Should I drop honours maths?

pixiegaga

Hey evryone hope you can help!

I'm a 16 year old girl in 5th year and I'm very serious about studing Law both which have high points..just my luck!
I'm doing 7 subjects- options are (history, home ec and biology) and I'm currently working part time in a shop two or three times a week with a boss I feel will be slow to let me go next year..(told him i could only work one evening...he now lets me go home a half hour early...still working two to three days..)
I'm very seriously thinking about dropping down to pass maths..(failed xmas test..but not the only one) as i need to bring up my results in both history and irish. My maths teacher wont let me go as I'm one of three girls left in the class and he thinks I can do it unfortunately he is also my carreers guidance teacher and I cant talk to him properily.
In our school its a big deal to do all honours..only 5 are and two are girls. And I'm the only one holding down a parttime job and also babysitting alot! If I drop I know ill be bored in pass and probably laugh at the questions but I'm not sure if i can deal with houours any more. Honestly I can bring myself way up by working hard but I'm afraid it will affect my other subjects.
If anyone went throught this or had advice I would greatly appreciate it and will look at any suggestions....everyone tells me I can do it but I really want to get over 500 points and I wounder if I should drop and just play the 'point game'. Also if anyone had study tips or tips to help get motivated for study would be appreciated. I fimd it hard lately to motiviate myself.

x0x0


dropped maths since post..thanks for advice tho hope it will help others in my situation!! :P

x0x0

pathway33

points game is the only game in town. drop the honours maths. nobody will thank you for getting 495 points and a B in honours maths.

Crow92

It depends on if your a math's sorta person?? even though you failed do you like the class??

I personally dropped honours irish to play the "points game" as the input wasn't worth the output imo, though to be 100% truthfull if i needed to keep it i could of. So technically can be put down to slight lazyness....

I'm currently in ordinary irish and absolutely bored outta my tree...i'd rather just not be there. I think it;s too early for you to drop it. Maths results can flucuate easily,
I got 40% during the summer and got 66% over the christmas.
As you said yourself your not the onnly person to fail, i think you should stick at it

dambarude

Where do you intend on studying? UL gives bonus points for Honours Maths.

Personally, if I were in your position I would wait until the end of fifth year and see how things are going then.

If, however, you think that you'll end up dropping to pass eventually, and you're just postponing the inevitable, you might as well go sooner rather than later. The OL course is different to the HL course, so whatever you do, don't leave it until the very end of 6th year.

pixiegaga

ya i heard that some colleges give extra points but whatever happens maths will be the subject i dont count and doing honours...i aim for a d or c grade.... my friend just txt me saying she was might drop too...spineless cowardly sheep

Bhoy_

In my opinion no. There's a myth that honours maths is very hard, it's not. Get your head around the basics and the rest will follow.

dambarude

Bhoy_ wrote: »

In my opinion no. There's a myth that honours maths is very hard, it's not. Get your head around the basics and the rest will follow.

For some people it's not hard, for others it is. Depends on the person themselves. The OP is doing honours atm so she/he knows what it's like.

SarcasticFairy

pixiegaga wrote: »

Hey evryone hope you can help!

I'm a 16 year old girl in 5th year and I'm very serious about studing Law or physiology both which have high points..just my luck!
I'm doing 7 subjects- options are (history, home ec and biology) and I'm currently working part time in a shop two or three times a week with a boss I feel will be slow to let me go next year..(told him i could only work one evening...he now lets me go home a half hour early...still working two to three days..)
I'm very seriously thinking about dropping down to pass maths..(failed xmas test..but not the only one) as i need to bring up my results in both history and irish. My maths teacher wont let me go as I'm one of three girls left oin the class and he thinks I can do it unfortunately he is also my carreers guidance teacher and I cant talk to him properily.
In our school its a big deal to do all honours..only 5 are and two are girls. And I'm the only one holding down a parttime job and also babysitting alot! If I drop I know ill be bored in pass and probably laugh at the questions but I'm not sure if i can deal with houours any more. Honestly I can bring myself way up by working hard but I'm afraid it will affect my other subjects.
If anyone went throught this or had advice I would greatly appreciate it and will look at any suggestions....everyone tells me I can do it but I really want to get over 500 points and I wounder if I should drop and just play the 'point game'. Also if anyone had study tips or tips to help get motivated for study would be appreciated. I fimd it hard lately to motiviate myself.

x0x0

I was in literally the exact same position two years ago. Wanted to do Law, wanted to drop to pass cos HL was a pain in the ass, but I was one of two girls in a class of 5, and nobody would let me go anywhere. Didn't drop it in the end, did the actual exam, and got a C3 (I actually came out of the exam crying, and thought I'd failed miserably).

I was delighted with the C3, but if I was to go back in time, I'd drop it after 5th year. You do cover a lot of the OL course, in more detail than necessary making the OL papers a bit of a joke by comparison, but you get out early enough to concentrate on other subjects, and also get used to the slightly different way the OL paper is set... But I would agree that leaving just before the LC is silly. One of the guys in my class did exactly that, and got a B3 in the exam, when he would have gotten at least a C in HL, and he said himself it was purely because he didn't know the paper well enough!

I'd say stick it out for another while, unless it's seriously effecting your other subjects!

pixiegaga

ha ya and one of the guys in my class said to me i thought u were smarter than that...i think it just goes to show its all equality until you get into honours maths then its pure sexist...:/

thanks for the advice tho i think i will try for another few weeks at the least...:O

USER X

I was in a similar position when I did my leaving and I decided to drop as close as maybe 6 weeks before the leaving. I needed to study 2 or 3 areas which I hadn't covered in honours maths and I needed to study them by myself as the teacher was busy covering other areas of the course which I already had a knowledge of. I got an A1 in pass and it was soooo easy, I could have done it in my sleep. The key to maths is practice, do every one of the questions for the areas you are covering from every one of the exam papers. I made out like an index at the start of the folder I was putting the completed work into with say 2005 Paper 1, Q1 (A)(B)(C) and striked them out as I completed them, that way you have a final target and you start to take pride in the amount of work you have put in, esp as the folder thinkens with the solutions you have written.

I regretted dropping to pass but I left it too late to really make the effort with honours, I would have ended up spending all my time on maths and neglecting the other subjects. My advice to you would be as I mentioned to start ploughing through the exam papers, the less stress books are good if you need to learn an area to complete a question in a paper. You might want to lose the part time job if you can or spend more time on your studies this year and then get rid of the job completely next year so you can really study. I remember people discussing the fact that transition year students get exposure to the workplace and start to like having some money in their pockets, then they find it hard to give this up when it comes to settling back down to the leaving.

pixiegaga

USER X wrote: »

I was in a similar position when I did my leaving and I decided to drop as close as maybe 6 weeks before the leaving. I needed to study 2 or 3 areas which I hadn't covered in honours maths and I needed to study them by myself as the teacher was busy covering other areas of the course which I already had a knowledge of. I got an A1 in pass and it was soooo easy, I could have done it in my sleep. The key to maths is practice, do every one of the questions for the areas you are covering from every one of the exam papers. I made out like an index at the start of the folder I was putting the completed work into with say 2005 Paper 1, Q1 (A)(B)(C) and striked them out as I completed them, that way you have a final target and you start to take pride in the amount of work you have put in, esp as the folder thinkens with the solutions you have written.

I regretted dropping to pass but I left it too late to really make the effort with honours, I would have ended up spending all my time on maths and neglecting the other subjects. My advice to you would be as I mentioned to start ploughing through the exam papers, the less stress books are good if you need to learn an area to complete a question in a paper. You might want to lose the part time job if you can or spend more time on your studies this year and then get rid of the job completely next year so you can really study. I remember people discussing the fact that transition year students get exposure to the workplace and start to like having some money in their pockets, then they find it hard to give this up when it comes to settling back down to the leaving.

sooo true about transition year and part time job!!! but yes i was planning on leaving my little shop in september even thought i was talking to my boss and he was giving me a spare fleece saying this will last you a few years....:O he is about as willing to let me go as my maths teacher but o well ill get round him...

thanks for the advice about the exam papers too i was planning on doing it but didnt know how to organise things...teachers all over the place...

Bigrob

Hey listen, I'm in 6th yr and in honours maths. I want to do engineering in college so i have to do honours maths.
Last year i was in the same situation as you, failing exams and feeling incapable.
After talking with my teacher, parents etc. I decided to stick with the maths.
Now a year later I'm consistenly getting 60/70% in tests.
Basically what I'm sayin is; keep plugging away at it, come 6th yr it will get easier and start makin sense. Maths is a subject that requires constant work but it will get easier! So stick with it! And if you feel you still cant do it in 6th yr, then theres still plenty of time come christmas in 6th yr to drop!

pixiegaga

ya a boy in my class is like that as well wants to do engineering in college at the moment hes doing the best in class...told me he thought i was smarter than failing...:rolleyes:..i tried to take it as a compliment as he didnt say it to my friend who failed also...

im torn to be honest it seems so petty to people but when its you its awful...i love people who know what they want and just go for it..

Professional Griefer

USER X wrote: »

I regretted dropping to pass but I left it too late to really make the effort with honours, I would have ended up spending all my time on maths and neglecting the other subjects. My advice to you would be as I mentioned to start ploughing through the exam papers, the less stress books are good if you need to learn an area to complete a question in a paper.

haha, this is exactly what happened to my the last 3 months. Dropped to pass last thursday and its so damn boring. I mean I was pretty good at JC honours and today the the work we were doing was exactly the same from the area and volume I was doing this time 2 years ago. I really wanted to do honours and I thought that I could do well, with the work i coulda easily gotta at least a C3 but i started poorly this year, we done like 4/5 topics since and i haven't done anything so it was either, try and pass it, or let everything else suffer. Its all balls, but just put in the work, consistently and you'll be fine at it. its only 2 years, do your best, can't do much more.

pixiegaga

ok sooo..
i dropped down today because i could'nt take it and i felt i was wasting my time as i knew I would drop eventually.....just me being lazy really
anyway got into pass class, first sum she put on the board was the square root of 18.....i almost passed out then was sitting there in disbelif that in the room beside me (where i was) they were tackling binomeal theroms .ect and they were in this class doing square roots....:eek:
the whole syallabus should really be changed or even an extra level added in....pass is toooo easy but houours is a bit too hard and time-consuming...:P its crazy how much work you have to do in honours to 'scrape' a C for 60 points when you can 'sit' there in pass and just get 60 points with relatively no work....easier than higher JC as I was looking throught friends exam papers...:O

at least in pass i can help people (instead of people helping me..:/) and can actually complete my hw and get out the answers!!!!

square root land rocks!!!!...and i had time to do my irish hw...:O