Honours Maths

Phoebus

Is it as absolutely impossible as everyone says? I'm going into 5th year with honours maths, I'm sure it's fine if you actually study. But I've never been the brightest bulb when it comes to maths. The information just doesn't stick. As well as that, my teacher I had for the junior cert was a total dickhead. Chances are I'll have her again for the next two years come September.

So, is it hard?? What's the hardest part of the course, etc??
I'll be having grinds of course. Without them I wouldn't have a hope!!

For Transition year we did pass maths leaving cert, which is pretty much exactly the same as Higher level junior cert in my opinion.

Alanstrainor

well i'm not exactly the best at maths and i have been doin the honours maths for the leavin,( in 3weeks:mad: ), it really isn't that bad, i'd say go for it and if you need to drop then you can, but, as with anything you just need to get used to the course and do the questions, i'm not sayin you have to go mad studying it, just keeping up with homework,( well for fifth year anyway ),
my advice: go for the honours, and stick it for as long as possible.

sd123

I find LCH maths pretty easy but then again I have the type of mind for it and a pretty good teacher, however i hated it at first when i went into fifth year. i really got a shock at how much harder it was than JC maths. But i kept my head down and now i love it and thinking bout TP in trinity next year. By all means try it out but dont get caught by the sayings bout how difficult higher maths is and after you get over the initial shock you'll be grand. BTW, this is a quote from my own maths teacher, ' its simple to get a C in higher maths, but you have to work for an A or B' and its true. a C can be easily got by repitition of past exam papers.

Phoebus wrote:

I'm sure it's fine if you actually study.

its probably worth mentioning that you cant really study, you get better by repeating and practice.
also bout the teacher, i see where you're coming from. i have a useless Tec D teacher and he totally put me off the subject, but if you want to do well, and are really motivated, then theres loads of websites and books that you will be able to help/teach yourself.
Good luck with the choice!

mp3guy

Just do the work, if you don't do the homework you're going to start failing by christmas. But don't do anything unless you fully understand it. Go back to the start of a chapter and work your way up if you don't get it.

md99

heh, its different for everyone... definitely NOT the hardest honours subject, the reason it's so stigmatised is because a huge number of people don't have the right mindframe for maths whereas, while they mightn't for other subjects either, these can be bluffed much more easily

the only way you'll find out is by trying it... what did you get in the JC out of interest? Not that its of huge significane, I got an A in mine and I'm far from A material in the LC...

Phoebus

Hah in the Junior Cert mocks I got an E, a big hairy E. Honours too. Then in the real thing I got a C. Showed that stupid teacher.

Thanks everyoneee

ninebeanrows

Phoebus wrote:

Hah in the Junior Cert mocks I got an E, a big hairy E. Honours too. Then in the real thing I got a C. Showed that stupid teacher.

Thanks everyoneee

Bit dodgy that, you would really want to have at least a B in the JC to be hitting honours maths. Everyone in my class who got a C or lower is long gone and a good few of the B students have left too. I'm hanging on for dear life! It requires alot of work if your not naturally able, and if you got a C you obviously aren't naturally able at maths (no offence meant there:D ) You gotta set yourself a good bit of time for maths study and even at that you might not pull it off on the day.

The only solas is that it is very difficult to fail LC maths.. (here's hoping anyway!!)

cson

Weathercheck wrote:

. The only solas is that it is very difficult to fail LC maths.. (here's hoping anyway!!)

Tell that to the 400 odd who do every year.

All that aside, hons maths is pretty predictable seeing as you've got 14-ish years of papers to go through. Some questions are even repeated. However theres a bit of a trend going now among the exam hierarchy about making the exam tougher and make it require more understanding of the concepts.

One of the quotes of our year after half the class failed the mocks - "honours maths is like an orgy, everyone is screwed"

JC 2K3

^One slightly different paper doesn't equal a trend.....

Up until last year it was getting consistantly easier since like 2002.

md99

The 06, 05 and 03 papers were a little more difficult than usual... Many years it was just a dream...

cson

JC 2K3 wrote:

^One slightly different paper doesn't equal a trend.....

Up until last year it was getting consistantly easier since like 2002.

Well I've had this discussion with my maths teacher, a maths lecturer and another maths teacher and they are all of the opinion that the paper is going to get harder, i.e. revert to questions circa early 90's that require a conceptual understanding of the subject. Given that so far the syllabus has more or less remained unchanged for 13 odd years some of the questions repeat themselves and so students could essentially 'learn' off questions.

Nehpets

Hopefully 07 will be easy! I don't study Maths that much but I like it and don't find it that hard. If you don't like maths and don't need honours maths then don't do it (hmm that advice seems a bit obvious!)

Phoebus

I probably would have gotten a better result in the junior cert, but I started learning much too late. About 2 months before the actual exams, which wasn't exactly what you'd call intelligent. I'm going to start working bloody hard this year and next because there's only two more years and that's all. If I do the work I'll be okay, at least that's what I keep telling myself. I'll be with my grinds and my own stuff anyway so maybe that'll suffice?! Especially if I start working straight away.. =P

cson

Phoebus wrote:

because there's only two more years and that's all.

Yeah, I think its time I pulled the finger out too. Because there's only 2 more weeks and that's all.

Your Man

its grand if you work from the start and dont let ANYTHING go by you, to be honest youll know after the 1st month if you can manage it, that being when you finish algebra...if you dont know it inside out your really just making up the numbers and wasting your time

JC 2K3

cson wrote:

Well I've had this discussion with my maths teacher, a maths lecturer and another maths teacher and they are all of the opinion that the paper is going to get harder, i.e. revert to questions circa early 90's that require a conceptual understanding of the subject. Given that so far the syllabus has more or less remained unchanged for 13 odd years some of the questions repeat themselves and so students could essentially 'learn' off questions.

There won't be a massive jump in standard for us though. Probably looking at a paper similar to last year IMO.

ninebeanrows

Personally i don't see what the fuss about last years paper was. There was a different Trig Question and a tough Alegbra part (c) . Apart from those and a few difficult part c's it was okay. It may have been a more difficult paper than recent years but the marking scheme ensured that people would have received the same results as previous years. Lets hope 2007 is like the 2001 paper! Now that would be sweet, i probably would get a B if a paper like that came up

JC 2K3

Weathercheck wrote:

Personally i don't see what the fuss about last years paper was. There was a different Trig Question and a tough Alegbra part (c) . Apart from those and a few difficult part c's it was okay. It may have been a more difficult paper than recent years but the marking scheme ensured that people would have received the same results as previous years. Lets hope 2007 is like the 2001 paper! Now that would be sweet, i probably would get a B if a paper like that came up

QFT.

Although I'll get an A regardless.
</arrogance>

PurpleFistMixer

I have to say, almost at the end of fifth year now and my honours maths class only lost one person. The biggest dropout was people leaving before the year had even started...
We've done a fair number of topics and nothing is all that difficult yet. Then again I'm a person who likes maths and finds it easier than most. But my class don't seem to bleed from the eyes every time we have maths so I'd say it's fairly manageable.
I think the problem is it's so hyped up, everyone assumes it's this terrible completely impossible subject and they give up before they give it a chance.
Poor honours maths, just wants to be loved.

cianclarke

Having completed my LC this year I'd go with what most have said - do the homework in fifth year and it'l be reasonably easy.

If liike me you didn't do a huge amount of work in fifth year, it'l be more difficult.
I failed my pre, and predicted a low C in the actual exam. I got a B...
It's really not that bad if you put the work in.

JC 2K3

PurpleFistMixer wrote:

I have to say, almost at the end of fifth year now and my honours maths class only lost one person. The biggest dropout was people leaving before the year had even started...
We've done a fair number of topics and nothing is all that difficult yet. Then again I'm a person who likes maths and finds it easier than most. But my class don't seem to bleed from the eyes every time we have maths so I'd say it's fairly manageable.
I think the problem is it's so hyped up, everyone assumes it's this terrible completely impossible subject and they give up before they give it a chance.
Poor honours maths, just wants to be loved.

Meh, more people do pass, pass maths people hate maths, therefore most people think higher maths is impossible.

cson

A lot of people who do pass do it because they think hons maths is like Keith Duffy, impossible to understand.

Or else they're just lazy. Actually thinking about it, I'd say the laziness is the actual reason.

euwwy deuwwy

Honors maths is difficult but its not as bad as it used to be. As long as you stay confident and don't fall behind in class you will do grand. There are alot of guys in my school who moved down to ordinary level who didnt put enough tought into it. They where actually pretty good! There seems to be an unnececery fear of honors maths. Its not that bad. It gets easier as time goes by because alot of the topics fit into each other very nicely and your mind grows accustomed to the questions the more you do them.
If you still really think you're borderline honors/pass you should probably stick with honors for the moment. It will stand to you if you ever do move down.

Jonathan

Yea I recommend sticking with it. Maths is a funny old thing. You can be doin questions till the cows come home is fifth year and while you might be able to do them by rote, you have no concept of what you actually are doin (calculus comes to mind the most.) Then someday during sixth year it suddenly clicks. You suddenly understand what you are doing. You begin to appreciate it as a subject as opposed to a chore.

Although having said that i would recommend a A or B grade in the JC though. JC maths isn't that challenging so if you do have the maths brain you should have done fairly well in it.

fuinneamh

i'm lucky enough to have a natural aptitude for maths so i can't really give advice but my sister didn't and what she always said was. Do around half an hour of new homework each night and then after that do the problems that you got wrong the previous night. she ended up with a b1 so i think its good advice!

Donald-Duck

Weathercheck wrote:

Bit dodgy that, you would really want to have at least a B in the JC to be hitting honours maths. Everyone in my class who got a C or lower is long gone and a good few of the B students have left too. I'm hanging on for dear life! It requires alot of work if your not naturally able, and if you got a C you obviously aren't naturally able at maths (no offence meant there:D ) You gotta set yourself a good bit of time for maths study and even at that you might not pull it off on the day.

The only solas is that it is very difficult to fail LC maths.. (here's hoping anyway!!)

I got a C in the junior cert and got my C2 very easily in the leaving cert with doing very little work until the night before the 2 papers. A grade does not reflect your ability in maths. The best way to decide you can do honours is if you can pick the stuff up quickly or not.

Personally I found honours maths reasonably easy, I just wasn't interested in putting any work in for any subjects because I only needed 300points for my course.

Andrewf20

I got a D in honours Maths in the Junior cert and was recommended to drop to pass for the leaving cert as I found it very hard. However, healthy levels of classroom attention, study, and grinds in 6th year netted me an honours C1 in the leaving, so dont give up.

genericgoon

Certainly not impossible. A good work ethic or a natural ability would be sufficient to get a C grade. A and B grades require both though as thats where you need to be getting most of the (c) parts

btothei

hons maths aint too hard....i'd recommend gettin a nice seat upfront...i ended up with one by chance....teacher keeps u on ure toes and ure always payin attention...if u dont do homewrok and dont pay attention in 5th then ure more less fecked tbh tho.....honours in my skool originally started off with 2 classes of 30 in 5th year...1 class with the higher results in the junior than the others...was/am in the higher..only ten pple out of 120 in the year left in hons maths now...all of which were originally in the top class

Burning Eclipse

I don't wanna cause any controversy here, but I think a lot of people don't do honours maths who could. It's simply down to lazyness for some people. Honours maths requires more effort than other honours subjects. There... I said it. So people just don't think it's worth it. I know it happened a lot to in my year in school.

In first year of uni (I did computer engineering, hon C3 was required) my Engineering Maths lecturer said the module was going to make leaving cert honours maths look like a episode of noddy... It did.:o

JC 2K3

Burning Eclipse wrote:

Honours maths requires more effort than other honours subjects.

Hell no.

lemansky

JC 2K3 wrote:

Hell no.

Exactly.
I think honours maths just looks like a difficult subject from the outside until you start it....much like 3rd year maths looks to somebody who is in 6th class.Its just another step up representing no more of a leap than that between primary and secondary.Similarly 'college' maths looks very hard to some but its just another step.The thing to remember is that all of these jumps are based around the knowledge that you already have,so although it looks hard you CAN do it,its just that you haven't yet been shown how maybe.

timmywex

lemansky wrote:

Exactly.
I think honours maths just looks like a difficult subject from the outside until you start it....much like 3rd year maths looks to somebody who is in 6th class.Its just another step up representing no more of a leap than that between primary and secondary.Similarly 'college' maths looks very hard to some but its just another step.The thing to remember is that all of these jumps are based around the knowledge that you already have,so although it looks hard you CAN do it,its just that you haven't yet been shown how maybe.

very true!!!


im also thinking in the same way OP, but i have heard different stories about honours maths for the leaving, i got 92in honours this year in the JC mocks so i reckon i should be ok!!

Selphie

Burning Eclipse wrote:

I don't wanna cause any controversy here, but I think a lot of people don't do honours maths who could.

I agree with you there. For a lot of people in my year, they drop to pass to ensure passing the exam, and use it as their fall subject when in fact, if they made a bit of effort, they'd be able for honours maths. I don't think however that honours maths requires more work than other honours subjects though. I think it requires around the same.
I got a B in honours maths in the Junior Cert, and am currently at a low C/D level in LC honours. Personally I think that's down to sheer laziness on my part, especially during TY and fifth year. So, we'll see....

originalcupcake

Burning Eclipse wrote:

I think a lot of people don't do honours maths who could. It's simply down to lazyness for some people. Honours maths requires more effort than other honours subjects.

i agree with that, its the same in my school.

i got a B in my Jc honours maths and 60 in my honours maths pre, maths not being my strongest subject..so i was happy enough. But, i have this revision book which imo is excellent, 'Essential Revision Guide to LC Maths'..it provides sol'ns to all the recent papers and is quite comprehensive. if i got it in 5th year it would have made this year soo much easier, so id advise anyone to get it:D