Is the leaving cert harder, easier or the same as it was 20 years ago?

Kremin

I saw this posted on the Ireland subreddit and some people were suggesting points are being artificially inflated to make it look like we are performing better etc.
I feel like this doesn't tell the full story though, but I can only comment on the leaving cert now, not what it was 20 years ago when I wasn't born.

Reasons I think for the decline of sub 100 pointers and increase of people over 500:

1.) It's a lot more competitive now, almost everyone goes on to 3rd level now so the points race makes sense.
2.) People are paying thousands to go to private schools and get grinds, books like revise wise, less stress etc are increasing.

what are your opinions?

Scirpt

Easier with the resources available online.

SILVAMAN

According to my teachers from the early 1980s, certain subjects are not as difficult or the standard has been lowered over the years.

endacl

Expectations on young people are higher. Expectations from parents and pressure on teachers are higher. Exams are just exams.

I don't envy the 6th years of today.

TallGlass

I wouldn't think it's any harder than years past? Maybe the questions might be worded better, diagrams more clear, print outs better. There's a lot more information available to students.

That graph is interesting but!

spurious

We never saw a marking scheme in 1980. An A grade in anything was really quite unusual. We did not learn off 'sample' answers. We went in on the day and made our own one up.

RoRo979

Most definately harder before, but here is what i think:
- people put work in depending on diffuculty of exam, so as exams get easier, people believe more in their ability to wing it, hence grades get better overall but people still do less study. By this i mean if people 30 years ago did as much study as they did for their LC for the LC now they would do amazing
- Grinds schools/online grinds/grinds in person, people that have more money lying around tend to do better as they can afford to pay for these things
- we can simply learn off 100& right answers and regurgatate them.

Overall i think a different form of intelligence is being hit now and its not a better form. Those with the best memories flourish rather than those with the best problem-solving/ other intelligences. Obviously this isnt the case for english/maths but for most others it is. Even look at the irish course, my sister did the old Irish LC and damn did she have a lot to learn, however even now that i have less i still didnt learn off all the poems and poetry.

Basically my main point, humanity is lazy, minimal effort is in the majorities eyes. So as the courses go down, the amount of study for them also goes down. Of course this is a very deductive statement but from knowing how most in my school studied, it is fairly accurate.

Kremin

spurious wrote: »

We never saw a marking scheme in 1980. An A grade in anything was really quite unusual. We did not learn off 'sample' answers. We went in on the day and made our own one up.

Scirpt wrote: »

Easier with the resources available online.

So you think the exams have stayed roughly at the same level of difficulty, with students just working a lot harder/combined with the points race and pressure is what has caused this?

A lot of people say the exams have become too easy.

Jamies15

I'm currently sitting the leaving cert and whilst I agree that it is now more achievable to get an A with the introduction of marking schemes and students having the opportunity to just memorise things, I don't agree that it has become easier.

I can't comment on it being a more stressful time than it was 10/20/30 years ago because obviously I don't know, but I can't believe for a second that it would have been possible for anybody from any era to put more hours, more long nights and more commitment into their leaving cert than the people who I'm sitting it with now. They may have put in equal effort and worked equally as hard, but not harder because in my opinion that would quite literally be impossible.

Personally I think the increasing amount of As and Bs has driven the pressure up as well. Ridiculously a Leaving Cert consisting of all Bs and Cs is now considered to be a poor one in some quarters.


^Probably extremley biased, but I'm not having a soul telling me that the economics, business and accounting exams I am currently cramming for are too easy!!

RoRo979

Jamies15 wrote: »

I'm currently sitting the leaving cert and whilst I agree that it is now more achievable to get an A with the introduction of marking schemes and students having the opportunity to just memorise things, I don't agree that it has become easier.

I can't comment on it being a more stressful time than it was 10/20/30 years ago because obviously I don't know, but I can't believe for a second that it would have been possible for anybody from any era to put more hours, more long nights and more commitment into their leaving cert than the people who I'm sitting it with now. They may have put in equal effort and worked equally as hard, but not harder because in my opinion that would quite literally be impossible.

Personally I think the increasing amount of As and Bs has driven the pressure up as well. Ridiculously a Leaving Cert consisting of all Bs and Cs is now considered to be a poor one in some quarters.


^Probably extremley biased, but I'm not having a soul telling me that the economics, business and accounting exams I am currently cramming for are too easy!!

a broader knowledge had to be known as it was relatively unknown what an a answer is. Lets say for english, if you never looked at a sample a1 answer and didnt compare with friends every essay you wrote you would either feel is a1 but may not be, or may be a1 but you arnt sure.

You have to take into consideration that if it is "easier" it doesnt matter at the end of the day, if its easier all points for courses get higher, if its harder the points go lower.

c2 in all subjects, if it was harder before, may get me my course i want now. But now with the average going up, b1's are what i need. Its a relative imo

geosynchronous orbit

Son completed Leaving Cert 3 years ago, daughter completing this week. I was very involved in both their preparations for the exams. I did the LC 25 years ago....

1. Access to marking schemes is a great way of focussing your efforts.
2. Availablility of the syllabus at a mouse click was invalualble.
3. Past papers and marking schemes at a mouse click almost makes it feel like cheating.
4. But the biggest difference is that from day 1 in 5th year, portfolios of answers to questions are prepared in order regurgitate 'best' responses and developing the skills to fit your prepared answers to questions.

The papers are probably, on balance, the same level in terms of difficulty.
The difference between now and the old days is preparation, preparation, preparation.

If you have half a head on you nowadays there should be nothing that surprises you on the LC. and the only limiting factor would be the speed you can write.

But then again, you can't pur an old head on young shoulders.

spurious

Kremin wrote: »

So you think the exams have stayed roughly at the same level of difficulty, with students just working a lot harder/combined with the points race and pressure is what has caused this?

A lot of people say the exams have become too easy.

I think certainly in languages they appear to have become easier. 'In my day' the only English you wrote on (for example) a German paper, was when you were translating a piece.

Geography seems to require much more writing nowadays.

Today, it all seems much more about learning to pass the exam, than learning to appreciate the subject. Hence the 'How many poets can I get away with?' and 'Do I really need to do Stalin?' questions.

peckerhead

Ditto to the last two posters' comments. I did my LC even longer ago and I've been teaching languages at third level for twenty-something years. Students taking a language to degree level are required to have at least a C3 at HL; once this meant that you could assume they had a certain level of competence. All it means now is that they're capable of memorising stock answers to set questions that they know in advance — rather like the way we used to "learn" Irish (and perhaps still do) — without having the faintest understanding of the meaning of each of the words or the underlying grammatical structures.

In our most recent 1st-year exams, just by way of example, fewer than half of the entire first year cohort, by the end of the year, could

• correctly conjugate être and avoir in any past tense
• correctly conjugate the regular verbs demander, manger and aller in the present tense
• translate "Don't worry!" into French (and about 10% of them didn't know the word for "a man")
• guess the meaning of le sommeil (the sentences on either side spoke about sleeping X hours per night)

Maybe it's me...

if832uspx4eogt

peckerhead wrote: »

Ditto to the last two posters' comments. I did my LC even longer ago and I've been teaching languages at third level for twenty-something years. Students taking a language to degree level are required to have at least a C3 at HL; once this meant that you could assume they had a certain level of competence. All it means now is that they're capable of memorising stock answers to set questions that they know in advance — rather like the way we used to "learn" Irish (and perhaps still do) — without having the faintest understanding of the meaning of each of the words or the underlying grammatical structures.

In our most recent 1st-year exams, just by way of example, fewer than half of the entire first year cohort, by the end of the year, could

• correctly conjugate être and avoir in any past tense
• correctly conjugate the regular verbs demander, manger and aller in the present tense
• translate "Don't worry!" into French (and about 10% of them didn't know the word for "a man")
• guess the meaning of le sommeil (the sentences on either side spoke about sleeping X hours per night)

Maybe it's me...

What course is that cause I don't want to be stuck there ! (I'm doing French in college)

walshb

The children of the internet age don't know how much is at their fingertips to allow them to perform better than those from the past where you had to really study and research that bit much more.

peckerhead

Reginald Shaggy Boat wrote: »

What course is that cause I don't want to be stuck there ! (I'm doing French in college)

I don't think it would be appropriate to name it, lol! In any case, I'm deliberately focussing on the "bottom of the class" there — the top 10% are fine, and I would have to say that their spoken French is probably better than it was 15 or 20 years ago when there was no oral/aural component in the LC. Some things have changed for the better...

Also, the students that do really badly in first year invariably turn out to be the ones with zero attendance and zero effort. You could put on the best programme in the world and have excellent teachers and it would make no difference to them.

But we're talking about LC standards here. Whether the students are in TCD, UCD, UCC, NUIG, UL or whatever, they've all sat the same Leaving Cert. So either:
(a) it's possible to get good honours LC grades without really knowing much French at all.
(b) the fúckers have actually disimproved over the course of the year in college.
Sometimes, to be honest, it's a bit of both.

Last year a bunch of them ran to the SU to complain that one of their in-term exams was "way too difficult" and "completely unfair". I was required to justify the poor marks, so I explained to the faculty head that I had modelled the questions on exercises taken from my daughter's Junior Cert. textbook, La Grammaire pour tout le monde.

So — if they can't handle JC-level questions (like the examples given above), why are they all getting As and Bs in an honours LC exam?

A: They've spent two years being spoonfed stuff to memorise and regurgitate, parrot-like, and the design of our current LC syllabus and examinations ensures that that, and pretty much that alone, is sufficient to rack up 450/500 points.

Kremin

Definitely agree with languages being rote learned. My brother memorised so many essays and could recite them with ease but never knew what he was even saying

Carlos Orange

peckerhead wrote: »

the top 10% are fine, and I would have to say that their spoken French is probably better than it was 15 or 20 years ago when there was no oral/aural component in the LC. Some things have changed for the better...

Pretty sure there was an aural component to LC French 20 years ago. 19 years ago anyway.
Maybe. Seems so long ago.

sabat

I did it in 96 and recall doing questions from past papers from the 40s and 50s in preparation for a couple of pretty obscure subjects and the difference in difficulty was huge; I mean the old LC papers were final year degree standard.

Sev

I was shocked by how much easier the higher level Maths paper 1 was this year than the one I did in 2003.

eurokev

I did my lc in 05, speaking from a maths perspective it's become far far easier, to the point where someone achieving say a c1 or b3 in 05 could get an A now in my opinion. And speaking for myself who got As in maths and applied maths in my lc I don't think I would have had a hope of getting these grades if I did my lc 10 years previously.

its actually quite annoying to me how progressively easier it is becoming because in my opinion it devalues the points students got in 05 compared to today, as I think a lot of this years A students would not have been here 10 years previous. Speaking as someone who studied maths at 3rd level and still gives the odd grind

peckerhead

sabat wrote: »

...I mean the old LC papers were final year degree standard.

I wouldn't go quite that far, although it sometimes feels like it... And in fairness, rote memorisation has been a feature of the LC for a long time (and is certainly not the fault of today's students!). Back then people memorised synopses of the Maupassant stories, Peig-style. But at least they could read and understand a page of French that didn't have all the hard words taken out, and they could compose an original sentence without falling at the first verb conjugation or gender agreement. Nowadays they're fúcked if their potted essay on "les sans-abri" doesn't come up.

Kremin

eurokev wrote: »

I did my lc in 05, speaking from a maths perspective it's become far far easier, to the point where someone achieving say a c1 or b3 in 05 could get an A now in my opinion. And speaking for myself who got As in maths and applied maths in my lc I don't think I would have had a hope of getting these grades if I did my lc 10 years previously.

its actually quite annoying to me how progressively easier it is becoming because in my opinion it devalues the points students got in 05 compared to today, as I think a lot of this years A students would not have been here 10 years previous. Speaking as someone who studied maths at 3rd level and still gives the odd grind

I dunno about applied maths now mate? A lot of people do the exam papers back 30 years without problems? I've done back to 95 so far and haven't encountered too many issues yet? If a C student could get an A now why are there so many people struggling to get a C or a D now in maths, if it was the old system surely theyd all fail, which wouldn't work

Luke Armstrong

Kremin wrote: »

I dunno about applied maths now mate? A lot of people do the exam papers back 30 years without problems? I've done back to 95 so far and haven't encountered too many issues yet? If a C student could get an A now why are there so many people struggling to get a C or a D now in maths, if it was the old system surely theyd all fail, which wouldn't work

Applied maths has been quite similar down through the years that I've looked at imo. Only difference is the integration by substitution not on the course.

But definitely maths has got way easier since the increase in people taking honours. I think it affects the top maths students and the ordinary students as they're paper seems to be getting harder but they're just throwing out marks in higher in order to keep the fail rate low.

randylonghorn

In general, I'd say the LC has become easier over the years (though there may be exceptions, I couldn't comment on AM for example). Re: languages, I would definitely agree with Peckerhead, though I did Spanish, not French.

One of the biggest problems I would see is the move towards memorisation and regurgitation of ... well, just about everything, even English and History essays for feck's sake!

One area in which I do think the current bunch have it tougher is with all the hype and palaver and stress surrounding the points race. I genuinely do think that it's become worse and worse over the years.

That's not really about the LC being easier or not, but it is about the experience of sitting LC being easier or tougher, so it's related.

spurious

I must root out an old Group Cert. paper I have somewhere (usually taken by kids in vocational schools after 2nd year) and scan it - fer de lulz.

I haven't seen it in a while but I remember the print as being tiny compared to today's.

I will have a rummage.

solerina

The subjects I teach are considerably easier than the courses which were there when I started teaching, shorter and more predictable. Still not easy but certainly easier than 20 years ago.

VeryOwl

eurokev wrote: »

its actually quite annoying to me how progressively easier it is becoming because in my opinion it devalues the points students got in 05 compared to today, as I think a lot of this years A students would not have been here 10 years previous. Speaking as someone who studied maths at 3rd level and still gives the odd grind

As qualifications in general become ever easier to achieve, all of our qualifications are devalued. It's just a fact we have to learn to live with until the education system feels like reforming itself.

I do agree though that this year higher Maths papers were very easy though, and presented very little challenge to the capable student.

SILVAMAN

peckerhead wrote: »

In our most recent 1st-year exams, just by way of example, fewer than half of the entire first year cohort, by the end of the year, could

• correctly conjugate être and avoir in any past tense
• correctly conjugate the regular verbs demander, manger and aller in the present tense
• translate "Don't worry!" into French (and about 10% of them didn't know the word for "a man")
• guess the meaning of le sommeil (the sentences on either side spoke about sleeping X hours per night)

Maybe it's me...

I took French as an elective with science subjects in my degree year. I was appalled by others who still could not conjugate the basic verbs nor have adjectives agree with their subjects....pretty basic stuff:rolleyes:

ronivek

SILVAMAN wrote: »

I took French as an elective with science subjects in my degree year. I was appalled by others who still could not conjugate the basic verbs nor have adjectives agree with their subjects....pretty basic stuff:rolleyes:

It would be similar if students getting an A1 in Maths were asked to calculate something from first principles; they're learning how to get points in predicatable exams and very little else.

Not that this is something that goes away in University either; many courses are similarly preparing people for industry. There are exceptions of course but it's usually the PhD students who end up really engaging with the subjects in a meaningful way.

Personally I would love to see a really significant number of points going for continuous assessment throughout the entire cycle. Holding weekly debates in French/Irish/Whatever for example; in an environment where you're rewarded for trying even if you don't conjugate such and such to perfection.

spurious

That reminds me - calculators. We never had/used them.

maude6868

When I started teaching 22 years ago I taught Geibheann to First Years, after a few years I taught it to Junior Cert Ordinary Level, now I teach it to Higher Level Leaving Cert. It's a far cry from 'Saoirse' and 'Daoirse. The same can be said of English. Milton's 'Paradise Lost' was far more challenging than 'Killing the Pig' for instance. In my opinion todays Leaving Certs would not be able to handle the old Inter Cert in languages. When I did my Leaving in 1985 if a student got an A it would be the talk of the parish. However I believe the Leaving Certs now have far more pressure on them from teachers, parents, the grind schools and themselves. The emergence of grinds really contributes to that pressure because the student who doesn't get grinds feels at a disadvantage. Grinds add so much more pressure because after a day at school and then a few hours study many students head to grinds. I believe the papers were harder years ago but students studied less and natural ability shone through which is as it should be.

chanelfreak

spurious wrote: »

That reminds me - calculators. We never had/used them.

THIS! I definitely did not have a calculator in the exams, that is going back about 16/17-ish years I guess? And the HL Maths papers I saw last year were almost easier than the OL Maths papers I did in my LC. I mean the year I did my LC, I literally could not make head nor tail of the HL Maths paper at all.

However, I still think that the LC is the most stressful exam that the majority of us will ever do in our lives in terms of the sheer breadth of subjects involved. I still have nightmares every so often about sitting it! :eek:

Kremin

spurious wrote: »

That reminds me - calculators. We never had/used them.

It's kind of funny how for granted we take such a simple thing as calculators.
My teacher tried using one from years and years ago to do a financial maths question and the thing took a good 60 seconds just to do (1+i)^120

DarraghF197

I'd prefer if we didn't have calculators for Maths and Applied Maths. I know it's not really the way forward, but I'd find it more of a challenge and it would get rid of the people who just chunk a massive line into their calculators.

I don't think it would be better without them, just more interesting! Still think we need one for Accounting though

sunbeam

spurious wrote: »

I must root out an old Group Cert. paper I have somewhere (usually taken by kids in vocational schools after 2nd year) and scan it - fer de lulz.

I haven't seen it in a while but I remember the print as being tiny compared to today's.

I will have a rummage.

Just looked at one of the Junior Cert Ordinary Level sample maths papers on the net and most of it looks way easier than what we did for the Group Cert back in the 80s.

As one of my college lecturers told me back in his day (the 70s) an A in a higher leaving cert subject was 'an event'. To a certain extent it still was back in 1990 when I sat mine.

I think the availability of the marking schemes helps a lot. Back in my day some teachers seemed to have very strange ideas about what was actually required in the exams.

Luke Armstrong

DarraghF197 wrote: »

I'd prefer if we didn't have calculators for Maths and Applied Maths. I know it's not really the way forward, but I'd find it more of a challenge and it would get rid of the people who just chunk a massive line into their calculators.

I don't think it would be better without them, just more interesting! Still think we need one for Accounting though

So how are we supposed to calculate Cos47?
I don't think it would make it that much harder for algebra and co-ordinate geometry would just take so much longer

peckerhead

More importantly, what would we do without 5318008?

DarraghF197

Luke Armstrong wrote: »

So how are we supposed to calculate Cos47?
I don't think it would make it that much harder for algebra and co-ordinate geometry would just take so much longer

Just have angles that would be able to find in the tables. As I said, it wouldn't be better, but if they were able to bring it in, I would welcome it.

Kremin

DarraghF197 wrote: »

Just have angles that would be able to find in the tables. As I said, it wouldn't be better, but if they were able to bring it in, I would welcome it.

I don't see the point though, in any real life scenario today you can have a calculator in seconds from a phone or on the internet, no point taking them away now.
Some of the course kind of relies on them too, like statistics, good luck getting the correlation coefficient without a calculator !

DarraghF197

Kremin wrote: »

I don't see the point though, in any real life scenario today you can have a calculator in seconds from a phone or on the internet, no point taking them away now.
Some of the course kind of relies on them too, like statistics, good luck getting the correlation coefficient without a calculator !

Yeah I was thinking about that correlation co-efficient! Still, I'll say it again haha, I'd prefer if we weren't able to use calculators but it would make more sense if we did use calculators :P

Peregrine

I don't think calculators should be taken away but I think students rely on them too much. A lot of students can't spot a major discrepancy between the calculator's answer and the expected value and some even forget basic skills.

Luke Armstrong wrote: »

So how are we supposed to calculate Cos47?
I don't think it would make it that much harder for algebra and co-ordinate geometry would just take so much longer

Back in the olden days, those books were called log tables for a reason


..or so I'm told.

IrishLoriii

As someone with only one exam left I honestly think that the Leaving Cert was harder years ago..take for instance even all of the websites with grammar, help and tutorials that no one had years ago. The reading comps and listenings were definitely harder years ago but as well as all of the obvious there was a much bigger emphasis on the leaving cert being the be all and end all then there is now a days

randylonghorn

Luke Armstrong wrote: »

So how are we supposed to calculate Cos47?

Log tables, as Nim said.

Nim wrote: »

I don't think calculators should be taken away but I think students rely on them too much. A lot of students can't spot a major discrepancy between the calculator's answer and the expected value and some even forget basic skills.

This.

It's got to the point IRL where most take the till reading as correct regardless, even if they have entered the thing wrongly.

I've had to fight for my correct change a couple of times, and had one time when someone was determined to give me change of a €20 when I had tendered €10 ... even handed me my own €10 back and went rooting for the additional change!! I was damn tempted to take it actually; I'm way too honest!

Jijsaw

I was looking at some French papers from the mid-'80's about a week back, the comprehensions were definitely harder but the questions were easier, if that makes sense. So it was more difficult to understand every line in the question but spotting the bits of text that gave you the answer was easier.

galwayjohn89

Jamies15 wrote: »

^Probably extremley biased, but I'm not having a soul telling me that the economics, business and accounting exams I am currently cramming for are too easy!!

Did the leaving cert 4 years ago so may be out of date but the economics and business exams were a joke. Very little in depth knowledge needed at all.

peckerhead

randylonghorn wrote: »

It's got to the point IRL where most take the till reading as correct regardless, even if they have entered the thing wrongly.

The till in our local Spar was being used by a manager the other day and the poor young fella behind the counter took almost 2 minutes — with pen and paper — to figure out my change from a fiver for a single item costing €1.79. :eek:

Project Maths me @rse.

DarraghF197

Maybe just get rid of the plus, minus, multiplication and division buttons :P

Troxck

With regards to calculators, I agree. I became way too dependent on it. Our Maths teacher was great in terms to this, he really improved our mental arithmetic. He'd make you stand/embarrass you if if saw or heard you using a calculator for simple calculations. May have not be the best approach, but it worked!

Kremin

peckerhead wrote: »

The till in our local Spar was being used by a manager the other day and the poor young fella behind the counter took almost 2 minutes — with pen and paper — to figure out my change from a fiver for a single item costing €1.79. :eek:

Project Maths me @rse.

When I was working last year they wanted us to put in the exact amount they give us- in case they need to search for a transaction or the person comes back saying they were overcharged etc.
I usually just pressed enter and counted it myself but they told me to start doing it by the till towards the end to avoid any problems :l

randylonghorn

Kremin wrote: »

When I was working last year they wanted us to put in the exact amount they give us- in case they need to search for a transaction or the person comes back saying they were overcharged etc.

That makes perfect sense, Kremin, the issue is more when people mis-enter, and can't even see that there must be something odd with the answer they get. :pac: