bonus points for maths

pathway33

http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0407/pay.html

The Minister today gave her backing for the introduction of bonus points for leaving cert maths. Anyone any more info on this?

Fad

Wonder if the bonus points will be retroactive for people who have already sat the leaving and are reapplying.

I have no info though.

SarcasticFairy

Doubt it'll be retroactive... Would that not cause mayhem?

MavisDavis

As far as I know, she added in her speech that the whole thing would depend on "a panel of experts" and their findings and whatnot. The Minister:

"While I will await and consider the views of the expert group, it is my view at this point that we could send a clear signal to our second level student population with the introduction of a CAO points bonus for achievement in Leaving Certificate maths."

Could happen this year, but you know how slowly politics works. Darn, and I was about to go hell for leather with the auld maths book..

Would this be for all courses/colleges or just some, like the way Limerick (I think...) is already awarding extra points for higher maths.

Ronan Keating

They will hardly begin this before 2012.

2011 Leaving Cert course has begun. Would it not be slightly unfair to some LC 2011'ers.

They were not aware that the changes would be made. If they had known they might have taken HL.

pathway33

Ronan Keating wrote: »

They will hardly begin this before 2012.

2011 Leaving Cert course has begun. Would it not be slightly unfair to some LC 2011'ers.

They were not aware that the changes would be made. If they had known they might have taken HL.

in her speech http://www.education.ie/home/home.jsp?maincat=&pcategory=10861&ecategory=11469&sectionpage=12251&language=EN&link=link001&page=1&doc=48913

she mentions 'in the short term' and then she says 'while I will await' and then she says 'send a clear signal to our second level student population'

In my book medium term is 3 to 5 years and so short term must be 2 or less. It would be seriously unfair if students sitting maths in 2011 were suddenly given an extra 50 points with no chance for OL students to catch up.

Liveit

pathway33 wrote: »

in her speech http://www.education.ie/home/home.jsp?maincat=&pcategory=10861&ecategory=11469&sectionpage=12251&language=EN&link=link001&page=1&doc=48913

she mentions 'in the short term' and then she says 'while I will await' and then she says 'send a clear signal to our second level student population'

In my book medium term is 3 to 5 years and so short term must be 2 or less. It would be seriously unfair if students sitting maths in 2011 were suddenly given an extra 50 points with no chance for OL students to catch up.

nah what would be unfair would to have a massive gap in levels between the HL and OL exams..... oh wait!

Mayoegian

pathway33 wrote: »

in her speech http://www.education.ie/home/home.jsp?maincat=&pcategory=10861&ecategory=11469&sectionpage=12251&language=EN&link=link001&page=1&doc=48913

she mentions 'in the short term' and then she says 'while I will await' and then she says 'send a clear signal to our second level student population'

In my book medium term is 3 to 5 years and so short term must be 2 or less. It would be seriously unfair if students sitting maths in 2011 were suddenly given an extra 50 points with no chance for OL students to catch up.

How would it be unfair? The OL students decided not to do HL Maths on the basis that they would not be able to understand the material. How does bonus points change that for them? The course is still the exact same.

almostnever

Mayoegian wrote: »

How would it be unfair? The OL students decided not to do HL Maths on the basis that they would not be able to understand the material. How does bonus points change that for them? The course is still the exact same.

Lots of people do ordinary level maths despite perhaps being capable of doing the higher level course, because they're playing the points game and deem it a waste of time when they weigh up how much effort they feel is necessary to do well. If there were bonus points, a student who may know he/she could get a C1 for example may decide to remain at higher level/attempt higher level because points wise, it could be worth their while.

pathway33

Mayoegian wrote: »

How would it be unfair? The OL students decided not to do HL Maths on the basis that they would not be able to understand the material. How does bonus points change that for them? The course is still the exact same.

No. Some of the OL students decide not to do HL Maths on the basis that the amount of effort is not worth an extra 10 points (HC1 v OA1), and they are right because they are much wiser to save tons of hours study and pick up an extra 5 or 10 points in each of their other subjects.

However if at the start of 5th year they knew that the points they would get were a reflection of the extra hours then they would opt for honours maths. If the extra points apply to LC 2011 then it's too late for the current 5th years to catch up.

Of course you are right that for some OL students it makes no difference because they wouldn't have chosen higher maths even if it was treble points.

DancingQueen:)

I think it sounds like a great idea. I'd love if it was brought in this year but there's probably no chance of that happening!

Ronan Keating

They cannot being it in in the middle of two LC Courses. They will wait until 2012 and give the pending 5th years of 2011 a warning of what is to come. Therefore the 5th years can decide what they want to do and not be caught out when they enter 6th year in 2012.

Sarn

Before they reformed the curriculum there were bonus points for honours maths, allowing for up to 140 points for an A1. As the course was made easier they were removed. At the time it was only worth your while doing it if you were anyway good at it. It was far easier to do ordinary level with next to no work and get an A. Ultimately it meant that the points for certain 'high achiever' courses were greater as a result.

Edit: 640 points was considered a perfect leaving, straight HA1s including maths.

pathway33

Sarn wrote: »

Before they reformed the curriculum there were bonus points for honours maths, allowing for up to 140 points for an A1. As the course was made easier they were removed. At the time it was only worth your while doing it if you were anyway good at it. It was far easier to do ordinary level with next to no work and get an A. Ultimately it meant that the points for certain 'high achiever' courses were greater as a result.

so a 600 point 'perfect' leaving would be an A1 in higher maths, another HA1 and 4 HA2's.

Was that at a time when there was no A1, A2, B1 etc? Just A, B, C, etc

Podge_irl

I've never entirely understood why Maths above anything else should receive bonus points.

Crow92

Not that i agree...even though i do (H) maths,

I believe the reasoning behind it is that like 8,000 or so people do honours maths out of like 55,000 which is crazy

jumpguy

With the new Project Maths I wonder if it'll be still supported...

Anyway, I'm all for bonus point in HL maths tbh. Doubt it'll apply to things like medicine though...

spurious

'In my day' there were bonus points for Honours Maths. If I recall correctly there were 5 points for a HL A and 7 points for a Maths HL A. It certainly made people think a bit before dropping to pass at the first sign of difficulty.

They would be unlikely to introduce a change for this year's exam - it would not be fair at this late stage.

SantryRed

Absolutely ridiculous that one subject should get higher points than any other. Complete disadvantage to people.

SarcasticFairy

It could also be said that the amount of work you have to put into HL Maths is ridiculous, and completely disproportionate to the rest of your six subjects (or whatever...). Even people who are good at maths seem to spend an obscene amount of time on it...

Not really a disadvantage... You put more work in, you get more points....

elarkla

SantryRed wrote: »

Absolutely ridiculous that one subject should get higher points than any other. Complete disadvantage to people.

There's so much more work involved in higher maths... It deserves more points as it's so hard to do well in! How can you really say that an A in some of the easier subjects (e.g. music or Home Ec - not trying to take from them) is worth the same (therefore as easy to get) as an A in higher maths?

Miss Lockhart

I think it's bad that such a small number of students are doing HL maths. The government, industry, universities etc want more people doing HL, especially in science related areas. Fine, but at the same time I don't see how someone doing literature etc having A1 HL maths skills will be better for the country. If they want certain people to have better maths levels then why not just make it a requirement for more courses? Why are people able to do chem/physics or whatever without HL maths if the powers that be are not happy with that?

Podge_irl

elarkla wrote: »

There's so much more work involved in higher maths... It deserves more points as it's so hard to do well in! How can you really say that an A in some of the easier subjects (e.g. music or Home Ec - not trying to take from them) is worth the same (therefore as easy to get) as an A in higher maths?

Is that really true though? Maths is the same as any other subject - some people are good at it and the amount of work one has to do varies wildly. A lot of students appear to have the wrong impression of how much work is involved in maths. A big problem I found when giving grinds wasn't that students found maths to be too much work, but figured it would be too much work and so didn't try very hard.

I don't think the key to getting more people to do HL Maths is to simply give extra points for it. Efforts need to be made to ensure it's being taught properly and the course needs to be looked at to some degree (I'm not a fan of Project Maths). There is an attitude towards HL Maths that I think needs to be addressed. Giving extra points for it just reinforces the image that it's an impossibly hard subject.

Murchal

I really think giving students extra points for higher LC maths is going down the wrong road. Of course I understand why it's been suggested - too few people doing h maths, trying to encourage people to do science based subjects at third level etc. but the Dept. of Ed have got to realise that this would be putting students as a disadvantage who are good at other subjects, but not necessarily maths. (Just as someone who's gifted at maths might not be great when it comes to languages.) I know science and maths are imp. for Ireland's economy, but Arts, Business, Law etc. should be regarded with just as much importance.

I did my LC last year. I really like Science and got A1s in Phys, Bio and Chem, but dropped down to Ord Maths, because I was afraid I'd fail higher maths (got a D3 in mocks) and then my LC would be worth basically nothing. I'm doing Medicine now in TCD, which has no maths-based material on the curriculum and maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think my lack of Higher Maths will make be a lesser doctor; a lack of empathy, understanding, or willingness to work hard might, but maths surely not. If there had been extra points last year for Higher maths, I would be able to do what i'm doing now....and for what?

Davidius

Without giving it much thought, I'm of the opinion that that wouldn't be the greatest idea especially if it's not course specific. You'd be unfairly rewarding those who have an aptitude for the subject.

For example, I found A1s in maths to be quite easy to obtain but I found there was a lot more work involved in getting a C3 in HL Irish.

whadabouchasir

Murchal wrote: »

I really think giving students extra points for higher LC maths is going down the wrong road. Of course I understand why it's been suggested - too few people doing h maths, trying to encourage people to do science based subjects at third level etc.

If they want to encourage more people to do HL maths then they really only have 2 options either make the course easier,which would do more harm than good,or give extra points for HL maths.You could argue that this isn't fair to students who are better at languages than maths,but if you are good at languages then you have more subjects that you could do very well in,english,Irish,French,German even History and Geography to a lesser extent.However there really aren't an awful lot of other subjects similar to maths except for Applied Maths,and very few schools do this as a subject.

lc2010

Bring it in today...........200 points for Maths A1:p:p, therefore I could stop caring about the stupid orals!!!
On a serious note what about extra points for the three core subjects?

Murchal

lc2010 wrote: »

On a serious note what about extra points for the three core subjects?

Well someone already gave the fact that only 8,000 students out of 55-60,000 do Higher maths as a reason for introducing bonus points for maths. But if you look at Irish, the number doing higher level is not much higher at 14,000. If they started giving extra points for higher irish, there'd be uproar, seeing as there's so many people wanting to make Irish non-compulsory.

As well, if they start giving more than the traditional 100 points for maths, in a couple of years, who's to say the gov won't be saying that the standard of ..I dunno...Tech. Drawing is really poor and we need to encourage people to take it on for the sake of the construction sector, so they then give an extra 20 or so points for doing that subject. Then someone will say "What about Subject X" and so on. It'll be a never ending cycle. Our system's not perfect but I think it's still better to leave it as it is, at least on this issue.

Podge_irl

whadabouchasir wrote: »

If they want to encourage more people to do HL maths then they really only have 2 options either make the course easier,which would do more harm than good,or give extra points for HL maths.

Nonsense. They could try simply encouraging people to take it. Tackling the (mistaken imo) view that it is massively difficult and giving careful consideration to how it is taught and certain elements of the course would help. It would also help massively to have smaller Maths classes, but I can't see that happening any time soon. It's one of the few subjects that teaches problem solving skills and an analytic approach to problems, but by that same nature it requires somewhat more specialised teaching imo.

Ultimately, I'm not that bothered by the lack of people taking HL Maths. It would be nice for the govt to throw out platitudes for themselves about how they've improved the numbers taking HL Maths, but 8,000 students a year taking it is ample for the number of University level courses that require maths. The OL Maths course is in some ways more suited to those who will be going into subjects that don't have a mathematical basis in university (or indeed just going into jobs). It should concentrate on giving people a sound mathematical basis so they can do things like understand taxes/statistics etc (the latter is especially poorly understood by the populace at large). A more pressing concern is how poor many of the people who take HL Maths actually are at the subject.

_Bella_

There is so much work involved in HL maths... they should definitely bring it in preferably for the LC 2012

whadabouchasir

Podge_irl wrote: »

Nonsense. They could try simply encouraging people to take it. Tackling the (mistaken imo) view that it is massively difficult and giving careful consideration to how it is taught and certain elements of the course would help.

Just telling people that maths isn't as difficult as people think wouldn't encourage many more to do it at all.You need to offer students some incentive to do it,because imo it was the subject that I had to do the most work for,dispite my love of maths and most others who did HL agreed with me.On the other hand all of my freinds who droppedfrom HL to OL said that there was a huge deifference between the two,in both the amount of work required and the difficulty of the course material.

SantryRed

elarkla wrote: »

There's so much more work involved in higher maths... It deserves more points as it's so hard to do well in! How can you really say that an A in some of the easier subjects (e.g. music or Home Ec - not trying to take from them) is worth the same (therefore as easy to get) as an A in higher maths?

What? Some people find things easier than other. I got 74 in my Maths mock in Higher Level but I think it would be a farce if I received extra points for doing good in it.

Podge_irl

whadabouchasir wrote: »

Just telling people that maths isn't as difficult as people think wouldn't encourage many more to do it at all.You need to offer students some incentive to do it,because imo it was the subject that I had to do the most work for,dispite my love of maths and most others who did HL agreed with me.On the other hand all of my freinds who droppedfrom HL to OL said that there was a huge deifference between the two,in both the amount of work required and the difficulty of the course material.

I obviously don't think it should be as simplistic as just telling people it's not hard, but some sort of coordinated awareness campaign for want of a better word.

I just don't think something as simplistic as giving extra points for it is the way forward. It's formalising the view that it is somehow a much harder subject and I don't see it as a way of attracting more people to do HL maths. The people dropping HL maths are generally in the C range, not the A range, so it's questionable how many extra points they'd get either. It would largely just end up unfairly rewarding those who are excellent at maths.

SarcasticFairy

I get what you're saying about formalising the view that it's difficult, but do you not think many of those C students would keep it up, rather than drop it, knowing that their 60 point C is now worth more than 60 points? An OL A is only going to ever be worth 60 points, so dropping down would mean that would be the maximum you could get, and that's only assuming your paper is practically perfect. It would definitely make making the decision to drop down more difficult, and encourage more people to work at HL.

I do think it gives an unfair advantage to those who are naturally gifted at maths... The only way I can think of to combat that would be to not offer extra points on an A, or something, but that would be utterly retarded, as it'd make a B worth more than an A...

It's difficult, but I don't think a mere campaign will do much. They've been half-arsedly encouraging people to stick with it for years. There definitely needs to be some incentive, at least at the beginning, if they want to up numbers.

whadabouchasir

Podge_irl wrote: »

I obviously don't think it should be as simplistic as just telling people it's not hard, but some sort of coordinated awareness campaign for want of a better word.

I still believe that students need some sort of incentive to do HL maths.Another possibilty might be to put the maths exam near the end of the LC timetable therby giving people more time to study for maths.You aklso mentioned people having a preconcieved idea about it being hard.I think you're right there,but i remember at the beginning of 5th year my maths teacher told us that HL would take an hour of study every night for 2 years.I don't think that any other subject requires this much work,well at least none of the one's i did anyway.In college there is a credits system based on how much work each module requires,I think that something similar should be introduced to the LC to take into account the varying amounts of work each subject requires.Imo bonus points for some subjects would be the best way to go about doing this in the short term anyway.

niamh2709

The reason to give maths more points is to encourage more people to do it as it looks bad on ireland because of the high fail rate. Its not saying its more important just subjects with higher points ie medicine tend to have a maths base to them.

Podge_irl

niamh2709 wrote: »

The reason to give maths more points is to encourage more people to do it as it looks bad on ireland because of the high fail rate. Its not saying its more important just subjects with higher points ie medicine tend to have a maths base to them.

Medicine doesn't really have a maths base to it. Indeed many courses with a large maths basis have quite low points requirements as there isn't as much demand for them.

whadabouchasir wrote:

but i remember at the beginning of 5th year my maths teacher told us that HL would take an hour of study every night for 2 years.I don't think that any other subject requires this much work

Such comments are reasonably worthless though as it's a very subjective thing. I'll readily admit to being an exception here, but I did precisely zero work for maths outside of the classroom because I found it easy. In contrast I put the most effort into French and Irish and didn't get amazing marks in either. I just don't subscribe to the view that maths is inherently harder than the other subjects and I think the reason that so many people need to spend so long working on it has more to do with the poor way it is taught. There is too much emphasis on memorising techniques and repetitive questions and not enough on actual problem solving methods and teaching students to properly analyse questions. The problem is that the latter is much harder to do and there aren't enough good maths teachers out there.

whadabouchasir

Podge_irl wrote: »

Such comments are reasonably worthless though as it's a very subjective thing. I'll readily admit to being an exception here, but I did precisely zero work for maths outside of the classroom because I found it easy. In contrast I put the most effort into French and Irish and didn't get amazing marks in either. I just don't subscribe to the view that maths is inherently harder than the other subjects and I think the reason that so many people need to spend so long working on it has more to do with the poor way it is taught.

Difficulty is a subjective thing but that's just one part of the reason why maths requires more work,another is the length of the course.You have to realise that the aim of the LC student is to get the maximum points possible by doing as little work as possible.So plenty of people do OL maths and do HL in another subject which has a shorter course.Many of these people would be more than capable of doing HL maths but are just put off by the idea of doing more work (and for most students it is more work) for the same amount of points.The only logical conclusion is to award extra points for a subject that requires extra work.I know You'll say that this gives those who are naturally gifted at maths an unfair advantage,but there are in the minority

pathway33

Here it is so

A1 150
A2 145
B1 140
B2 130
B3 120
C1 100
C2 80
C3 70
D1 65
D2 60
D3 55

so we are almost rewarding the hard workers who might get a B1 as much as the A1 genius. The 20 point gaps from C2 to C1 and C1 to B3 should stop people settling for a C3. And there's still a 10 point incentive for those who will scrape a pass. I think it's brilliant

niamh2709

pathway33 wrote: »

Here it is so

A1 150
A2 145
B1 140
B2 130
B3 120
C1 100
C2 80
C3 70
D1 65
D2 60
D3 55

so we are almost rewarding the hard workers who might get a B1 as much as the A1 genius. The 20 point gaps from C2 to C1 and C1 to B3 should stop people settling for a C3. And there's still a 15 point incentive for those who will scrape a pass. I think it's brilliant

Is this actually whats going to happen?

pathway33

niamh2709 wrote: »

Is this actually whats going to happen?

this is just my first draft. I haven't told the minister yet

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Chuchoter

Podge_irl wrote: »

I obviously don't think it should be as simplistic as just telling people it's not hard, but some sort of coordinated awareness campaign for want of a better word.

I just don't think something as simplistic as giving extra points for it is the way forward. It's formalising the view that it is somehow a much harder subject and I don't see it as a way of attracting more people to do HL maths. The people dropping HL maths are generally in the C range, not the A range, so it's questionable how many extra points they'd get either. It would largely just end up unfairly rewarding those who are excellent at maths.

I would disagree. I got an A at HL in my Junior cert, and I'm well capable of getting a B or even an A in the leaving if I work at it, but I have no qualms dropping it if it takes up too much time. The course is much longer and much harder than other courses, even teachers will tell you that, so they have two choices:make it worth the extra effort or make it easier/shorter. I want to do medicine and I'm taking Physics, I'm only doing HL maths for the sake of my pride and nothing else.

However, a much larger number of girls took higher-level Irish (9,716) than took higher-level maths (3,739).

This is a little bit off topic, but interestingly enough do you think this has anything to do with the perception (often even by schools) that girls are bad at maths and are not taking it because everyone is telling them this?

Ruski

I wouldn't see much of a point. When the maths was more difficult, nearly impossible by today's LC Maths standard. maybe 20 years, ago they did have an extra 20 points for an A1. Strand/Project maths doesn't look difficult at all. I wouldn't see any point in awarding extra points for something that is made a lot easier.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

SarahOT

Does anyone agree with me that it is not fair at all that they are just overlooking the present Leaving Certificate students of 2011?
I don't think it is fair or right, and if you agree with me then like this page and support us. We could do something about this!

LETS FIGHT THIS AND WIN!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Petition-to-get-25-extra-points-for-Higher-Level-Maths-Leaving-Cert-2011/114016768663224?v=app_2373072738&ref=ts#!/pages/Petition-to-get-25-extra-points-for-Higher-Level-Maths-Leaving-Cert-2011/114016768663224?v=wall

SarahOT

spurious wrote: »

'In my day' there were bonus points for Honours Maths. If I recall correctly there were 5 points for a HL A and 7 points for a Maths HL A. It certainly made people think a bit before dropping to pass at the first sign of difficulty.

They would be unlikely to introduce a change for this year's exam - it would not be fair at this late stage.

It would!
I just don't think it's fair that we're putting the amount of work in that next years Leaving Certificate students would and we don't get the benefits too. It's so frustrating.
It was people's choice to drop down.

Ficheall

Whatever about bringing in extra points for HL for the old curriculum, with this new "project maths" bull****, it'd be completely unfair. You'd have far more people with less maths coming into college, where a basic previous knowledge is assumed. So while that might be good for "statistics", it would make a ****e of many maths-based courses.

DaveMur1

SarahOT wrote: »

Does anyone agree with me that it is not fair at all that they are just overlooking the present Leaving Certificate students of 2011?
I don't think it is fair or right, and if you agree with me then like this page and support us. We could do something about this!

Think about it this way,we're the first year thats going to get to pay these ridiculous new fee's!

Yay this country manages to completely F*** us over again!!!!!!!

confusticated

I really don't think it's fair to introduce bonus points for maths...but since the only other solution being proposed is to make the course easier, I reckon it'd be best to leave it as it is. If they make it easier it'll just mean a massively increased workload in college for anyone doing a maths-related degree, which are generally hard enough anyway!

I know a lot of people say that it takes an awful lot of time and that, but I always found accounting and English took much longer, and I hadn't any problems with either.