marking scheme will be adjusted accordingly, SEC really are at fault here... The same goes for the HL paper. It was far too easy. The difficulty of the OL paper can't be fixed by changing the marking scheme. An A or B OL student could end up with a D on this test, because they panicked at the difficulty and didn't even attempt alot of stuff. A D or C student could end up with a B1 because they attempted everything and the marking scheme will favour those who attempted everything. Saying SEC shouldn't be slandered over this is just stupid... that paper was ridiculous and it will mean ALOT of students get unfairly marked.

A lot of people on FB who dropped from Hl to OL in september said the paper was great for them... I think most people just panicked and completely through everything out the window.
I still think last years HL paper was easier than this years, but a lot of people struggled with it this year so calling it "too easy" is a bit unfair for those who stuck with it.

not.a.robot97

TheSunderz wrote: »

What did people get for the last question ? something like 50010km ? also did people use the trapezoidal rule to get the area of the parallelogram or whatever it was called ?

I broke the shape down into triangles and a rectangle and got 18cm

Peregrine

not.a.robot97 wrote: »

I broke the shape down into triangles and a rectangle and got 18cm

Yeah, the tricky part of that question was finding out the best way to break down the quadrilateral i.e. break it down so that the co-ordinates of the vertices (corners) of the smaller traingles and rectangle were nice whole numbers that you can find out from the graph.

simplyno1

Kremin wrote: »

A lot of people on FB who dropped from Hl to OL in september said the paper was great for them... I think most people just panicked and completely through everything out the window.
I still think last years HL paper was easier than this years, but a lot of people struggled with it this year so calling it "too easy" is a bit unfair for those who stuck with it.

Well in my opinion the financial maths was OL level. In comparison to how difficult OL was this year (compared to 2014) HL was easy (compared to 2014) of course you could still have found HL hard. I didn't get a lot of Q8 or the 2nd part of complex numbers... hopefully SEC aren't too harsh on the markings for HL.. although I know they kind of have to be to fit the bell curve.

Kremin

simplyno1 wrote: »

Well in my opinion the financial maths was OL level. In comparison to how difficult OL was this year (compared to 2014) HL was easy (compared to 2014) of course you could still have found HL hard. I didn't get a lot of Q8 or the 2nd part of complex numbers... hopefully SEC aren't too harsh on the markings for HL.. although I know they kind of have to be to fit the bell curve.

If you didn't know how to do the first two parts of that financial maths question you would be fairly snookered. But yeah, they should have made that more difficult. They could have easily said verify with a geometric sequence like they usually do. Also just keep in mind it was only a 25 marker, usually financial maths comes up as a long question, so that might be why it was more simplistic this time around.

Midkemia

As someone who did this paper last year, I was very surprised to hear how difficult it was this year because I found last years very handy and I had done ordinary since 2nd year. Seems a bit ridiculous that higher level people are coming out saying how grand their paper is and ordinary people are coming out in tears.

Interestingly 4.5% failed honours maths last year in comparison to 8.7% failing ordinary maths last year. There was also more A's, B's and C's for honours maths instead of ordinary, with ordinary taking more D's. So all of this actually says that the ordinary maths paper is too difficult, and yet they made this years exam harder :pac:

Kremin

Midkemia wrote: »

As someone who did this paper last year, I was very surprised to hear how difficult it was this year because I found last years very handy and I had done ordinary since 2nd year. Seems a bit ridiculous that higher level people are coming out saying how grand their paper is and ordinary people are coming out in tears.

Interestingly 4.5% failed honours maths last year in comparison to 8.7% failing ordinary maths last year. There was also more A's, B's and C's for honours maths instead of ordinary, with ordinary taking more D's. So all of this actually says that the ordinary maths paper is too difficult, and yet they made this years exam harder :pac:

Those stats could be like that due to twice as many people doing OL maths.
A lot of ordinary students only do it to pass, not to count for points so inevitably they won't study, whereas I'm sure HL maths took the majority of time for a lot of people.

Further proof of this: 4.40 fail rate of OL students in Irish 2013, HL was 0.40

A rate at HL Irish:5.3% OL: .6
20% of OL got a D wheras it was only 9% for HL

Welllmade1745

I have to say I went into the exam fairly confident and then it all went down hill- it was my throwaway subject as I do all other honours subject but I need a c3 as an entry requirement for my course- looks like I have to change my cao form/ every time I think about I feel ill.

I heard however that paper 2 will probably we easier because paper 1 was made sooo hard.

randylonghorn

Firstly, do not take a course off your CAO for fear of not getting your grade in maths ...you may be surprised, and in any case if you don't it will just skip to your next choice.

Secondly, check if the college does an alternative maths exam later in the summer; many do.

Kremin wrote: »

Those stats could be like that due to twice as many people doing OL maths.
A lot of ordinary students only do it to pass, not to count for points so inevitably they won't study, whereas I'm sure HL maths took the majority of time for a lot of people.

Further proof of this: 4.40 fail rate of OL students in Irish 2013, HL was 0.40

A rate at HL Irish:5.3% OL: .6
20% of OL got a D wheras it was only 9% for HL

The main reason I suspect that fail rates are low at HL is because if people think they might fail they won't do it in the first place, or will drop towards the end of sixth year.

OL students don't always have the option to drop to FL if they need at least a pass in maths for their course.

skippy1977

randylonghorn wrote: »

The main reason I suspect that fail rates are low at HL is because if people think they might fail they won't do it in a he first place, or will drop towards the end of sixth year.

OL students don't always have the option to drop to FL if they need at least a pass in maths for their course.

No the main reason is that the scripts were marked 3 times last year to make the marking scheme so easy that it was almost impossible to fail. We had a look at a number of rechecks and what is going on is an embarrassment. Papers corrected in Red....then recorrected in Green....then recorrected in some other colour to bring the fail rate down....down....down....and totally fabricate results. The newspapers then report huge numbers taking and passing Maths. It's a disgrace and totally undermines the subject and makes a mockery of the 25 points.

That's why this Paper was below the usual standard (I wouldn't say easy)...to save on ink in the correction process!!

randylonghorn

If that's the only reason, funny that the low fail rates at HL applies to more than maths, isn't it? ... Something that might be better explained by the logic I suggested.

But don't let me interrupt your party political broadcast!

skippy1977

randylonghorn wrote: »

If that's the only reason, funny that the low fail rates at HL applies to more than maths, isn't it? ... Something that might be better explained by the logic I suggested.

But don't let me interrupt your party political broadcast!

Well sure look you can come up with a theory of what you think is going on or I can tell you what did happen based on my experience of viewing papers and discussions with people who corrected papers. I'm talking massive numbers of people failing that were brought up through remarking the scripts.

I've no agenda here. I love Maths, I like the practical approach of the Project Maths. But the assessment, the points, the removal of key topics necessary for 3rd level. It's not right...

randylonghorn

skippy1977 wrote: »

Well sure look you can come up with a theory of what you think is going on or I can tell you what did happen ..

Thanks for that, as someone who has worked in education for years I really appreciate you taking the time to set me straight. :cool:

I have no doubt there were amendments to the marking scheme, and re-corrections, there often are on any subject, there were with the "old" maths syllabus and as PM is a new syllabus which is just bedding in, it's going to happen more often.

(And I'm not especially a PM fan btw)

But the main reason why fail rates generally across the board at HL are low is because people who think they might fail tend to drop to OL unless they specifically need a HL grade in that subject for their course ... Something the proposed new points system is meant to alleviate.

skippy1977

randylonghorn wrote: »

Thanks for that, as someone who has worked in education for years I really appreciate you taking the time to set me straight. :cool:

I have no doubt there were amendments to the marking scheme, and re-corrections, there often are on any subject, there were with the "old" maths syllabus and as PM is a new syllabus which is just bedding in, it's going to happen more often.

(And I'm not especially a PM fan btw)

But the main reason why fail rates generally across the board at HL are low is because people who think they might fail tend to drop to OL unless they specifically need a HL grade in that subject for their course ... Something the proposed new points system is meant to alleviate.

You know I think we'll have to disagree on this one. I am willing to jump down off the horse for a second to concede that my experience is limited to Maths. I think there is a different dynamic in Maths at the minute (the new course, the bonus points, the complete lack of options on the paper in comparison to every other Leaving Cert subject).
I've been through the normal recheck process, and what has happened in Maths rechecks in recent years is considerably different that the rechecks that took place pre-project Maths. I can tell you of a sample of scripts that were sent back with 15 to 20% fails....remarked to bring it down to 10%...and remarked again to bring that down to 4 or 5%.

But you know what, when the results come out and more people than ever have passed higher level Maths, you tell yourself how great it is that we have improved the standard of Maths at second level.

randylonghorn

skippy1977 wrote:

But you know what, when the results come out and more people than ever have passed higher level Maths, you tell yourself how great it is that we have improved the standard of Maths at second level.

I won't, because as I said I'm not a fan of PM, and for that matter I felt the standard had fallen even on the old course in latter years ... And don't even start me on the number of people in shops who can't figure out change without the till telling them!

Nor am I a great believer in the 25 points across the board thing for that matter.

I'm not as convinced as you are of the great conspiracy though ...