Irish Bonus, anyone?

jtaylol

Am currently attending a Gaelcholáiste, went an Irish primary and speak Irish at home, all the works. However, I find subjects likeChemistry and Biology a hell of a lot easier through English. Would I be stupid to give up my Irish bonus and to do these subjects through English? I feel like if I do them through Irish I'll get maybe a B1, whereas in English I could maybe (hopefully ) scrape an A1. I'm aiming for Med/Psych so kinda need as many points as I can possibly get.
Anyone have any advice or experience here?

CathalRyano

jtaylol wrote: »

Am currently attending a Gaelcholáiste, went an Irish primary and speak Irish at home, all the works. However, I find subjects likeChemistry and Biology a hell of a lot easier through English. Would I be stupid to give up my Irish bonus and to do these subjects through English? I feel like if I do them through Irish I'll get maybe a B1, whereas in English I could maybe (hopefully ) scrape an A1. I'm aiming for Med/Psych so kinda need as many points as I can possibly get.
Anyone have any advice or experience here?

It's a 10% bonus on Chemistry and Biology, is it not?

yournerd

Bonus is worth it..

MathsManiac

I won't offer an opinion but can tell you factually what the bonus will be if you are scoring in about the territory you suggest.

If you scored exactly in the middle of the B1 grade, (i.e., at 82.5%) in a subject that attracted the 10% bonus, the sliding scale would apply (since you're already over 75%) and you would, in this case, get a bonus of 5.25%, which would bring you to 87.75% (an A2). If you are scoring in the general territory of a solid B or low A, the bonus will almost certainly bring you up one subgrade.

There are no circumstances in which the bonus can get you from B1 to A1. That is, even if you're barely below the A2/B1 boundary, the bonus will only get you to a high A2, not a low A1.

In case you are interested in the calculations:
If your mark before the bonus is above 75%, then the formula for calculating the bonus (in a 10%-bonus subject) is: bonus = 0.3*(100% - %mark). However, this is actually calculated on the raw mark rather than percentage mark. So, if the subject is marked out of 400, the formula for the bonus mark for people scoring above 300 marks is: bonus = 0.3*(400 - mark). If the answer is not a whole number of marks, it is always rounded down.

yournerd

I dnt get it so I got 48% in biology, what's the % with bonus??

MathsManiac

yournerd wrote: »

I dnt get it so I got 48% in biology, what's the % with bonus??

48 + 4.8 = 52.8.

If you get less than 75%, you just add 10% of what you got. It only gets complicated above 75%, in which case you use the formula in my earlier post.

(Not all subjects attract this 10% bonus, by the way. Sometimes it's only 5%; sometimes 3%; sometimes no bonus. See here: http://www.examinations.ie/index.php?l=en&mc=ca&sc=im for the list.)