chem remarking (choice of word). opinions greatly appreciated

sd123

Well, heres the scenario, I got an A2 in chem and at the time I really needed it to be an A1 for points for med. So, i looked at the paper and discovered that I was 3 marks short of the A1.

1.Going through the paper, i had one correct but cancelled answer with another answer written beside it. (worth 3 marks with 0 awarded)

2.There was a question asking to give the definition of a week acid. I wrote "PARTIALLY disociates in H20". The answer on the MS was "disociates SLIGHTLY in h20". (worth 3 marks with 0 awarded)

After the rechecks, the paper came back as A2, unchanged.

The question is, should i pursue this further? Turned out that i got offered med on a really late round anyway.

My argument is as follows:
^^1. If an answer is correct, and legible, should the marks not be allocated?
2. Do partially and slightly not have the same meaning? I know they're a bit different, but if you look up one in a thesauras, you will get the other word.

I even filled out an AP1 form highlighting these points and sent it along with my script to be remarked.


I'm planning on filling out a form to view my REMARKED scripts, which I have to go to Athlone to view. I feel pretty strongly bout this and would consider complaining to a third party. Does anyone have any ideas or views on my situation? or, if my arguments are strong enough to stand up? Thanks

~flammable~

well, if i was in ur place i dont think id bother since u got med anyway!

~flammable~

~flammable~ wrote: »

well, if i was in ur place i dont think id bother since u got med anyway!

Word!

sd123

~flammable~ wrote: »

well, if i was in ur place i dont think id bother since u got med anyway!

Thats what I was kinda thinking, the only thing is that it means something to me.

sd123

sd123 wrote: »

Thats what I was kinda thinking, the only thing is that it means something to me.

Really?It's only the leaving cert.Like I can't even remeber the exact points I got in mine and that was only two years ago.The biggest lie about the leaving cert is that it is the toughest exam ever.College ones are way tougher and you have to do them on your own.

JC 2K3

Deleted User wrote: »

College ones are way tougher and you have to do them on your own.

Lol. Reliance on teachers, grinds, extra notes, revision books etc. for the LC = BAD.

I think I tried to stress this several times over the last year on this forum.

And sd123, I got upgraded to an A1 in Maths. It really was the most underwhelming feeling ever. Just forget about your official Chemistry grade. You know you're worth the A1 and that's all that matters - now, move on.

MathsManiac

Well, I never studied chemistry beyond JC science, but to me "partially disociates" and "disociates slightly" would mean somewhat different things (just from an English-language-in-a-science-context perspective). To me, the first would imply that some of the stuff disociates and the rest doesn't; the second implies that all of it disociates to some extent. I don't know which of these is what happens, but it wouldn't especially surprise me to learn that one would be treated as correct and the other as incorrect. I would imagine that whether you accept the slightly dodgy one all depends on the degree of rigour expected of students at a particular level.

Secondly, I do know from the days I used to mark maths exams that the manner in which cancelled answers are treated in the LC varies very much with the context. Although the "default procedure" is to mark all work, cancelled or otherwise, and award the best attempt, this isn't always the case. To take an extreme example: suppose you were asked a true/false question, and you wrote "true" and then crossed it out and wrote "false". You can hardly expect to get marks for the better of the two responses!

Examiners are given instructions on this issue in the various contexts, so if it's not specified in the marking scheme one way or the other, you'd have to check with someone who actually marked this paper this year to know whether or not the marks should have been awarded.

The other possibility, of course, is that you got these marks on appeal, but lost marks elsewhere in the paper.

Given that your work has now been marked independently by two different people, and that the appeal examiner was aware of the points you raised, I'd be very surprised if your grade was still incorrect.

By the way, I completely understand the notion of wanting to have your achievement properly recognised for its own sake, independently of whether you need the points. The purpose of the LC exam is to provide official certification of your level of achievement at the end of an important phase of education. The fact that universities choose to use it for selection purposes does not change that fact. Having said that, no exam can ever be a precise measure of a person's true level of achievement in any domain. If you've got into medicine, you've clearly achieved a high level of competence across a whole range of academic disciplines. You've got to be pretty bright to to that. Well done, and good luck with uni.

ZorbaTehZ

You got your medicine course - and yet you want to travel to athlone, just to see if you can prove a point and get another 10 points which you don't at all need? 'Nuff siad tbh.

Deleted User wrote:

The biggest lie about the leaving cert is that it is the toughest exam ever. College ones are way tougher... [snip]

That is such a load of rubbish. Unless ofc, you got like <300 in your leaving or did fúck-all for it.

Deleted User wrote:

...and you have to do them on your own.

I really don't know how to respond to this statement in such a way as to sum up all my disgust and hatred. This is the epitome of everything I hate about second-level education in this country.

Yuugib

I d say go for it! I mean if i would of known that i could get higher than i got i would deffenetly do somehting bout that. Its not even just for ur self here, imagine they do the same thing next time.. and they will keep doing it as long as they dont find anything wrong with that..
I mean the amount of effort u had put in the work.. u deserve better! ))

There i m done :P

JC 2K3

ZorbaTehZ wrote: »

I really don't know how to respond to this statement in such a way as to sum up all my disgust and hatred. This is the epitome of everything I hate about second-level education in this country.

+1

sd123

ZorbaTehZ wrote: »

You got your medicine course - and yet you want to travel to athlone, just to see if you can prove a point and get another 10 points which you don't at all need? 'Nuff siad tbh.

You're right and I really couldn't be bothered anymore tbh, but FWIW, I live pretty close to Athlone.

Brods

MathsManiac wrote: »

To me "partially disociates" and "disociates slightly" would mean somewhat different things (just from an English-language-in-a-science-context perspective). To me, the first would imply that some of the stuff disociates and the rest doesn't; the second implies that all of it disociates to some extent.

Isn't dissociation an all or none process whereby a molecule can't half lose a proton? I would have said partially dissociates myself...

sd123

Brods wrote: »

Isn't dissociation an all or none process whereby a molecule can't half lose a proton? I would have said partially dissociates myself...

when we say partially disocciates we speak of the entire sample as a whole. so if you add HCl to water almost all the sample will dissociate into H+ and Cl-. but if you put CH3COOH into water, most of it will stay as CH3COOH while only some of the sample will dissociate into CH3COO- and H+ ions. Hope that answers the question.

MathsManiac

sd123 wrote: »

2.There was a question asking to give the definition of a week acid. I wrote "PARTIALLY disociates in H20". The answer on the MS was "disociates SLIGHTLY in h20". (worth 3 marks with 0 awarded)

Surely a "week acid" (sic) is just an acid that lasts seven times as long as a day acid?

JC 2K3

That would be one hell of a trip....