Project Maths - what is your biggest problem with this?

eamonn4321

I am interested to hear your opinion, especially if you are doing LC 2012, as to what is your biggest concern / problem is with the Project maths part of the syllabus?
What kind of support would help you to deal with Project Maths?

David086

Project Maths is bullshít. It's the same course with just added new bits. Not in anyway easier.

Coeurdepirate

My biggest problem is how fúcking shít it is.

Sunny!!

its nothing but an embarrassment and by no ways easier!

I remember hearing on the radio somewhere in countries where they have brought this course in it has failed in every country and they have reverted to back to the old course. I don't see ireland being any different. There was nothing wrong with the old course. The pass at least is obtainable if you put some effort in.

Canard

Meh, tbh I like the stats/probability because its logical. If you dont know a formula etc in Algebra/Trig/Geometry thats it, you cant really do very well in that question, but these questions seem to follow a logical sequence of events that almost tell you what you need to do or something.

Its not that much easier and of course, maybe the old course was like that too, I dont know.

Just Like Heaven

This is my biggest maths problem. If you can work it out I'll give you a Gold star.

32
28
12
19
28
32
26
35
30
29
32
36
23
99
31
15
20
28
30
13
28
15
35
18
23
40
32
38
24
28
17
12
23
27
19
32
28
12
19
28
32
26
35
30
29
32
36
23
99
31
15
20
28
30
13
28
15
35
18
23
40
32
38
24
28
17
12
23
27
19 +

---

?

Chuchoter

The course itself is grand, but could do without so much writing and asking questions beyond the reaches of LC maths (really they're engineering/architecture questions often that we haven't a hope of answering properly).

I also hate the graphs we have to answer on. I've spent 6 years perfecting how I answer questions and not having infinite amounts of lined paper is annoying.

It also should have been introduced in 1st year. Having it in 5th year made our course impossibly long.

PictureFrame

eamonn4321 wrote: »

I am interested to hear your opinion, especially if you are doing LC 2012, as to what is your biggest concern / problem is with the Project maths part of the syllabus?
What kind of support would help you to deal with Project Maths?

My main problem with project maths is:



NO FÚCKING EXAM PAPERS!!!

Seriously it's a biatch having hardly any examples to work off!!. And the answers at the back of our book are all wrong!.

The teachers have no idea what's going on and it's so unfair!. The lack of support by SEC is seriously messing with people's future.. I do OL and know I am going to pass Maths regardless, I'd love an A2 and think I might just get it, but for people doing HL and looking for Medicine etc. the lack of examples is making it a bit tough!

Siobhnk

The fact that you need a dictionary to answer some of the questions. We were given a question from our teacher with the word causality in it. Half of the class didn't know what it meant and the other half thought it said casualty. With a bit of time I suppose you could guess correctly what it meant, but when you're in an exam situation under pressure, you're probably going to think it says casualty and have a mental breakdown. I'm in honours by the way.

Canard

^Yeah, I read that as casualty until you pointed out that it wasnt :eek:

The back of our book is all wrong too, Active Maths by any chance? And would it kill them to make a few exam papers, seriously, it wouldnt take long

spurious

Many people's problem with the Project Maths approach is that you can't learn stuff off and have to actually understand concepts.
It's shocking. How dare they!

I did project maths last year, we had even less resources. Be grateful!

Superbus

spurious wrote: »

Many people's problem with the Project Maths approach is that you can't learn stuff off and have to actually understand concepts.
It's shocking. How dare they!

No problem with that, it's the fact that up to JC we've had to learn stuff off, and suddenly in 5th Year have this 'understanding' nonsense (yeah, I said it) thrown upon us. It's a different method of learning, and it's unfair on us, and the current 5th Years. After that, when the LCers will have done Project Maths for the JC, I'm all for it.

Namlub

spurious wrote: »

Many people's problem with the Project Maths approach is that you can't learn stuff off and have to actually understand concepts.
It's shocking. How dare they!

To be honest I don't particularly enjoy rote learning and I'd actually prefer it if that wasn't the only way to succeed in most exams. The underlying problem is what a mess the SEC have made of implementing it - incoming first years should start with the whole new course rather than bits and pieces of it being inserted into the curriculum for current sixth years. At this rate we'll barely have received and used the sample papers on time for the mocks, and the supplement book we're using has errors...

iLikePiano99

I am in 5th year at the moment and I agree with all the answers here! I hate the fact there aren't exam papers. And the stupid sample papers don't even have marking schemes out! It's pathetic. The SEC should really have produced a book of exam papers (at least 10 years worth) when producing this syllabus!

And the book...half the answers at the back are wrong which really annoys me! So you don't know whether it's right or wrong.

And finally, Probability. I find it hard a lot of the time and I think that's mainly because I've only been introduced to this "new approach" this year. We started the course this year with Algebra which I found easy enough. I was getting questions right and if I got them wrong - I was able to understand where I went wrong.

If you get a question wrong in Project Maths - the reason is mainly because the questions are twisting their words to confuse you.

However, I think it's starting to grow on me. I have been going over probability this week and it is starting to "click" but how am I supposed to know for sure if I can't practice with exam papers?

wealthyman

Does anybody know when the EP will be out? I just need to scrape an OD3 so not all that worried.

Sunny!!

wealthyman wrote: »

Does anybody know when the EP will be out? I just need to scrape an OD3 so not all that worried.

if you work from last years paper 1's that's grand. Not sure about p2 though. I was told in shops they are out after the midterm.

iLikePiano99

are they going to be bringing out Sample Papers? Anyone know?

Canard

I heard if they ask you what conclusion you can draw from a graph and you say something like "Girls play more sport than boys" you get 0 marks for making an assumption and not saying "in general"?

Patchy~

Patchy~ wrote: »

I heard if they ask you what conclusion you can draw from a graph and you say something like "Girls play more sport than boys" you get 0 marks for making an assumption and not saying "in general"?

Pretty sure thats not true

Sunny!!

Patchy~ wrote: »

I heard if they ask you what conclusion you can draw from a graph and you say something like "Girls play more sport than boys" you get 0 marks for making an assumption and not saying "in general"?

I dont think thats true havent heard the teacher saying that

amymak

I think it's WAY easier than the old course, and I'm pretty sure most people in my honours class agree. Maths is my thing, so making sure you understand the concept instead of just learning something off suits me, and I personally think it's a better approach. Certainly I believe it should stick in people's heads better if they understand it.
I do agree though that they've made a mess of implementing it. Just like in Irish, the sample exam papers arrived ridiculously late, and the Active Maths books (the second edition is no better than the first) has a ridiculous amount of mistakes.
There probably is too much "englishy" stuff in it. I don't mind it because I'm quite good at English, but someone who's great at maths, and rubbish at English is at a major disadvantage.

Chuchoter

spurious wrote: »

Many people's problem with the Project Maths approach is that you can't learn stuff off and have to actually understand concepts.
It's shocking. How dare they!

You seem to have an extraordinarily low opinion of leaving cert students. HL maths wasn't a subject you could learn things off for to begin with. Whats happened now is they're shoving an entirely new way of approaching and answering questions at us with no examples, poor teacher training and books with wrong answers at the back. My book has very few examples of the new types of questions that are all writing and no numbers. How am I supposed to be ok with that? To claim we're just slackers without two brain cells to rub together is just what the media does all the time, blame students for everything in a system we have zero influence over.

spurious

Chuchoter wrote: »

You seem to have an extraordinarily low opinion of leaving cert students. HL maths wasn't a subject you could learn things off for to begin with. Whats happened now is they're shoving an entirely new way of approaching and answering questions at us with no examples, poor teacher training and books with wrong answers at the back. My book has very few examples of the new types of questions that are all writing and no numbers. How am I supposed to be ok with that? To claim we're just slackers without two brain cells to rub together is just what the media does all the time, blame students for everything in a system we have zero influence over.

What is the obsession with needing samples an examples of questions? You either know and understand the syllabus or you don't.
In the 1980s we never saw exam papers before exams.
Were the exams easier then?
I'll leave that one up to you.

Chuchoter

spurious wrote: »

What is the obsession with needing samples an examples of questions? You either know and understand the syllabus or you don't.
In the 1980s we never saw exam papers before exams.
Were the exams easier then?
I'll leave that one up to you.

What is slant height in terms of pyramids? Pyramids are all over the place in the new trigonometry and its not what you'd think it is had you never seen it before. That's why you need sample papers. As well as this, you and your teachers weren't in a position where you had been taught one way of doing questions for years to then be told you have to do everything completely differently.

Also, I've done questions from pre 1995 in a few subjects. They are nowhere near as hard as people make them out to be.

Sunny!!

Chuchoter wrote: »

What is slant height in terms of pyramids? Pyramids are all over the place in the new trigonometry and its not what you'd think it is had you never seen it before. That's why you need sample papers. As well as this, you and your teachers weren't in a position where you had been taught one way of doing questions for years to then be told you have to do everything completely differently.

Also, I've done questions from pre 1995 in a few subjects. They are nowhere near as hard as people make them out to be.

I have to agree. I used to do very old maths papers as well and they were definitely not as bad as a couple of my teachers in particular make them out to be. I wonder too how much training teachers have done for this project maths? Being honest stats prove a lot couldn't teach the old course. I wonder will this be worse for the new course.

Sunny!!

spurious wrote: »

What is the obsession with needing samples an examples of questions? You either know and understand the syllabus or you don't.
In the 1980s we never saw exam papers before exams.
Were the exams easier then?
I'll leave that one up to you.

sure maths is all about practise and examples. Sure none of them are in the syllabus. What are we suppose to practise off?

The books that are written might not even be up to the standard of project maths as we don't know what to expect. And the wrong answers at the back that's even more helpful!!

_Bella_

spurious wrote: »

What is the obsession with needing samples an examples of questions? You either know and understand the syllabus or you don't.
In the 1980s we never saw exam papers before exams.
Were the exams easier then?
I'll leave that one up to you.

Students need to be able to practice something to understand it.

There are good and bad aspects to project maths. Trigonometry is very doable now. The questions on the circle though are much harder than on the old paper and sometimes it is unclear whether you are meant to try and work something out or whether you are just meant to read it off the graph.

PictureFrame

spurious wrote: »

What is the obsession with needing samples an examples of questions? You either know and understand the syllabus or you don't.
In the 1980s we never saw exam papers before exams.
Were the exams easier then?
I'll leave that one up to you.

Actually a lot of the old exams were in fact easier, for example Economics(HL) the standard has increased tenfold in the last 20 years for this Subject as well as many others I believe.

The comments about 'not needing exam papers' is truly ridiculous, it that's the way the system operated when you did your Leaving Cert. that's fine, but for our age-group from first year we worked off examples that derived directly from Exam Papers..

We have been thrown into the Deep-end with the New Maths course, prior to your belief we have been. This thread was designed so people could discuss, and I quote:

"their biggest problem with Project Maths"

So, if a student who has posted on this threads biggest problem is a lack of exam papers you should respect their opinion and not make snide remarks about what they have written...

spurious

PictureFrame wrote: »

The comments about 'not needing exam papers' is truly ridiculous, it that's the way the system operated when you did your Leaving Cert. that's fine, but for our age-group from first year we worked off examples that derived directly from Exam Papers..

I place the blame for that squarely at the door of 'educational' businesses and institutes.

Unfortunately, many newer teachers have fallen into the easy trap of teaching to the exam instead of teaching the syllabus and now you see the trouble it is causing with the Project Maths syllabus.

Namlub

spurious wrote: »

What is the obsession with needing samples an examples of questions? You either know and understand the syllabus or you don't.
In the 1980s we never saw exam papers before exams.
Were the exams easier then?
I'll leave that one up to you.

Considering project maths asks, and expects questions to be answered, in a way which is completely different to what students have been used to for the last ~5 years, I'd say examples are extremely important. Knowing the syllabus isn't the same as knowing how to properly answer a question to gain as many marks as possible. Any of the maths teachers I've had have been adamant that practising questions, particularly past exam questions, are the key to understanding (not just rote learning) the subject, seems strange that your own views seem to be at odds with that...

Sunny!!

spurious wrote: »

I place the blame for that squarely at the door of 'educational' businesses and institutes.

Unfortunately, many newer teachers have fallen into the easy trap of teaching to the exam instead of teaching the syllabus and now you see the trouble it is causing with the Project Maths syllabus.

I love the way you always seem to blame the grind schools? Why should they be scrutinised here? I suppose its their fault we get rain. They are there for a purpose and clearly do good jobs.
A lot of my teachers were like that in my previous school, could never get my head around it.

frozenfrozen

I'm glad I didn't do any work until this year. I won't be experiencing any problems switching to the new course :pac:

rebel girl 15

iLikePiano99 wrote: »

are they going to be bringing out Sample Papers? Anyone know?

Pretty sure schools got sample papers before the midterm - I know the LC teachers in my school got them, it was mentioned to me

Luno

Checked out the marking schemes for the 2011 projects maths today, seems alot more stricter!

eamonn4321

Some great responses there!
Lack of exam questions seems to be a big bugbear, also the fact that it is being introduced at Senior Cycle for people who haven't seen it at Junior Cycle, also some people seem unhappy with the textbooks.

amacachi

Jesus, if one of the issues is students not knowing what "causality" means then I don't think Maths is the subject with the biggest issue at the moment.

eamonn4321

Isn't that just another word for correlation?

Random_Person

I have a lot of problems with Project Maths and these are the ones which just keep coming up when talking to people.

First of all, the SEC have plain and simple made a complete balls of introducing it. They decide to throw in a little now, a little bit next year and so on.. It would have been so much more simple to just introduce the completely new syllabus to 1st years and go from there, not change everything for 6th years who have been doing it the old way for all their school years. It's a joke that the SEC can just play around with the course without a care for the students who have to deal with their crappy organisation.

Secondly, the delay in recieving the sample papers and the complete lack of marking schemes for these papers! Who was the smart ass who decided "Hmm, lets give them the papers but not tell them what we'll give them marks for! Oh, that'll be a laugh!" It's been said by Spurious that we don't need Exam Papers and that back in the day, we didn't need them and so on. Things have changed and with the way questions are phrased in exam papers today compared to the textbooks, they're a neccessity. You could sit for months practicing textbook questions then go into the exam and be completely confused by the question as it's phrased completely differently and has some excess element which you're just expected to know. But at the moment we have nothing to go on, sure we can practice the sample papers but no answers? Ah, they're not important anyway... or so the SEC think.

Oh and the comment that students are annoyed that they can't just learn stuff off? If you learn stuff off for maths, you'll get nowhere. You can learn every formula, every little detail by heart and still be baffled by the questions. For most of maths, you need to understand it to be able to answer it, you might be able to wing it a small bit without understanding it but understanding the concepts are key and anyone who is serious about doing well in maths already knows that and has known that well before Project Maths came along so don't start saying that students don't want to understand it, we do and have been trying to understand it for a long long time and Project Maths has had nothing to do with it.

Ehh, I've just realised how long I've been going on for so I'll shut up now..

MathsManiac

One thing that I've noticed in this thread and elsewhere is that so many people seem to think that the SEC is responsible for all this, as in the following comments:

Namlub wrote: »

...
The underlying problem is what a mess the SEC have made of implementing it - incoming first years should start with the whole new course rather than bits and pieces of it being inserted into the curriculum for current sixth years.
...

Random_Person wrote: »

...
First of all, the SEC have plain and simple made a complete balls of introducing it. They decide to throw in a little now, a little bit next year and so on.. It would have been so much more simple to just introduce the completely new syllabus to 1st years and go from there, not change everything for 6th years who have been doing it the old way for all their school years. It's a joke that the SEC can just play around with the course without a care for the students who have to deal with their crappy organisation.
...

But surely it's the NCCA that put these proposals together, and the Dept and/or Minister who decided to implement them? The SEC's job is to examine whatever syllabus they're told to examine, isn't it?

Also, I find it a bit strange that people think that they haven't got enough exam material to work on. With any syllabus change that I've seen in any subject before, there was just one sample paper before the exam and that was it. No official solutions or marking schemes, and nobody was especially bothered. Yet now we more or less have four official papers at each level to go on (the sample papers that arrived just before mid-term, along with the real paper 2s that the pilot schools did in 2010, the sample papers that they got for 2011, and the real papers that they did in 2011). And there are marking schemes for two of these sets of papers (i.e., the real ones). There's also a big report about how the students in the pilot schools got on when they tried out an earlier version of these papers, and that includes solutions and marking schemes, and examples of what marks students got for different efforts at various questions.

So, basically, what I'm saying is that I've never seen anything like this much exam preparation material before for a new syllabus. And people are still complaining!

I think that if teachers and students just do what the syllabus says they should do, with all the investigation, discussion, problem-solving, and so on that is required to build understanding, they'll be well prepared for the exam.

For those who are particularly exercised about marking schemes, here's something that I have noticed about practically every maths marking scheme I have ever seen:
- If you give a correct solution, you get full marks for the question.
- If you write nothing, you get no marks.
- If you do something reasonably relevant, you'll get some marks. Usually, the better the effort, the more marks you get.

So what else do you need to know?

Anonymo

M&S* wrote: »

Checked out the marking schemes for the 2011 projects maths today, seems alot more stricter!

Afraid you lads were always going to get a stricter marking schemes. Often the first couple of exams for a new syllabus are easier than the average. And there is no doubt that the standard of the first couple of project maths papers was a bit low. One thing that remains true is that the best students in the old syllabus should remain the best ones at the new syllabus -- by-and-large. I'd agree with others here that it's ridiculous that the SEC/NCCA sample paper wasn't ready for the start of the year. Nonetheless there are quite a few papers to go off - 2010 LC paper, 2011 LC paper, 2010 SEC sample paper, 2011 SEC sample paper and the 2010 NCCA sample paper. If you need more practice there are four sample papers available in the educate.ie exam papers. So that's 9 papers - although of course since the educate.ie papers are not official it might not be what people are looking for. Nevertheless practice is practice.

crayon1

Is there anywhere online you can see the sample paper that was released recently?

TingTong

I did my exams in the 80's and we had past papers and marking schemes!

lestat21

crayon1 wrote: »

Is there anywhere online you can see the sample paper that was released recently?

http://projectmaths.ie/exam-papers/sample.asp

The sample papers for 2010 are relevant to students sitting their exams this year. The sample papers for 2011 are relevant to students currently in 5th year. Be aware that these were the sample papers for project schools and changes to the papers could have been made since marking exams in those schools.

With regard to marking schemes, IMTA branches have been holding sessions looking specifically at the marking schemes so some teachers should have information on this. I was unable to attend these sessions though, any chance anyone on here was in attendance and has information to pass on??

magicianz

To anyone doing project maths who wants to go into any course with maths, I wish you good luck and you will need every last bit of it. It is going to cause the drop out rate for all maths courses to explode in a few years =/

thetonynator

Project maths is bloody great, it's so much easier than having to learn off methods of doing stuff, you actually understand all the probability stuff. The problem here is that everyone resists any sort of change.

Canard

I agree a bit tbh. Statistics is so easy but then Normal Distribution which is basically abstract statistics makes no sense to anyone in the class. :pac:

mathsgrinds

All the past papers and marking schemes are available in one spot here:

http://www.themathstutor.com/Past_Exam_Papers.html

and here

http://www.themathstutor.com/Marking_schemes.html

Hope it helps.

mathsgrinds

Correction:

All the past papers and marking schemes are available in one spot here:

http://www.themathstutor.ie/past-exam-papers.html

and here

http://www.themathstutor.ie/official-marking-schemes.html

Hope it helps.

Togepi

My biggest problem is that anyone who does project Maths now, and wants to do Maths in college hasn't a hope. Any other problem is fairly irrelevant in comparison.

What I do like is the whole idea of understanding, and the fact that, because it's so much easier than before (from what I can see so far), I actually have a chance of getting a C or D in Maths now.

Each and every one of the twenty-five extra points are also quite beautiful.

In terms of getting points it's fantastic, but if you want to be able to do Maths after school it's absolutely hopeless, but I think the old course was the same because students were rarely thought to understand the topics.

chomps_x

I HATE the little grid you have to write in :mad: I structure an answer a certain way and there just isn't enough space! Grrrrr