HL LC Maths (for next year)

leavingcert.

Well, I'm going into leaving cert next year and I'm not sure about doing higher maths. The situation is this: I always had a knack for maths even from primary school, I got through the JC easily enough, not having to study, just a bit of homework here and there... I got an A in the end. I went into 5th year(didn't do TY) with a laidback attitude and done no work, thinking it wouldnt be THAT much worse than the JC. I was wrong and got a shock at the christmas tests when I got 42%.

after Christmas I done a bit more work but slowly my work rate decreased again. Anyways I basically done nothing all year and probably failed the summer test. My question is this: if I started from september to put in a lot of work, maybe five or six hours a week, and start getting grinds, would it still be possible for me to sit higher level maths and come out with a decent result, maybe even a C?

Thanks in advance :rolleyes: :pac:

PJelly

leavingcert. wrote: »

Well, I'm going into leaving cert next year and I'm not sure about doing higher maths. The situation is this: I always had a knack for maths even from primary school, I got through the JC easily enough, not having to study, just a bit of homework here and there... I got an A in the end. I went into 5th year(didn't do TY) with a laidback attitude and done no work, thinking it wouldnt be THAT much worse than the JC. I was wrong and got a shock at the christmas tests when I got 42%.

after Christmas I done a bit more work but slowly my work rate decreased again. Anyways I basically done nothing all year and probably failed the summer test. My question is this: if I started from september to put in a lot of work, maybe five or six hours a week, and start getting grinds, would it still be possible for me to sit higher level maths and come out with a decent result, maybe even a C?

Thanks in advance :rolleyes: :pac:

I failed every single maths test in 5th year. And every single one in 6th year up to the mocks, where I put in effort. And pulled the best maths grade in the school.

I'd say that now I'm a B1/A2 ish student. So just because you do bad in 5th year doesn't mean you can't handle the course. It all just clicked into place one week for me. Sort of an epiphany

But maybe that's just me. Perhaps I have a "knack" for maths too, I was just a lazy b*****d

LilMissCiara

Yes. More than possible!

Once you keep up with what you do in Leaving Cert and catch up with last year you could easily, easily, get a high B!

Dr.Dre

My advice.Drop higher maths.

Why?

1.Its far too difficult.

2.Way too much time and effort to do average in the end.

3.If you drop to pass,and put the effort you would have put into honours maths into all your other subjects, you will do far greater then putting all your time into scraping a C in Honours Maths

Maybe_Memories

Dr.Dre wrote: »

My advice.Drop higher maths.

Why?

1.Its far too difficult.

Ah bit harsh, surely

Maybe_Memories

PJelly wrote: »

I failed every single maths test in 5th year. And every single one in 6th year up to the mocks, where I put in effort. And pulled the best maths grade in the school.

I'd say that now I'm a B1/A2 ish student. So just because you do bad in 5th year doesn't mean you can't handle the course. It all just clicked into place one week for me. Sort of an epiphany

But maybe that's just me. Perhaps I have a "knack" for maths too, I was just a lazy b*****d

This is basically what happened me too!

PJelly

Maybe_Memories wrote: »

This is basically what happened me too!

And the fact that I'm also going to be doing a maths based college course....

B-b-b-brother?

mpdg

Dr.Dre wrote: »

My advice.Drop higher maths.

Why?

1.Its far too difficult.

2.Way too much time and effort to do average in the end.

3.If you drop to pass,and put the effort you would have put into honours maths into all your other subjects, you will do far greater then putting all your time into scraping a C in Honours Maths

This is sound advice.

Further, if you haven't been living under a rock, you'll have noticed that the SEC have started providing insane not-relevant-to-the-syllabus papers for the past two Leaving Certs. Last year's Paper Two was marked harshly, this year's P2 probably will be too and I don't need to tell you about Paper One this year. 2012 will most likely be the same.

Unless you go to a school where Project Maths has been fully implemented, proceed with caution.

ETA: I got an A with little work in the Junior Cert too. Leaving Cert is nothing like it. It's a beast, man.

Aibrean

Dr.Dre wrote: »

My advice.Drop higher maths.

Why?

1.Its far too difficult.

2.Way too much time and effort to do average in the end.

3.If you drop to pass,and put the effort you would have put into honours maths into all your other subjects, you will do far greater then putting all your time into scraping a C in Honours Maths

I completely disagree with this statement!
Especially if your doing your leaving cert in June 2012 as its the new Project Maths course!

Yes, I agree you need to put time and effort into, however if your willing to put your head down from September and maybe find a very good grinds teacher then it relativity easy to achieve a respectable grade in Higher maths!

another question you should ask yourself is do you NEED higher maths for ANY of your desired courses??
Good Luck with your decision!

B_Fanatic

I thinik honours ebnglish is harder than honours maths... What our class found was that it got INSANELY easier after christmas 6th year. You should probably have a decent shot at it in the mocks. If you don't, then maybe it's time to drop down.

dambarude

It depends on the person. Some fly through it, many find it OKish, and more find it really hard. I spent loads of time on it in 5th/6th year, but I enjoyed it so I didn't mind too much. That said I still had plenty of time for studying other subjects, even though I was doing an extra one (8 subjects in all).

You'll have to make up your mind yourself, but don't drop too early. A lot of people I knew dropped nearly straight away without giving it any shot at all. If by Halloween/Xmas of Leaving Cert you're finding it's taking way too much time, consider it then.

Aibrean

and then don't forget the extra 25 point you can get if you pass the paper thats a great bonus!

leavingcert.

B_Fanatic wrote: »

I thinik honours ebnglish is harder than honours maths... What our class found was that it got INSANELY easier after christmas 6th year. You should probably have a decent shot at it in the mocks. If you don't, then maybe it's time to drop down.

Ya well somehow i seem to do well in english too. never read a book in my life but managed an A in the JC... i don't think its insanely hard for the LC but there will be loads to learn, especially seeing as our english teacher considers nothing less than 8 pages on a Hamlet essay acceptable :pac:

leavingcert.

Aibrean wrote: »

and then don't forget the extra 25 point you can get if you pass the paper thats a great bonus!

ya i know the 25 points is a major bonus, but on the other hand I heard that there will be new maximum points of 625 instead of 600, so does it balance itself out, like points for courses will probably go up accordingly

leavingcert.

Aibrean wrote: »

I completely disagree with this statement!
Especially if your doing your leaving cert in June 2012 as its the new Project Maths course!

Yes, I agree you need to put time and effort into, however if your willing to put your head down from September and maybe find a very good grinds teacher then it relativity easy to achieve a respectable grade in Higher maths!

another question you should ask yourself is do you NEED higher maths for ANY of your desired courses??
Good Luck with your decision!

i don't think I NEED IT, but I think it would be useful, because i'm interested in medicine, pharmacy, dentistry and science! :pac:

magicianz

Ignore anyone telling you to drop it. They don't know you or your capabilities. Honours maths isn't something everyone can do, there's only around 8000 doing it this year out of around 55000 students!

I was in the same position as you, failing or scrapping D's in it all through 5th year, did the whole course again this year and honestly, I found both paper 1 and paper 2 not difficult at all. There was 2 parts out of 8 questions I couldnt do on paper 2 mainly cause I wasn't thinking straight, and on paper 1 I did 7 questions and got at least 5 out fully that I remember. Would be disappointed with less than an A.

Give it a chance! Go over the course, look at the various types of questions they ask. Learn a topic question type by question type. When you finishing topic, exam papers! Plough through em and keep your book open nearby for anything you can't do and as a last resort there are marking schemes on examinations.ie for this years PM paper

Maybe_Memories

PJelly wrote: »

And the fact that I'm also going to be doing a maths based college course....

B-b-b-brother?

If you tell me you play bass then I'll really start getting worried


OP, ask yourself this: Do you actually enjoy doing maths?
Thats basically all you need to do to decide whether or not to do Higher

Aibrean

no they cant change the max points from 600 to 625. they have to consider those doing pass maths. if you got 625 points or more, only 600 point would be counted.

Your right it would be very useful i don't think you should make your decision yet!! wait until your Christmas/Mock results!

AnneElizabeth

Do it! Get grinds and make sure they give you homework. I guarantee you can do well if you put in the effort, plus they're making it easier and you'll get more points. It's not difficult to pass honours maths. I always found that Irish took up much more time than anything else - maths is by far the easiest subject to study because you don't have to learn things off, you just have to do the questions. I often wound up doing maths when I'd be studying because it's less effort.

Don't listen to anyone who says it's too difficult - it's not. If you have a natural ability for maths you may well decide to do maths, engineering, computer science, accounting etc in college and you need HL for it! Plus it sounds great to say you did honours. Do it!!

jumpguy

leavingcert. wrote: »

Well, I'm going into leaving cert next year and I'm not sure about doing higher maths. The situation is this: I always had a knack for maths even from primary school, I got through the JC easily enough, not having to study, just a bit of homework here and there... I got an A in the end. I went into 5th year(didn't do TY) with a laidback attitude and done no work, thinking it wouldnt be THAT much worse than the JC. I was wrong and got a shock at the christmas tests when I got 42%.

after Christmas I done a bit more work but slowly my work rate decreased again. Anyways I basically done nothing all year and probably failed the summer test. My question is this: if I started from september to put in a lot of work, maybe five or six hours a week, and start getting grinds, would it still be possible for me to sit higher level maths and come out with a decent result, maybe even a C?

If you're doing Project Maths and will get an extra 25 marks - I'd say it's worth the work.

If not (but AFAIK this year was the last year of the old course, so you should be in Project Maths...I think), well it depends on what you want to to do and how you're set for other subjects. You need HL maths for some courses, as I'm sure you know, and if you need the HL subjects for points, then you might have no choice.

I think the question if you enjoy maths is a good point too. I always started my homework with HL maths - I found it more stimulating than the other subjects. That said, if I was able to do HL Irish (as I'm only doing 7 subjects and need 6 of them to be HL), I would've considered dropping it as the workload of HL Irish and HL maths would be huge. But my HL maths was far better than my HL Irish and I enjoyed it more.

The exam for HL maths is nothing like the other LC exams. Very difficult to predict - you really have to know your course in depth, which is probably a good thing overall from the education standpoint.

There's no denying the workload is disproportional, in my opinion. However, for 25 extra marks, I wouldn't dream of dropping it before I'd drop, say, Irish. But that's just in my situation.

Whether you can/will do it or not depends very much on your individual situation - your aptitude of maths, your teacher (and the advice they give), the requirements of whatever course you want and most of all - your level of motivation.

Call Me Lia

Aibrean wrote: »

no they cant change the max points from 600 to 625. they have to consider those doing pass maths. if you got 625 points or more, only 600 point would be counted.

Your right it would be very useful i don't think you should make your decision yet!! wait until your Christmas/Mock results!

I'm not an expert on this, but I disagree with you that they wouldn't change the total marks up to 625 points so as to consider people doing pass maths, because if that were so, then what about the other subjects that people take at ordinary level? If, for example, a person is doing 5 honours and one pass subjects, the maximum they can get is 560, but the total in general for the leaving cert is still 600. The sec certainly don't care if it's honours or ordinary you're doing about other subjects, so why would they about maths? There's a chance that they'll change it to 625 next year, in my opinion. We'll just have to wait and see though...

jumpguy

I think 625 will be the new maximum achievable score next year - as they'll be counting the extra 25 points for medicine even if you get 600 for medicine (so the maximum possible LC score for medicine will be 565 - I think.)

I'm not 100% sure of that though, and I've only heard that for medicine.

php-fox

I failed my mocks (most of them). Them studied for 2 months after doing nothing for two years and got 490 points (A2 in HL maths).

It's doable. Very doable.

MathsManiac

Aibrean wrote: »

no they cant change the max points from 600 to 625. they have to consider those doing pass maths. if you got 625 points or more, only 600 point would be counted.

Your right it would be very useful i don't think you should make your decision yet!! wait until your Christmas/Mock results!

Of course the new max is 625 (apart from courses for which HPAT applies).

If you get 6 A1's, including an A1 in HL maths, you'll get 625 points, and yes, that means that nobody who has done OL maths can match you.

leavingcert.

MathsManiac wrote: »

Of course the new max is 625 (apart from courses for which HPAT applies).

If you get 6 A1's, including an A1 in HL maths, you'll get 625 points, and yes, that means that nobody who has done OL maths can match you.

so does that also mean that the extra 25 points don't count for HPAT courses like medicine?

electrictrad

HL Maths is not as hard as it's made out to be. . .head down, practice questions, and, above all, ask questions in class. . .make sure you don't leave the classroom until you understand the maths you've been taught. . .it's as important to understand as actually doing questions. . .

theres no reason you shouldn't do as well, if not better in LC Maths than JC Maths. . .couple of people in my class got better LC Pre than JC Pre results. . .

Maybe_Memories

Agreed.

In JC Maths I kind of got by without doing overly well.

5th year, put my head down, and became a straight A maths student

randylonghorn

leavingcert. wrote: »

so does that also mean that the extra 25 points don't count for HPAT courses like medicine?

They've been discussing that over in the * Everything HPAT and Medicine * thread over the last week or so ... here.

Daniel S

leavingcert. wrote: »

Well, I'm going into leaving cert next year and I'm not sure about doing higher maths. The situation is this: I always had a knack for maths even from primary school, I got through the JC easily enough, not having to study, just a bit of homework here and there... I got an A in the end. I went into 5th year(didn't do TY) with a laidback attitude and done no work, thinking it wouldnt be THAT much worse than the JC. I was wrong and got a shock at the christmas tests when I got 42%.

after Christmas I done a bit more work but slowly my work rate decreased again. Anyways I basically done nothing all year and probably failed the summer test. My question is this: if I started from september to put in a lot of work, maybe five or six hours a week, and start getting grinds, would it still be possible for me to sit higher level maths and come out with a decent result, maybe even a C?

Thanks in advance :rolleyes: :pac:

Christmas 5th year: 17%
Summer 5th year: 40% (After a **** load of work)
Christmas 6th year: 26%
Mocks 6th year: 34%
Leaving Cert? We'll see :cool:

(Made a balls of paper one, but think I got a C in paper two. I'll be happy with a D as it's all I need for my course.)