More time for Business and History!!! Something must be done

cHaTbOx

I dont do either business or history but from reading posts though this forum and talking to my friends , I believe there should be an increase in time for these subjects.

An exam is a test of the sylibus in a given time period which examens what you know about the sylibus.

But in cases like this, you cannot write what you know on your sylibus.

This is unfair and attention must be brought to the examination board to increase time by 20 or so minutes (like English Paper 2).

If this continues to be the case then deserving students will not get grades they deserve and the numbers taking these subjects will become obsolete.

superLeetive

Here, here! I totally agree with you. The lack of time given for the Business exam was an absolute disgrace. The paper wasn't too bad apart from the short Qs but there were so many subsections in the Qs and the Qs required really long answers. A lot of the people that I was talking to only managed to finish 3 complete Qs and only just got a 4th started. I wrote at practically the speed of light for the entire exam and I didn't get it completed but I knew all the information required. It's so unfair and the SEC should take the time element into consideration when marking Business this year. There have many complaints from all over the country so something must be done. I propose a campaign to only count each candidate's 3 best Qs in Business - I highly doubt that will happen though but it should because it was far too demanding for the time period allocated!!

tdc

agree with you 100%. i dont do history but business defenitely needs more time, ridiculous the amount of work they expect to be done in the time

GERMAN ROCKS

tdc wrote: »

agree with you 100%. i dont do history but business defenitely needs more time, ridiculous the amount of work they expect to be done in the time

+1 i also find a lack of time in business

superLeetive

GERMAN ROCKS wrote: »

+1 i also find a lack of time in business

Yeah we should start a petition or something!!!:)

RA253195370HK

I dont think more times needed, 3 hours of non-stop writing is tiring enough, there should be a question less on the long questions. I only started my 4th one at quarter to 5 but managed to throw something together. My hand was ready to fall off at the end though, its a ridiciulously long paper and the only one I actually stayed in for more than 2 hours

KeyLimePie

i don't know about history, but the teachers were fighting for an extra 20 mins in business this year but they didn't get it so they'll probably get it next year:)

superLeetive

KeyLimePie wrote: »

i don't know about history, but the teachers were fighting for an extra 20 mins in business this year but they didn't get it so they'll probably get it next year:)

Too right they will - I will make sure of that! The only reason they didn't get it was cos the SEC don't want to have to pay the supervisors for the extra time cos they have to pay them for the whole hour even though it's only an extra 20minutes.

philologos

Business is already 3 hours, 3 hours 20 minutes would make it as long as English Paper 2. I found it grand, I don't know what the problem was with the others

melboix

Tbh, I thought History was gonna be tighter for time than it was. I got 'em all done at decent lengths with ten minutes to go. Might have something to do with the Red Bull & Lucozade combo, but who knows!? XD I dunno, thought it was grand myself. My right hand disagrees, but that's beside the point.

Stevieo

Seconded! Don't do business but rushed through history faster than I've ever done any exam in my life, and finished with only five minutes to go.

Apparently there's some teachers out there complaining that the exams with the extra 20 minutes are too long, because they're encouraging students to write more than they need to! Is that not the problem of the teacher themself?? Madness...

philologos

I think it's more a problem that people are trying to write too much. In the business, when you write a 20 mark question, all you need is 4 points with about 3 lines on each one. For 25, 5 points, and for 30, 6 points.

turgon

Ok lads, totally agree, did history today should be at least 30 minutes longer. We should get an online petition going definitely. But not for more than 2 or 3 subjects - lets make it reasonable.

I'm a constituent of Batt O'Keefe (live about half a mile away from him) if that can be any help.

orangetictac

Believe me turgon Business is as bad, according to ppl who do both(sj).

and then irish is way too long(everyone left early).

I dont do history but cant understand why did they make id 2 hrs 50.
why not another 10 mins?

Maybe a petition would force them to change the marking scheme and give a1's to all......maybe

Ekels

Half way through the history exam I got an awful cramp. I had to do a bit of massaging etc. and ended up finishing the exam 5 minutes over time. It's fairly ridiculous indeed. I think English Paper 2 is not too bad for time though.
I don't understand why the Department feel the need to put students under such strenuous time pressure. Surely history could be bumped up th 10 minutes, to round it to 3 hours.

i hate boards

history should have 1 less question and only slightly less time :cool:

hatrickpatrick

I agree 100%. The only thing worse than not knowing the answer to a question is knowing the answer and not having time to write it down. I will gladly join any movement calling for extra time to be allocated for these subjects.

:cool:

Mushy

A few years ago, the old history syllabus meant the exam was 5 questions in 3hrs 20 minutes. Then they allow students do the Special Topic in a seperate time, hand it in early, do one less question in 2hrs 50mins. They will not keep it that way, and extend the time, without adding in something else. Its the LC, not a picnic in the sun. Know the method, know what ya want to say, know how long ya have for each question, then there will be no problem. Yes its tough, but hey, worse things will happen in life.

EDIT: I'm basing this on history, in case ye didnt know, but the same principles apply to all subjects.

turgon

40 minutes to do a full essay is very little. We just dont have the time to put down what we dont know. How about 3:30 flat? that would be nice.

What about business - how much more time do you think you need?

orangetictac

Well i could write for a couple more hours, 20 mins extra would have been enough for me to do a perfect paper but that 20mins is alot of marks:(

How was history btw

orangetictac

Mushy wrote: »

A few years ago, the old history syllabus meant the exam was 5 questions in 3hrs 20 minutes. Then they allow students do the Special Topic in a seperate time, hand it in early, do one less question in 2hrs 50mins. They will not keep it that way, and extend the time, without adding in something else. Its the LC, not a picnic in the sun. Know the method, know what ya want to say, know how long ya have for each question, then there will be no problem. Yes its tough, but hey, worse things will happen in life.

EDIT: I'm basing this on history, in case ye didnt know, but the same principles apply to all subjects.

I know what you mean. And thats what i do. I always concentrate on timing.
Its just a pity you cant show off more

Sea Devils

melboix wrote: »

Tbh, I thought History was gonna be tighter for time than it was. I got 'em all done at decent lengths with ten minutes to go. Might have something to do with the Red Bull & Lucozade combo, but who knows!? XD I dunno, thought it was grand myself. My right hand disagrees, but that's beside the point.

Yeah would have to agree finished the exam with about 10 minutes left and most of the answers were 2-3 pages long. Can't say myself I had problems with time constraints but each to their own I guess

laura*

I'M DEFO COMPLAINING TO THE GERRY RYAN SHOW NEXT WEEK

I'll post a topic during sunday or something saying when ill ring in
and you should all listen in and then tx in with your complaints
then WE WILL BE HEARD!!:D:D

ateam

The OP doesn't do either subject. Odd to make a thread about this given that they have no experience of the subjects.

cHaTbOx

ateam wrote: »

The OP doesn't do either subject. Odd to make a thread about this given that they have no experience of the subjects.

Yeah most of my friends are doing both subjects and I dont think it fair that if you know the stuff but cant write it out because of time,it is a great shame . It seems like a matter that must be brought to the attention of the state examinations board.

Mushy

turgon wrote: »

40 minutes to do a full essay is very little. We just dont have the time to put down what we dont know. How about 3:30 flat? that would be nice.

What about business - how much more time do you think you need?

Discipline! Discipline regards time and you will get a good score. Ye are not the first people to go through it, ye wont be the last. I've been through it myself, its NOT THAT BAD.

If ye worry about numbers decreasing in the subject, it'll more than likely happen due to past students complaining about it, not the scheduled length of the exam. Everyone has had two years to prepare for this exam. Surely
timing yourself cant be that hard unless, say, god forbid, ye didnt prepare properly. And sure we all know kids today wouldnt do this:rolleyes:. As I said, its the LC, not a picnic in the sun, its not supposed to be a nice experience, but you'll come up against much worse in life.

Fuascailt

I just wrote an angry e-mail to Batt O' Keefe about history. Told him " Even as I type this, my hand continues to ache." He better reply

eoin2nc

Is everyone that slow at writing? I finished history with ten minutes to spare, after doing 18 pages, nd could do an extra question in business. They give you enough time to do the paper, just sometimes people write too much info for an answer, eg in bussiness for a 15 marker all you need are three or four points of information, not a huge long answer

PrivateEye

turgon wrote: »

I'm a constituent of Batt O'Keefe (live about half a mile away from him) if that can be any help.

you can deliver it :pac:

Agree completely about History. Even TEN minutes on the end would sort that exam out, the way it ends at 10 to' is a joke.

Mushy

Fuascailt wrote: »

I just wrote an angry e-mail to Batt O' Keefe about history. Told him " Even as I type this, my hand continues to ache." He better reply

Are you joking? If I was him, I'd reply saying something along the lines of "Unlike the other X tousands of students who havent complained, maybe you didnt prepare properly, and so struggled to write within the alloted time. Unfortunately I am unable to negotiate with Mr. Weather, but that doesnt mean I can extend a history exam on account of one student complaining of a sore hand to me who tried to rush under pressure instead of taking time out from sun-bathing or whatever it is these youngsters get up to nowadays to actually study and prepare properly for exams that will start them off on a life hopefully full of further educaton where they will find out this isn't the toughest thing they will go through."

Something along those lines. Oh, and I saw the paper there. Last year I did topics 2 & 3, for the Irish history thus year, they'd be easily done in jut over an hour for the 2. And Europe topic 2 was fine. Didnt seem overly bad, what was hard about it?

hatrickpatrick

Surely
timing yourself cant be that hard unless, say, god forbid, ye didnt prepare properly. And sure we all know kids today wouldnt do this. As I said, its the LC, not a picnic in the sun, its not supposed to be a nice experience, but you'll come up against much worse in life.

That's such an unbelievably lame argument. The Leaving Cert is supposed to test what you know in your chosen subjects. It's not designed to be a test of how fast you can make your hand move to write something. Selecting people for college places on that basis would be utterly ridiculous.

What's your deal, anyway? How did you do in the LC? It's all very well to say this if you're someone who is able to write faster than average, and your place in college isn't hanging in the balance. It's not that easy for everyone and the LC shouldn't discriminate on the basis of physical ability to write at a certain speed.

...Or perhaps you didn't get your course for this same reason, and are now pissed that future students might not have that burden to bear?

Grow up. If you can make posts like this, you've clearly missed the point of the whole education system.

Mushy

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

That's such an unbelievably lame argument. The Leaving Cert is supposed to test what you know in your chosen subjects. It's not designed to be a test of how fast you can make your hand move to write something. Selecting people for college places on that basis would be utterly ridiculous.

What's your deal, anyway? How did you do in the LC? It's all very well to say this if you're someone who is able to write faster than average, and your place in college isn't hanging in the balance. It's not that easy for everyone and the LC shouldn't discriminate on the basis of physical ability to write at a certain speed.

...Or perhaps you didn't get your course for this same reason, and are now pissed that future students might not have that burden to bear?

Grow up. If you can make posts like this, you've clearly missed the point of the whole education system.

But if ya know the stuff, 3/4 pages in 40mins is not that difficult, believe me, as I said, I've done it before. You dont need to be able to write the fastest. In my class, I was the slowest writer, but got the best score in the class. So goes to show ya dont have to be the fastest writer. Sure if ya write faster and fill it with irrelevant stuff, it goes for nothing and your wasting time.

My deal is they say they trying to dumb it down, I dont agree with that. But if they change the length of these exams cos of some sore hands, well, its not dumbing down, but its making it easier by a good deal. can ye not accept something thats tough, and try tackle it instead of working to change it, that prob wont happen? I got 390 in the LC, I didnt feel the need to be rushing every answer, but still got everything done within the time easily enough.

No, I got my course comfortably. Maybe you will grow up and realise that it wasnt actually that bad. Only time will tell. I'd be very surprised if in a year you still thought history was quite bad.

PrivateEye

After (nearly completely!) doing the LC, I say dumb it down as much as they want.

Wouldn't wish all that on my worst enemy.

As for Bat O' Keefe replying...
Think members of the Fianna Fail party will be busy enough tomorrow ****ting it all day to respond to emails :pac:

hatrickpatrick

But if ya know the stuff, 3/4 pages in 40mins is not that difficult, believe me, as I said, I've done it before. You dont need to be able to write the fastest. In my class, I was the slowest writer, but got the best score in the class. So goes to show ya dont have to be the fastest writer. Sure if ya write faster and fill it with irrelevant stuff, it goes for nothing and your wasting time.

Well I'm a fairly fast writer in my class and I know my stuff, yet I managed to write only 3 pages for my best essay today. Maybe you write bigger or something, or you're just very lucky, but a vast number of people aren't.

My deal is they say they trying to dumb it down, I dont agree with that. But if they change the length of these exams cos of some sore hands, well, its not dumbing down, but its making it easier by a good deal

So you're saying it's right that you're being tested on your ability to write fast and NOT on your knowledge of your syllabus?

Hypothetical example
Candidate A: Knows the course reasonably well, and is able to write with lightening speed, managing to write totally coherent 4 page essays without needing to stop to think

Candidate B: Knows the course inside out but can't write as fast as A and needs a minute or two to plan the essay in order for it to make the most sense.

Candidate A gets into college, candidate B doesn't, not because of a lack of knowledge but because one is slightly faster at writing paragraphs than the other. It's not "making it easier", it's making it fairer.

can ye not accept something thats tough, and try tackle it instead of working to change it, that prob wont happen? I got 390 in the LC, I didnt feel the need to be rushing every answer, but still got everything done within the time easily enough.

Well done, good for you. Think how you'd feel though if you knew everything on the course and didn't have time to write it all, then missed your place in college because of it? And no, "accepting it" is fine if it doesn't matter, but not getting into college could seriously **** up people's lives. I can understand it being hard to empathize since you got your course, but you can't speak for people who need very high points and can't get them because of a detail like time.

No, I got my course comfortably. Maybe you will grow up and realise that it wasnt actually that bad. Only time will tell. I'd be very surprised if in a year you still thought history was quite bad.

Depends, doesn't it? If I have to repeat because this didn't go so well I definetely will still be pissed about it. Luckily I think it did go well enough, but I know people who didn't think so and seeing crap like this really pisses me off...

Mushy

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Well I'm a fairly fast writer in my class and I know my stuff, yet I managed to write only 3 pages for my best essay today. Maybe you write bigger or something, or you're just very lucky, but a vast number of people aren't.



So you're saying it's right that you're being tested on your ability to write fast and NOT on your knowledge of your syllabus?

Hypothetical example
Candidate A: Knows the course reasonably well, and is able to write with lightening speed, managing to write totally coherent 4 page essays without needing to stop to think

Candidate B: Knows the course inside out but can't write as fast as A and needs a minute or two to plan the essay in order for it to make the most sense.

Candidate A gets into college, candidate B doesn't, not because of a lack of knowledge but because one is slightly faster at writing paragraphs than the other. It's not "making it easier", it's making it fairer.



Well done, good for you. Think how you'd feel though if you knew everything on the course and didn't have time to write it all, then missed your place in college because of it? And no, "accepting it" is fine if it doesn't matter, but not getting into college could seriously **** up people's lives. I can understand it being hard to empathize since you got your course, but you can't speak for people who need very high points and can't get them because of a detail like time.



Depends, doesn't it? If I have to repeat because this didn't go so well I definetely will still be pissed about it. Luckily I think it did go well enough, but I know people who didn't think so and seeing crap like this really pisses me off...

I will say it in one...timing is everything in history. If the preparation has been done properly, there will be no problems. Timing for this should be drilled into students by the teachers.In my school, we did at least 5 essays a week, be it in class or at home, all had to be done in under 40mins. do that from at latest November, and there should be no complaints about time. You cant expect to show up on he day knowing how long ya have for an essay but not having prractised it over and over. Yeah, its boring, I really wanted to drop it, but now Im majoring in it in college, so works both ways, its well worth it!

superLeetive

turgon wrote: »

Ok lads, totally agree, did history today should be at least 30 minutes longer. We should get an online petition going definitely. But not for more than 2 or 3 subjects - lets make it reasonable.

I'm a constituent of Batt O'Keefe (live about half a mile away from him) if that can be any help.

I'm up for getting some sort of a campaign going as it's very unfair. Get an online petition going and then when it's had a lot of interest we could write a letter to the SEC/Dept. of Ed explaining it and giving a link to the website...bit of media coverage wouldn't go a miss either.

orangetictac wrote: »

Maybe a petition would force them to change the marking scheme and give a1's to all......maybe

If we could get them to only count each candidate's 3 best Qs in Business or something....

hatrickpatrick

I will say it in one...timing is everything in history. If the preparation has been done properly, there will be no problems. Timing for this should be drilled into students by the teachers.In my school, we did at least 5 essays a week, be it in class or at home, all had to be done in under 40mins. do that from at latest November, and there should be no complaints about time. You cant expect to show up on he day knowing how long ya have for an essay but not having prractised it over and over. Yeah, its boring, I really wanted to drop it, but now Im majoring in it in college, so works both ways, its well worth it!

Timing was, indeed, drilled into all of us from day one in fifth year, but the fact is that no matter how many essays we did, nothing changed - people averaged around 2-3 pages, and the exact same was duplicated in the exam yesterday - my shortest essay was just over 2 pages and my longest one was 3.5 . Had I forced myself to write any faster, my handwriting would have been so illegible that any examiner would have been obliged to fail me on the grounds of having no clue WTF I was writing about.

It's simply ridiculous - the leaving is supposed to test how well you know your subject, NOT how fast you can write about it. Allowing people to miss out on college even when they actually knew enough to get an A1 is more than appalling.

turgon

Well heres my news...

Good all Batt O'Keefe rang the school the other day (its where his children went afaik). So hes asked for 6 pupils to go to Dublin on the 1st to attend a meeting about the timetable. So Im going on an (all expenses paid whooooo) trip to Dublin. Will be arguing the case that some exams should be longer such as History. And Buisness even though I dont do it.

My mother voted for him in the election so hed better agree :mad::mad::mad::mad:
Only messin!!!

~Candy~

turgon wrote: »

Well heres my news...

Good all Batt O'Keefe rang the school the other day (its where his children went afaik). So hes asked for 6 pupils to go to Dublin on the 1st to attend a meeting about the timetable. So Im going on an (all expenses paid whooooo) trip to Dublin. Will be arguing the case that some exams should be longer such as History. And Buisness even though I dont do it.

My mother voted for him in the election so hed better agree :mad::mad::mad::mad:
Only messin!!!

woo..go u !!:p

jennyq

I didn't really have a problem with business timing to be honest, I was writing up to near the end but I got a chance to read over the paper quickly. Maybe I was just lucky with my questions but I'd still say English II is the most difficult for time despite the extra 20 minutes. I don't actually know how I would have coped without that 20 minutes & even then I wasn't quite finished. I could probably have written less, but it wouldn't have been as good then so it's difficult to know how to balance it.

superLeetive

turgon wrote: »

Well heres my news...

Good all Batt O'Keefe rang the school the other day (its where his children went afaik). So hes asked for 6 pupils to go to Dublin on the 1st to attend a meeting about the timetable.

Yes Batt O'keefe will be holding a review of the LC timetable on Tuesday, July 1st in the Dept. of Ed buildings on Marlborough Street (parallel to O'Connell Street), Dublin. Any students that have an interest in communicating their views on changes that should be made to the timetable are welcome to attend.