How goods are you at maths? Leaving Cert results? (Country rankings included)

parc

http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/dec/07/world-education-rankings-maths-science-reading

This is from a few years ago but it's interesting.

What did you get in Maths for the leaving? I got a B3 at ordinary level. Not great but not bad : /

(btw I'm posting it in after hours to get a broader sample rather than education)

keano_afc

B1 in Ordinary. I was very happy with it to be honest. Was never any good at maths until we did complex numbers in 5th year. For some reason I found them really easy and everyting after that was much more managable.

I Heart Internet

C1 in Higher Level.............oooooooooohhhh...........yeeeaaahhh!

Ireland seems to be lagging behind according to the OECD results in the Guardian report.

I'm sure Project Maths will sort that out *snigger*

Aglomerado

A1, Ordinary Level. I had some excellent teachers who helped me to attain this, especially as I'd had very poor Maths education in the last two years of National school (the emphasis being on Irish and religion) and mostly got Es and Fs during my early years in secondary school. Everything fell into place for me sometime before the Junior Cert.

tomatosauce34

Nobody who scores even an A1 in Ordinary or Higher in the Leaving qualifies as "good at maths". The proof for my assertion rests in the evidence presented by the Government that the maths examinations in the Leaving Cert are marked on a strict bell curve basis. You would need an absolute score on many more tests over the course of your lifetime to make a positive assertion about your maths ability. Given an arbitrary mean and a standard deviation, even if 2 or 3 deviations above the mean does not mean you are naturally good at mathematics, it just proves you are slightly better than the average cohort.

I must stress again, the maths in the Leaving Cert is marked on a relative, and not absolute basis(bell curve) therefore it cannot give you a full picture about your maths ability. The following proof will suffice to back up my claim. If you get 60-70% in LC Maths, it does not mean you know that percentage of material well, just that you fit with the norm(average).

http://debates.oireachtas.ie/dail/2012/07/18/00018.asp

--Kaiser--

I got a B3 in Honours and I hate (and am useless at) most maths. Found Probability, Vectors and Matrices pretty easy though

Amirani

C2 in Higher Level. I did a heavily maths based course in college though, so I'd hope to be considered a bit better these days.

Amirani

tomatosauce34 wrote: »

Nobody who scores even an A1 in Ordinary or Higher in the Leaving qualifies as "good at maths". The proof for my assertion rests in the evidence presented by the Government that the maths examinations in the Leaving Cert are marked on a strict bell curve basis. You would need an absolute score on many more tests over the course of your lifetime to make a positive assertion about your maths ability. Given an arbitrary mean and a standard deviation, even if 2 or 3 deviations above the mean does not mean you are naturally good at mathematics, it just proves you are slightly better than the average cohort.

I must stress again, the maths in the Leaving Cert is marked on a relative, and not absolute basis(bell curve) therefore it cannot give you a full picture about your maths ability. The following proof will suffice to back up my claim. If you get 60-70% in LC Maths, it does not mean you know that percentage of material well, just that you fit with the norm(average).

http://debates.oireachtas.ie/dail/2012/07/18/00018.asp

Ability is also relative, just like the maths exam.

The Backwards Man

A2 in higher. But for probabilities and statistics I would probably have failed though.

tomatosauce34

NiallSparky wrote: »

Ability is also relative, just like the maths exam.

Do you understand the difference between an absolute and relative score, irrespective of whatever you scored in the Leaving Cert? MIT has a decent explanation about why this system does not give information about your actual natural ability in a subject, just how you scored relative to others. It's a vague, blunt instrument. That is all I am saying. Not enough people are aware of this.

http://web.mit.edu/fnl/volume/204/winston.html

“What was class average?” I feel like I have been asked a 1,000 times, and I confess, each time it makes me cringe. It tells me the student is fixated on evaluation, not on the material. It tells me the student is competing with other students, rather than aspiring for a level of knowledge.

Jester252

Had an easy time with Maths in school. I use to be a few chapters ahead of the class because IMO they where going to slow. Granted I struggled through English, Irish and French until I dropped to ordinary level Irish and just replace French with Applied Maths (That an old school book)

LoonyLovegood

B3 at Ordinary. Could have gotten the A if I put the work in, but I just wanted to pass it. Didn't see the point in spending loads of time on it when it wouldn't count for college.

tigger123

tomatosauce34 wrote: »

Nobody who scores even an A1 in Ordinary or Higher in the Leaving qualifies as "good at maths". The proof for my assertion rests in the evidence presented by the Government that the maths examinations in the Leaving Cert are marked on a strict bell curve basis. You would need an absolute score on many more tests over the course of your lifetime to make a positive assertion about your maths ability. Given an arbitrary mean and a standard deviation, even if 2 or 3 deviations above the mean does not mean you are naturally good at mathematics, it just proves you are slightly better than the average cohort.

I must stress again, the maths in the Leaving Cert is marked on a relative, and not absolute basis(bell curve) therefore it cannot give you a full picture about your maths ability. The following proof will suffice to back up my claim. If you get 60-70% in LC Maths, it does not mean you know that percentage of material well, just that you fit with the norm(average).

http://debates.oireachtas.ie/dail/2012/07/18/00018.asp

Did you open an account in order to share this?

Birneybau

Very goods

Amirani

tomatosauce34 wrote: »

Do you understand the difference between an absolute and relative score, irrespective of whatever you scored in the Leaving Cert? MIT has a decent explanation about why this system does not give information about your actual natural ability in a subject, just how you scored relative to others. It's a vague, blunt instrument. That is all I am saying. Not enough people are aware of this.

http://web.mit.edu/fnl/volume/204/winston.html

“What was class average?” I feel like I have been asked a 1,000 times, and I confess, each time it makes me cringe. It tells me the student is fixated on evaluation, not on the material. It tells me the student is competing with other students, rather than aspiring for a level of knowledge.

This stuff is all fairly obvious I would've thought?

When you're doing a poll like this that is measuring relative ability then a relative test is perfectly fine.

Miss Lockhart

A1 in HL. Always loved maths.

stoneill

tomatosauce34 wrote: »

Nobody who scores even an A1 in Ordinary or Higher in the Leaving qualifies as "good at maths". The proof for my assertion rests in the evidence presented by the Government that the maths examinations in the Leaving Cert are marked on a strict bell curve basis. You would need an absolute score on many more tests over the course of your lifetime to make a positive assertion about your maths ability. Given an arbitrary mean and a standard deviation, even if 2 or 3 deviations above the mean does not mean you are naturally good at mathematics, it just proves you are slightly better than the average cohort.

I must stress again, the maths in the Leaving Cert is marked on a relative, and not absolute basis(bell curve) therefore it cannot give you a full picture about your maths ability. The following proof will suffice to back up my claim. If you get 60-70% in LC Maths, it does not mean you know that percentage of material well, just that you fit with the norm(average).

http://debates.oireachtas.ie/dail/2012/07/18/00018.asp

well laa de dah!

tomatosauce34

tigger123 wrote: »

Did you open an account in order to share this?

Yes, because not enough people are aware of this fact. It is important to highlight, when you consider the fact employers, students, and teaching staff(possibly) are not made aware of this fact. Ireland ranks below the OECD average in maths ability, so it's important to mention any weaknesses in the system currently operating.

Our economic recovery depends on the improvement of maths education. Ireland isn't in the protection days of DeValera anymore, we have to compete with people all over the world, who will work for a fraction of the wages Irish people will. Ireland needs to step up the game in this arena. Massively.

TheBody

A1 for me. I now do maths for a living!!

shleedance

I failed maths at ordinarly level. It's a subject I was hopeless at. Basic arithmetic, conversion, algebra etc. is fine, but put a quadratic equation in front of me and I would sweat beads. Still got into college though via FETAC.

I probably would be good at it now though, strangely enough. Many aspects of maths that confused me before make much more sense now.

jimmytwotimes 2013

got a B3 in higher but i would barely know now if i was screwed out of my change at the shop. haven't used the aul maths since.

tomatosauce34

NiallSparky wrote: »

This stuff is all fairly obvious I would've thought?

When you're doing a poll like this that is measuring relative ability then a relative test is perfectly fine.

No, it's not. Did the teachers mention this fact to you when you were doing the exams? I had to educate myself about this practice. This kind of carry on does not go on the UK University entrance exams(or many other european countries) as far as I know. Infact, some places discourage the practice, such as MIT, which has a very strict policy against it.

Hoop66

tomatosauce34 wrote: »

“What was class average?” I feel like I have been asked a 1,000 times, and I confess, each time it makes me cringe. It tells me the student is fixated on evaluation, not on the material. It tells me the student is competing with other students, rather than aspiring for a level of knowledge.

In the vast majority of cases, especially at a US "college" level, that is exactly what you are doing. You are studying the course in order to pass it. That is the way most education systems work. It might not fit with the ideal of learning for learning's sake but it's the way it is at the moment.

I got As in A level Maths & Further Maths. Who wants to touch me?

tritium

C2 in honours in an exam I didn't do myself justice in not too bothered though since I did science in college and now do maths for a living, so I can't be too bad at it (well they haven't fired me yet anyway )

tigger123

tomatosauce34 wrote: »

Yes, because not enough people are aware of this fact. It is important to highlight, when you consider the fact employers, students, and teaching staff(possibly) are not made aware of this fact. Ireland ranks below the OECD average in maths ability, so it's important to mention any weaknesses in the system currently operating.

Our economic recovery depends on the improvement of maths education. Ireland isn't in the protection days of DeValera anymore, we have to compete with people all over the world, who will work for a fraction of the wages Irish people will. Ireland needs to step up the game in this arena. Massively.

Well, if they're working for a fraction of the wages maybe they're not so great at maths after all!

:pac:

But seriously, it seems like a very specific thing to be focusing in on, in terms of our economic recovery.

tomatosauce34

Hoop66 wrote: »

In the vast majority of cases, especially at a US "college" level, that is exactly what you are doing. You are studying the course in order to pass it. That is the way most education systems work. It might not fit with the ideal of learning for learning's sake but it's the way it is at the moment.

I got As in A level Maths & Further Maths. Who wants to touch me?

I know it's standard practice for scoring for admission purposes in certain instances, but I am simply highlighting the fact it does not present the full picture, it's a rough way of measuring performance, unless you are given more information about your peers. FWIW, A level and Further Maths are not marked on the basis I described in my first post.

tomatosauce34

tigger123 wrote: »

Well, if they're working for a fraction of the wages maybe they're not so great at maths after all!

:pac:

But seriously, it seems like a very specific thing to be focusing in on, in terms of our economic recovery.

This is standard practice in many foreign countries, where wages are nominal. Shure everything you buy nowadays is made in China or Taiwan, where people subsist on slave labour wages so you can have the latest iPhone or whatever.

When the Government and Industry collude to get involved in the producation of anything, somebody must first suffer greatly at your expense to satisfy your needs. It's a case of the few Plundering the many. This is going slightly Off Topic, so I will try not to detract further from the main point of interest

Michael D Not Higgins

A1 in higher level maths and applied maths

elefant

B2 in pass. Don't think I even owned the book- it was very easy apart from a few part C's here and there. Dropped down to pass because honours took up too much time, and I didn't need the points in maths.

BeerWolf

Got an A2 well over a decade ago... /woo

Christ the Redeemer

Not very good, but I am tackling my maths disability using the awesome Khan academy website! I'm even getting the hang of algebra!

I will never be quick with arithmetic, though.

tigger123

tomatosauce34 wrote: »

This is standard practice in many foreign countries, where wages are nominal. Shure everything you buy nowadays is made in China or Taiwan, where people subsist on slave labour wages so you can have the latest iPhone or whatever.

When the Government and Industry collude to get involved in the producation of anything, somebody must first suffer greatly at your expense to satisfy your needs. It's a case of the few Plundering the many. This is going slightly Off Topic, so I will try not to detract further from the main point of interest

iPhone's aside, you didn't really answer my question, I'm just curious as to why you're focusing in on maths as being so integral to the economic recovery of our country.

Mr Benevolent

tomatosauce34 wrote: »

Nobody who scores even an A1 in Ordinary or Higher in the Leaving qualifies as "good at maths". The proof for my assertion rests in the evidence presented by the Government that the maths examinations in the Leaving Cert are marked on a strict bell curve basis. You would need an absolute score on many more tests over the course of your lifetime to make a positive assertion about your maths ability. Given an arbitrary mean and a standard deviation, even if 2 or 3 deviations above the mean does not mean you are naturally good at mathematics, it just proves you are slightly better than the average cohort.

I must stress again, the maths in the Leaving Cert is marked on a relative, and not absolute basis(bell curve) therefore it cannot give you a full picture about your maths ability. The following proof will suffice to back up my claim. If you get 60-70% in LC Maths, it does not mean you know that percentage of material well, just that you fit with the norm(average).

http://debates.oireachtas.ie/dail/2012/07/18/00018.asp

If I can do orbital dynamics calculations without using a calculator I am good at maths, regardless of my Ordinary B3 in the LC.

derfderf

B3 in ordinary, but have a degree in maths now. Awful teacher for my leaving cert. The bad lecturers for the degree always seemed to know their stuff, but have trouble explaining it. My leaving cert maths teacher didn't seem to have a great grasp of it for himself. Calculus in college was like a brand new subject.

Amirani

tomatosauce34 wrote: »

No, it's not. Did the teachers mention this fact to you when you were doing the exams? I had to educate myself about this practice. This kind of carry on does not go on the UK University entrance exams(or many other european countries) as far as I know. Infact, some places discourage the practice, such as MIT, which has a very strict policy against it.

It was mentioned a by a number of teachers yeah. Marks are retrospectively allocated to suit the normal distribution.

Honey-ec

Maths was the only ordinary level subject I did in my Leaving, and it was by far the lowest grade I got - D1. And, tbh, I was friggin delighted with that, as I was fully expecting to fail. Which would have meant failing the Leaving entirely, even though I got 490 points.

I am utterly, utterly hopeless at Maths.

Frank Lee Midere

tomatosauce34 wrote: »

Nobody who scores even an A1 in Ordinary or Higher in the Leaving qualifies as "good at maths". The proof for my assertion rests in the evidence presented by the Government that the maths examinations in the Leaving Cert are marked on a strict bell curve basis. You would need an absolute score on many more tests over the course of your lifetime to make a positive assertion about your maths ability. Given an arbitrary mean and a standard deviation, even if 2 or 3 deviations above the mean does not mean you are naturally good at mathematics, it just proves you are slightly better than the average cohort.

I must stress again, the maths in the Leaving Cert is marked on a relative, and not absolute basis(bell curve) therefore it cannot give you a full picture about your maths ability. The following proof will suffice to back up my claim. If you get 60-70% in LC Maths, it does not mean you know that percentage of material well, just that you fit with the norm(average).

http://debates.oireachtas.ie/dail/2012/07/18/00018.asp

tomatosauce34 wrote: »

Yes, because not enough people are aware of this fact. It is important to highlight, when you consider the fact employers, students, and teaching staff(possibly) are not made aware of this fact. Ireland ranks below the OECD average in maths ability, so it's important to mention any weaknesses in the system currently operating.

Our economic recovery depends on the improvement of maths education. Ireland isn't in the protection days of DeValera anymore, we have to compete with people all over the world, who will work for a fraction of the wages Irish people will. Ireland needs to step up the game in this arena. Massively.

Ability is always relative. Therefore to be "good at something' is relative. It's true that if the courses are dumbed down the A is not worth what it was;however it isn't true that the relative scores hide inability. Often in fact quite the opposite. If there were a real hard maths exam where the top guy in the country got 60% because the questions were put together by the world's best mathematician, that guy deserves his A.

And all takers of the Higher Level paper are relatively good at maths, as only about 15% do. As that link showed. And since only 15% do, the paper can't be that easy.

QED

Cool Mo D

tomatosauce34 wrote: »

Nobody who scores even an A1 in Ordinary or Higher in the Leaving qualifies as "good at maths". The proof for my assertion rests in the evidence presented by the Government that the maths examinations in the Leaving Cert are marked on a strict bell curve basis. You would need an absolute score on many more tests over the course of your lifetime to make a positive assertion about your maths ability. Given an arbitrary mean and a standard deviation, even if 2 or 3 deviations above the mean does not mean you are naturally good at mathematics, it just proves you are slightly better than the average cohort.

I must stress again, the maths in the Leaving Cert is marked on a relative, and not absolute basis(bell curve) therefore it cannot give you a full picture about your maths ability. The following proof will suffice to back up my claim. If you get 60-70% in LC Maths, it does not mean you know that percentage of material well, just that you fit with the norm(average).

http://debates.oireachtas.ie/dail/2012/07/18/00018.asp

Your argument is nonsense. If you are in the top 1% of students at maths, like those who get an A or B in honours maths, you are entitled to consider yourself "good" at maths. What does being good at something even mean without comparing yourself to someone else?

The results are not forced into a bell curve either - if you correct 10,000 exam papers, the results will naturally form a rough bell curve, that is just basic statistics.

What does happen is that if there are too many or too few high scores in a year, the marking scheme will be changed to make it tougher/easier as needed. This is all publicly available. You can even go look at your paper and see exactly where you lost marks, and there will be no correction applied to make you fit a curve.

tomatosauce34

tigger123 wrote: »

iPhone's aside, you didn't really answer my question, I'm just curious as to why you're focusing in on maths as being so integral to the economic recovery of our country.

The problem is maths is seriously undervalued and mistreated in this country. Politicians and their ilk do not do enough in this arena, and it shows if the OECD reports are anything to go by. Ireland scores well in every area except maths. This needs to be addressed soon. Otherwise, these deficiencies will have massive implications for this country in years to come.

Personally, I would favour legislation banning anybody without a maths degree teaching maths(especially the higher stuff) to children and teenagers. There are people out there who think maths "is not for them" yet don't realise that perhaps the teaching is partly to blame?

Craig Barret, the ex CEO of Intel said that Ireland would become an economic backwater if the education system is not overhauled. I fear his predication will come to fruition if we don't turn things around, because this country will be at a severe disadvantage in years to come.

"If you assume maths and sciences are key capabilities for the future ... and you are not doing a good job education young people in maths and science you have a problem. That is why I told your Government leaders you are coasting. You are living off what you did 20 years ago.” - Craig Barret

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/ex-intel-chair-slams-inadequate-irish-education-112179.html

The Government of this country has a lot to answer for with regard to the quality of our education system when it comes to maths teaching. It's reasons like those stated above, compel me to have 0% trust in the Government educating the children of this country properly. People should be up in arms about this, but then again, justice isn't a strong point in this country.

Nuri Sahin

Failed ordinary first time around. Tbh, I did the bare minimum (cramming in study at the last minute more or less) and assumed I'd get the pass I wanted. My teacher was god awful as were the class I was in, but mostly it was down to application why I failed.

B1 ordinary second time around. I was doing honours maths for a large part of the year, but C was my grade ceiling and I didn't want to chance failing again so switched to lower with a month or so to go.

Maths was always my weakest subject along with physics, the two go hand in hand. Only really ever had one good maths teacher and that was in 2nd and 3rd year, he made maths easy and fun by his general demeanour and that reflected in my Junior Cert results.

Polka_Dot

derfderf wrote: »

B3 in ordinary, but have a degree in maths now. Awful teacher for my leaving cert. The bad lecturers for the degree always seemed to know their stuff, but have trouble explaining it. My leaving cert maths teacher didn't seem to have a great grasp of it for himself. Calculus in college was like a brand new subject.

Very similar to myself, B3 in higher level though my teacher was a disgrace, didn't seem to know her stuff at all. I'm faring much better with college maths now. Didn't do amazingly well in my exams this year but that was down to not studying rather than lack of ability :P

blackwhite

tomatosauce34 wrote: »

Nobody who scores even an A1 in Ordinary or Higher in the Leaving qualifies as "good at maths". The proof for my assertion rests in the evidence presented by the Government that the maths examinations in the Leaving Cert are marked on a strict bell curve basis. You would need an absolute score on many more tests over the course of your lifetime to make a positive assertion about your maths ability. Given an arbitrary mean and a standard deviation, even if 2 or 3 deviations above the mean does not mean you are naturally good at mathematics, it just proves you are slightly better than the average cohort.

I must stress again, the maths in the Leaving Cert is marked on a relative, and not absolute basis(bell curve) therefore it cannot give you a full picture about your maths ability. The following proof will suffice to back up my claim. If you get 60-70% in LC Maths, it does not mean you know that percentage of material well, just that you fit with the norm(average).

http://debates.oireachtas.ie/dail/2012/07/18/00018.asp

Did you actually read the debate you linked to?

It states that the results tend to follow a Bell Curve distribution, not that the grades are actually awarded based on where the student comes on the Bell Curve.
LC Maths is graded based on a marking scheme determined by the Department. Each question is given X amount of marks (and this is shown on the paper).
An initial marking scheme is issued to the teachers who correct the exams. A sample of exams are graded using this, and the marking scheme within individual questions may then be revised if there were sections of questions deemed to be ambiguous, misleading, unfair, etc.
A final marking scheme is then issues to all of the correcting teachers and they will grade each paper based off of this.
The percentage that each student scores on this grading determines what result they get.

JRant

tomatosauce34 wrote: »

The problem is maths is seriously undervalued and mistreated in this country. Politicians and their ilk do not do enough in this arena, and it shows if the OECD reports are anything to go by. Ireland scores well in every area except maths. This needs to be addressed soon. Otherwise, these deficiencies will have massive implications for this country in years to come.

Personally, I would favour legislation banning anybody without a maths degree teaching maths(especially the higher stuff) to children and teenagers. There are people out there who think maths "is not for them" yet don't realise that perhaps the teaching is partly to blame?

Craig Barret, the ex CEO of Intel said that Ireland would become an economic backwater if the education system is not overhauled. I fear his predication will come to fruition if we don't turn things around, because this country will be at a severe disadvantage in years to come.

"If you assume maths and sciences are key capabilities for the future ... and you are not doing a good job education young people in maths and science you have a problem. That is why I told your Government leaders you are coasting. You are living off what you did 20 years ago.” - Craig Barret

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/ex-intel-chair-slams-inadequate-irish-education-112179.html

The Government of this country has a lot to answer for with regard to the quality of our education system when it comes to maths teaching. It's reasons like those stated above, compel me to have 0% trust in the Government educating the children of this country properly. People should be up in arms about this, but then again, justice isn't a strong point in this country.

The real problem with maths in this country is that too many people finish primary schooling without the fundamentals in place. If you had that many students going into secondary school completely lacking literacy skills people would be up in arms.

Aglomerado

JRant wrote: »

The real problem with maths in this country is that too many people finish primary schooling without the fundamentals in place. If you had that many students going into secondary school completely lacking literacy skills people would be up in arms.

This is what happened to me when I left primary school. It took 2+ years for me to catch up! I knew all my prayers in Irish though! :rolleyes:

The_B_Man

Me fail Maths? Thats unprobable...

JRant

Aglomerado wrote: »

This is what happened to me when I left primary school. It took 2+ years for me to catch up! I knew all my prayers in Irish though! :rolleyes:

Unfortunately it is far to common an occurance.

krudler

Awful, I always hated maths, good with English and history and the like but terrible with maths. Didn't help that our teacher had the most unintelligible Kerry accent you'd ever hear, you know that Eurovision episode of Father Ted where John Kenny plays the announcer who they can't understand? Exactly like that.

April O Neill

Higher B3 in 2001.

Happy with that, I was.

April O Neill

Aglomerado wrote: »

especially as I'd had very poor Maths education in the last two years of National school (the emphasis being on Irish and religion)

Urgh. I hate your primary school.

April O Neill

tomatosauce34 wrote: »

Nobody who scores even an A1 in Ordinary or Higher in the Leaving qualifies as "good at maths". The proof for my assertion rests in the evidence presented by the Government that the maths examinations in the Leaving Cert are marked on a strict bell curve basis. You would need an absolute score on many more tests over the course of your lifetime to make a positive assertion about your maths ability. Given an arbitrary mean and a standard deviation, even if 2 or 3 deviations above the mean does not mean you are naturally good at mathematics, it just proves you are slightly better than the average cohort.

I must stress again, the maths in the Leaving Cert is marked on a relative, and not absolute basis(bell curve) therefore it cannot give you a full picture about your maths ability. The following proof will suffice to back up my claim. If you get 60-70% in LC Maths, it does not mean you know that percentage of material well, just that you fit with the norm(average).

http://debates.oireachtas.ie/dail/2012/07/18/00018.asp

True dat, yo.

And believe it or not, LC maths is as subject to rote learning as any other subject. Like I said, I got a higher B3. Not a notion what most of it actually meant though. Just learned off how equations and how to work stuff out.

April O Neill

NiallSparky wrote: »

C2 in Higher Level. I did a heavily maths based course in college though, so I'd hope to be considered a bit better these days.

You probably gained a much better understanding of maths in college.