Ex-Leaving cert students,H Maths.

cianclarke

Appealing to ex-leaving cert students, what did they get in the hons maths pre, and what did they end up with in the actual exam?
Second hand accounts would be grand, just wondering what the general trend is for grades going up between now and the actual exam...
I haven't even gotten my results yet, but just wondering what the general trend is...
If I fail hons maths in the actual exam am I right or wrong in saying that no college will take me, or even some uni's won't take me?

DCU list minimum OD3 maths for computer applications, is this equal to and will they take a higher fail (close fail) as the same? Hardly, but hey...

rainbow kirby

Mocks: A2
Actual: A1

(probably not the kind of results you wanted to hear, but anyway... )
Don't panic so much about the mocks. I know people who failed the mock but went to a B2 in the actual exam. The maths course is long, and you won't have it all covered at this stage. Though if you do feel that you need to drop down closer to the time, think about doing it because you don't want to miss out on a college place on account of the fact that you failed higher level.
Afaik TCD is the only college that requires HL Maths (HC3) for a CS degree, I know my course (BSc CS, UCD) requires OB3 Maths and a science subject. Somehow OD3 sounds very low... but the fact that you've done HL for this long will stand to you in 1st year, no matter what you think now.

Btw, if you've got any questions drop me a PM. I'm quite willing to help with maths stuff.

cianclarke

Wee, thanks for the help Rainbow.
I need a C3 for TCD, but really... I just need to pass the bloody thing. I'll stick to what everybody is advising and hang on for the time being...
We've just started integration and I'm really getting it, so that'l be a nice extra option to have.

angeldelight

63% in the mock and a B1 in the real thing. Everyone went up from the mocks, although our teacher was known for being a git, he made up his own mock papers and they were always awful.

Honestly, everything I could go up in from the mocks, I did and all my friends did too so don't stress just start working now if you're worried

Time Magazine

Got through by the skin of my teeth in the Mocks, something like 42%. Got a C3 in the real thing with sort of minimal effort. Really wish I'd put more work into Maths tbh. It's still holding me back, and it will hold me back tomorrow morning when I spend the day trying to inverse matrices.

If you really put the work in you can easily pass anything in the Leaving Cert. I got 28% in Physics in the Mocks and got a B3 in the real thing.

D-Generate

A1 in both *cough*

I did know a lot though who went up by about 4 grades

Time Magazine

Meh, I'm not quantitative in my nature.

My A1 in English suits me better for my economics course . Was absolutely gutted I didn't get the A1 in economics. The paper was far too easy though. The teacher actually said she'd never seen such a f*cked up marking scheme in her life!

Malafus

F in the mocks, and a C1 in the real thing. Had a terrible teacher, and after the mocks I went and got some grinds - an hour a week for 3 months brought me up to scratch, and that was with **** all extra work on my part... and I was sharing the grinds with another person, so I wasn't getting the full attention of my tutor.

Though to be fair, I did reasonably well in all my subjects with almost no work... most people don't get away with this.

DS

90 in the mocks, 100 in the LC (viewed my script). Everyone went up from the mocks as far as I can remember.

Was absolutely gutted I didn't get the A1 in economics. The paper was far too easy though. The teacher actually said she'd never seen such a f*cked up marking scheme in her life!

Are you talking about LC 2004? Cos I had that economics paper pencilled in as an A1, thought it was awful easy, and ended up with a B1. There was one A2 and nothing better in my class. Strange.

Faith

Am I right in thinking that if you fail maths, at either H or O level, you technically fail the leaving? Same with english and irish. You have to repeat maths and pass it to get into uni.

Ishmael

jaysus, just realised, its 4 years since i was in school. anyway
the year i took the mock it was exceptionally poxy, there was 12 people in the hons class, 2 people got D's and the rest of the class failed the mock.

in the actual exam there was 3 A2's and one A1, and only one person failed!

Keep doing exam papers up till the exam and you should be sorted.

Gileadi

mocks - 39%
actual - 83%

although much of this was due to the fact i was out drinking till 4am the night before the mocks

a nice increase none the less

Time Magazine

DS wrote:

Are you talking about LC 2004? Cos I had that economics paper pencilled in as an A1, thought it was awful easy, and ended up with a B1. There was one A2 and nothing better in my class. Strange.

That's the one. They stick to a bell-curve. Vaguely related to supply and demand: to compensate for an easy paper they have to mark it hard. Incidentally, this punishes the better students because they mark the marginals and not the "bog standards" hard.

Hence the B1's .

OctavarIan

cianclarke wrote:

If I fail hons maths in the actual exam am I right or wrong in saying that no college will take me, or even some uni's won't take me?

I'm afraid if you fail maths at any level in June then you fail your entire LC.
My maths teacher was reading out old results, and one person got an A1 in the mocks but then dropped to a B1 in the LC. Scaldy or what!

Bah

OctavarIan wrote:

I'm afraid if you fail maths at any level in June then you fail your entire LC.

That's not entirely true. You can't actually "fail your entire LC", you simply fail individual subjects. Failing maths/english/irish would make it practically impossible to get into a lot of college courses, but you still haven't failed your leaving cert as a whole.

Generally maths mocks are more accurate than other subject mocks (assuming you've actually done everything that's on the paper all ready...), since the marking scheme is easier to follow and usually more fair. But obviously it's not going to be anywhere near 100% accurate of your lc results.

cianclarke

Well then, thanks for the positive reports...! I'll wait and see how I get on...