Leaving Cert Physics+ Leaving Cert in general!

Evernal

To anyone whp has done most or all of their leaving cert :

Would it be possible to do Higher Level Physics for the Leaving if you were to study it at home only , this means having no class time during the 2 years, I won't be getting grinds either. Would you be able to open your book and study it without getting confused etc, with most of it. If I have trouble I would go to a science forum and/or teacher. Do you think it would be at all possible to get a Higher Level B2,B1, studying at home?

In general how difficult is the Leaving Cert., did people say it was difficult and you thought that but it was actually easier?

How many points did you get in your mock exams?

Which subjects require the least amount of workload, I want to do Physics, Chemistry and Biology, Business, Maths, English, Irish, French. I want to do all higher except for Irish.

Evernal

Evernal wrote:

To anyone whp has done most or all of their leaving cert :

Would it be possible to do Higher Level Physics for the Leaving if you were to study it at home only , this means having no class time during the 2 years, I won't be getting grinds either. Would you be able to open your book and study it without getting confused etc, with most of it. If I have trouble I would go to a science forum and/or teacher. Do you think it would be at all possible to get a Higher Level B2,B1, studying at home?

How many points did you get in your mock exams?

Which subjects require the least amount of workload, I want to do Physics, Chemistry and Biology, Business, Maths, English, Irish, French. I want to do all higher except for Irish.

I did most of my Physics course at home, and I did pretty good, so it is possible to get those grades.

In general how difficult is the Leaving Cert., did people say it was difficult and you thought that but it was actually easier?

To put it simply, the LC is as hard as you want it to be.

How many points did you get in your mock exams?

540

Which subjects require the least amount of workload, I want to do Physics, Chemistry and Biology, Business, Maths, English, Irish, French. I want to do all higher except for Irish

Out of those, I'd say French, or Maths if you're good at it. The most work would probably be for English, but you probably won't notice it.



That's my opinion anyway.

angeldelight

Evernal wrote:

Would it be possible to do Higher Level Physics for the Leaving if you were to study it at home

I think it would. You should speak to the physics teacher in your school, and they'll more than likely offer to go over anything you're having trouble with. The only problem I can think of is the mandatory experiments. People doing them in class have to write them up and there's a tiny chance the inspectors check them. You might want to check about that.

In general how difficult is the Leaving Cert., did people say it was difficult and you thought that but it was actually easier?

If you work consistently, yes you'll still get stressed but not nearly as bad as if you're trying to cram at the end.

How many points did you get in your mock exams?

580, why?

Which subjects require the least amount of workload, I want to do Physics, Chemistry and Biology, Business, Maths, English, Irish, French. I want to do all higher except for Irish.

Least amount of work I found was french but only cause I'd done two exchanges and stopped studying it. Of the others probably maths cause I wasn't as bothered about it. People tend to have a misconception about biology, its easy to understand but there is a LOT of work involved to do well, lots of definitions and experiments and things.

Why do you want to do an extra subject? What course are you trying to get?

Evernal

Aristotle, how many hours did you study every night and how hard did you work as soon as you started your Leaving Cert., eg. When you got your books at 4th yr, how many hours study?

Evernal

Angeldelight, I would like to get Human Nutrition and Dietetics 520, Medicine 570, or Theoretical Physics and Mathematics 505. I want to do Physics because I have an interest in it.
I was wondering if French had to be included in your best 6 subjects when going to college or not, or is it okay to do well in it but its not in ur best 6 or not??

Evernal

Angle delight, how many hours in average did you study every night when you did ur Leaving

angeldelight

Could you do business as the subject outside school? I'm only saying that cause all your choices there are ones where you'll be studying physics in college. I also read somewhere that business is one of the most common subjects ppl do outside school. No, french doesn't have to be in your best six, you just have to get the minimum requirement in it for your college.

As for the number of hours studied I just did all my homework in 5th year during the week and maybe an hour study most days, then 2 hours on Saturday and Sunday except for when I had a test. 6th year I worked a lot more, did homework and 2-3 hours every weekday except Friday, up to 8 hours on weekends by the end of the year. I enjoyed my subjects though and knew I needed high points. Most people do less than that, don't want to stress you!

Evernal

Evernal wrote:

Aristotle, how many hours did you study every night and how hard did you work as soon as you started your Leaving Cert., eg. When you got your books at 4th yr, how many hours study?

I didn't do 4th year, and I only studied Physics on Saturdays. Trust me, it's very possible.

Angeldelight, I would like to get Human Nutrition and Dietetics 520, Medicine 570, or Theoretical Physics and Mathematics 505. I want to do Physics because I have an interest in it.
I was wondering if French had to be included in your best 6 subjects when going to college or not, or is it okay to do well in it but its not in ur best 6 or not??

No it doesn't have to be in your top 6.

And those are some good choices. Any idea on which college you'd like to go to?

Evernal

I might not be able to do that becasue of Timetabel restrictions, I would be able to do Physics in school unless I drop Biology and I like Biology!

Evernal

Trinity

Evernal

Evernal wrote:

Trinity

A good choice.
That's a walkable distance for me and yet I chose UCD. I just didn't like the Trinity Open Day. That's just me though.

Evernal

I'm dying to know whether you can just sit down and study nearly every subject for hours all by yourself, I hope the studying is just memorization work for English, Phyiscs, Chemistry adn Biology, Business 2, IS most of the Leaving Memorization work as in Biology for example

Evernal

...............as i have read many memorization books and techniques!

Evernal

Evernal wrote:

...............as i have read many memorization books and techniques!

A lot of poeple will say it's not memory, but it really is, especially those subjects.

angeldelight

Well it is and it isnt. For English, you obviously have to learn quotes and things but a lot of it is forming opinions on poets, poems, plays, books. If you just put down loads of quotes and have no personal opinion you won't do well. Physics, biology and chemistry are memory work but there's also understanding, particularly chemistry I found. Lots of different types of calculations. Its also easier to remember the stuff if it makes sense to you and you understand it. More likely to remember it when you get into college too.

Evernal

To all who do the Physics exam:

I think the first part of the exam is associated with Experiments. Would it be good enough to learn off the experiments in the book off by heart and re-write them in the exam or is there more to it than that?

Gileadi

well for physics you will need to do the maths questions also if you want to get any kind of B grade but really once you know the formulae and you can recognise where each piece of info they give you fits into the formula your sorted

angeldelight

Evernal wrote:

To all who do the Physics exam:

I think the first part of the exam is associated with Experiments. Would it be good enough to learn off the experiments in the book off by heart and re-write them in the exam or is there more to it than that?

Yes it is. For the most part, thats what I did cause when we did the experiments we were all just messing around. However when we were doing the experiments our teacher would tell us little bits of information that they sometimes ask for 3 marks or something.

milkyway

it's probably too late now to say this but i would definetly reccommend aginst doing physics at home. You will need a good teacher to explain thing as most of the book i am using is full of useless information

Aoibheann

well, the experiment questions often add little twists you might not think of. Look at the pendulum question in the 2006 paper, it's question 1 I think, it's got a couple of awkward bits. You might find the answer, or know it, if not, check with the physics teacher at school about those little niggly bits.

JC 2K3

If you're good at maths and can learn a couple of formulas Physics is a piece of piss. Electricity is the only remotely difficult part.

In fact if you're good at maths do Applied Maths, Maths and Physics and it's like a guaranteed easy 270-300 points.

Delphi91

The only problem with doing physics on your own are the experiments.

If you register to sit for physics in the LC, then you will be expected to do the 28 experiments and to have the lab notebook available for inspection by a DES Inspector.

While some people will argue that these notebooks are rarely if ever examined, you will not be able to sit the physics exam if the notebook is looked for and you are found not to have the experiments done. I am aware of a school where the inspector arrived and the teacher had taken the gamble against the notebooks being inspected. The students were all made return to the school over the Easter holidays prior to their LC to do all the experiments!

I have been told in recent years by DeS inspectors that they are aiming to increase inspections to almost 50% of schools. And they go through the notebooks in a thorough fashion. My experience of the inspection was that the inspector was able to comment on individual notebooks to me before leaving.

JC 2K3

They EXAMINE the notebooks???????????

WHAT????

I haven't bothered writing any out, I didn't see the point......

In any case, if you did it at home you could just pretend to have done them and copy the instructions out of the book into a notebook.

Delphi91

JC 2K3 wrote:

They EXAMINE the notebooks???????????

WHAT????

I haven't bothered writing any out, I didn't see the point.....

Yes, they do! In my case, the school was contacted on a Monday/Tuesday and informed that the inspector would be arriving on the Friday and I was to have all the notebooks ready for inspection..

In any case, if you did it at home you could just pretend to have done them and copy the instructions out of the book into a notebook.

True, except a report should be written in the past tense as it is an account of what you did. Plus, copying out the instructions wil not give you results. And from my experience of the inspection, the results are looked at - the inspector advised me to change one of the pieces of apparatus to get better results.

ninebeanrows

Delphi91 wrote:

Yes, they do! In my case, the school was contacted on a Monday/Tuesday and informed that the inspector would be arriving on the Friday and I was to have all the notebooks ready for inspection..




True, except a report should be written in the past tense as it is an account of what you did. Plus, copying out the instructions wil not give you results. And from my experience of the inspection, the results are looked at - the inspector advised me to change one of the pieces of apparatus to get better results.

Hope to god they don't come to my school!

All my experiements are just copied out of the book! Because as far as i see it for the actual LC all you need to know is the graph,forumale, curve, experimental error and thats basically it.

My Physics teacher is an absolute joke, i don't honestly know how he can be called a teacher, all he does is read the book and gets us to write out the definitions in our "notebooks". Then he methodically gets us to do the questions in each chapter, even though bar 1,2 people in the class everyone does not have a clue what the chapter is even about. He skips all the experients in every chapter and does about 6 at a time in 2 double classes, nobody actually knows which experiement belongs to each topic. It's such a disgrace that i have decided to stop with his system of teaching and teach myself, i ingnore any tests he gives us because i have a total lack of respect for him, and im not alone 8 out of the 12 in the physics class ignore his tests handing up blank pieces of paper each time. For our Summer test last year he gave us a test with 4 exam ppr questions, we hadnt done 3 of the experiements out of the 4 and he expected us to know what to do. Only 1 person in the class passed.

Anyway RANT over:o

Delphi91

This is the relevant section from the LC syllabus:

Practical work
Students must follow a course of practical work. The
experiments listed at the end of each section of the
syllabus must be carried out by the students and an
adequate record of such work must be retained for
the period of the course.