Sample paper for Junior Cycle Science

rainbowtrout

So the sample papers for JC Science and Business have been put up on examinations.ie


Being a science teacher I have been curious as to what to expect given my disdain for the new syllabus.

To say I'm horrified by how little science they need to know is an understatement. :mad::mad::mad:

Inspector Coptoor

Agree wholeheartedly

As the exam is worth 90% and is at common level, I can see a lot of students ending up with distinctions, certainly a lot more than the 2% of students they envisage to get the distinction grade.

maynooth_rules

Welcome to the future of Junior Cycle studies. Shambolic.

rainbowtrout

I actually thought yesterday when I read the paper that a decent sixth class student could definitely have a go and pass it no bother without ever having studied JC science. And that’s really not what should happen.

happywithlife

We discussed it last week in school but the english teachers pointed out their sample paper waa quite different in the end to the actual paper so may be SOME hope - though I am fearful :-/

mirrorwall14

I’m not a science teacher but had a look for sheer curiosity. Is it normal for there to be so many maths questions or is it just that project maths means that our context based questions are essentially now the same as a lot of the set up of your questions?

And what the hell is the Japanese knotweed question, is that not an English comprehension question?

spurious

And there will still be children who cannot manage it.

Icsics

Inspector Coptoor wrote: »

Agree wholeheartedly

As the exam is worth 90% and is at common level, I can see a lot of students ending up with distinctions, certainly a lot more than the 2% of students they envisage to get the distinction grade.

They'll adjust the marks to make sure only the 2% get the distinction.

r93kaey5p2izun

I think it's the worst type of paper. The sort that more able students will fly through with minimal preparation but which requires skills that will remain out of reach for many students no matter how hard they work.

r93kaey5p2izun

Icsics wrote: »

They'll adjust the marks to make sure only the 2% get the distinction.

They will but it will require a nonsense marking scheme to achieve that on this sort of paper. There will be huge numbers of students scoring very badly. In order to keep the Distinctions and the NGs within norms they will have to award big marks for the absolute basics at the lower end of the scale and and then ensure a couple of extremely tricky questions are also worth a disproportionate number of marks. I have seen this happen in the early days of Project Maths with LC Foundation. A complete farce and this can only be worse given the wider range of abilities.

solerina

I was horrified when I saw it last week, very dumbed down, but then again that’s what we can expect with common level papers. I am worried about the wordiness of parts of it though, that will prove challenging for kids with reading difficulties. Will this be marked online like the English papers is ? All cost cutting at the expense of a decent basic science course !!

judeboy101

God bless any student who struggles with English, be that through disability or just being crap at it.

God bless any corrector who has to trawl through it.

thefasteriwalk

I’ve marked the new English. They’ll definitely all be pushed into the middle. The discrepancy between the lower and higher in the ‘merit’ band is indefensible, in my view. I was appalled at the end of the process. And it’s not even common level.

Icsics

thefasteriwalk wrote: »

I’ve marked the new English. They’ll definitely all be pushed into the middle. The discrepancy between the lower and higher in the ‘merit’ band is indefensible, in my view. I was appalled at the end of the process. And it’s not even common level.

Agreed. The middle bands are too wide & the top (distinction) is too narrow. Results will be meaningless, kids want ABCs, now they won't have a clue

amacca

Icsics wrote: »

Agreed. The middle bands are too wide & the top (distinction) is too narrow. Results will be meaningless, kids want ABCs, now they won't have a clue

Thats the idea...and it will all be labelled progress/badly needed reform, meanwhile you'll be working longer and harder to achieve in all likelihood less...........It will be interesting to see if this will bring about an uplift in those all important pisa stats (one wonders if they are as important a yardstick as the powers that be seem to think they are).......If it does then the new JC will be hailed as a success, if not then it will be teachers faults for not implementing it properly in all likelihood.


Imo it will take years and years for the negative consequences of this to be generally accepted and at that point teachers will be blamed for that too as all the usual media blowhards will jump enthusiastically at the opportunity for a tasty bit of teacher bashing seemingly oblivious to basic fact checking or offering balance in their commentary....much like nowadays.

rainbowtrout

solerina wrote: »

I was horrified when I saw it last week, very dumbed down, but then again that’s what we can expect with common level papers. I am worried about the wordiness of parts of it though, that will prove challenging for kids with reading difficulties. Will this be marked online like the English papers is ? All cost cutting at the expense of a decent basic science course !!

Ya it said on the small print on the end of the paper that students should answer in blue or black pen only and don't write outside the boxes as papers would be marked on line so writing outside the box may not be picked up by the scanner.


What I wouldn't mind is that STEM is being rammed down out throats for the last 10 years, and they've made a shambles of the science course.

It's pretty piss poor that they don't really need to know the names of any chemicals anymore and how they react, it's all kitchen chemistry, vinegar and baking soda bollocks that you do to get young kids to engage with science.

They'll be absolutely f*cked going into LC sciences.

rainbowtrout

mirrorwall14 wrote: »

I’m not a science teacher but had a look for sheer curiosity. Is it normal for there to be so many maths questions or is it just that project maths means that our context based questions are essentially now the same as a lot of the set up of your questions?

And what the hell is the Japanese knotweed question, is that not an English comprehension question?

That's the 'can they read a scientific article and critically assess the information it contains' part of the course I guess. But to me too, it also looks like a very simple comprehension.

Icsics

rainbowtrout wrote: »

Ya it said on the small print on the end of the paper that students should answer in blue or black pen only and don't write outside the boxes as papers would be marked on line so writing outside the box may not be picked up by the scanner.


What I wouldn't mind is that STEM is being rammed down out throats for the last 10 years, and they've made a shamble of the science course.

It's pretty piss poor that they don't really need to know the names of any chemicals anymore and how they react, it's all kitchen chemistry, vinegar and baking soda bollocks that you do to get young kids to engage with science.

They'll be absolutely f*cked going into LC sciences.

Ah sure LCert is under 'review' at the mo.....!!

evolving_doors

Then they'll be asking 3rd level to 'dumb it down a bit lads will ye?'.

3rd level will reply with 'science students unprepared for 3rd level'... and guess who's fault that'll be .

Icsics

evolving_doors wrote: »

Then they'll be asking 3rd level to 'dumb it down a bit lads will ye?'.

3rd level will reply with 'science students unprepared for 3rd level'... and guess who's fault that'll be .

I think this is where the buck will eventually stop...students will have plenty points but the colleges will tweek the course entry requirements ie increase them!

amacca

Just musing but

Maybe 3rd level might actually dumb it down a bit too.......would be in their best interests in some ways.

Degrees devalued a bit more...eventually you spend even longer in college to get equivalent of what a degree used to be = more fees/revenue as students staying longer and point of entry more accessible to a greater number of students: I think you can bet some one sees the potential eurodollar signs.

The buck would stop if at the end of this process the standard of student was lower than the equivalent student/qualification from students in another country and when this starts affecting things that matter to the powers that be in universities like ability to attract quality researchers/academics - develop spin offs/ the system doing proper reputational damage ...but if the student getting the qualification was on average just 18/24months older than their international counterpart they might get to implement it for quite some time

evolving_doors

amacca wrote: »

Just musing but

Maybe 3rd level might actually dumb it down a bit too.......would be in their best interests in some ways.

Degrees devalued a bit more...eventually you spend even longer in college to get equivalent of what a degree used to be = more fees/revenue as students staying longer and point of entry more accessible to a greater number of students: I think you can bet some one sees the potential eurodollar signs.

The buck would stop if at the end of this process the standard of student was lower than the equivalent student/qualification from students in another country and when this starts affecting things that matter to the powers that be in universities like ability to attract quality researchers/academics - develop spin offs/ the system doing proper reputational damage ...but if the student getting the qualification was on average just 18/24months older than their international counterpart they might get to implement it for quite some time

From an organisational/gvt. planning perspective then possibly yes.
But Lecturers on the ground might just find it impossible to cover typical areas with the lack of content knowledge... and put the college under pressure to form catch up courses in 1st yr (did they do this with maths?).
And then you can see others saying that 1st year is to early to specialise so it should be kept very broad anyway so students can specialise in 2nd year instead of dropping out in 1st year.
No matter... it's the secondary school teachers fault at the end of the day :rolleyes: and then it'll be the frenzy of 'bad teachers' need to be sacked etc.
This thing is like a merry-go-round of reform.

amacca

It does have a lot of the qualities of a feedback loop/cycle

SligoBrewer

Icsics wrote: »

Agreed. The middle bands are too wide & the top (distinction) is too narrow. Results will be meaningless, kids want ABCs, now they won't have a clue

Then we shouldn't be giving them ABCs for the last 3 years to be honest.

judeboy101

amacca wrote: »

Just musing but

Maybe 3rd level might actually dumb it down a bit too.......would be in their best interests in some ways.

Degrees devalued a bit more...eventually you spend even longer in college to get equivalent of what a degree used to be = more fees/revenue as students staying longer and point of entry more accessible to a greater number of students: I think you can bet some one sees the potential eurodollar signs.

The buck would stop if at the end of this process the standard of student was lower than the equivalent student/qualification from students in another country and when this starts affecting things that matter to the powers that be in universities like ability to attract quality researchers/academics - develop spin offs/ the system doing proper reputational damage ...but if the student getting the qualification was on average just 18/24months older than their international counterpart they might get to implement it for quite some time

Grade inflation is rampant at 3rd level. I went through 3rd level (late '80's) and 1st class hons were as rare as hens teeth. Semesterization and lack of 3rd level funding have deleted standards in our universities.

solerina

amacca wrote: »

Just musing but

Maybe 3rd level might actually dumb it down a bit too.......would be in their best interests in some ways.

Degrees devalued a bit more...eventually you spend even longer in college to get equivalent of what a degree used to be = more fees/revenue as students staying longer and point of entry more accessible to a greater number of students: I think you can bet some one sees the potential eurodollar signs.

The buck would stop if at the end of this process the standard of student was lower than the equivalent student/qualification from students in another country and when this starts affecting things that matter to the powers that be in universities like ability to attract quality researchers/academics - develop spin offs/ the system doing proper reputational damage ...but if the student getting the qualification was on average just 18/24months older than their international counterpart they might get to implement it for quite some time

They already have, I was talking to a long standing Prof recently and he said that the amount coming out of University with an honours degree has gone through the roof in the last 20 years and that the students are no more able those those who went before them....he actually though many were less able.