Repeat Leaving Cert for Medicine- What Subject?

Tommac36922

Hi all,
After realising I'm not going to get Medicine this year I've decided to Repeat the Leaving Cert aswell as the HPAT as I feel I can bring up both scores. My dilemma is... I'm unsure of what subject to take up as my 7th honour just as a safety in case an exam goes pear shaped on me like Maths this year. My Leaving cert results this year were as follows,

English- Ordinary- 01
Maths- Higher- H3
Irish- Higher- H2
French- Higher- H1
Biology- Higher- H1
Chemistry- Higher- H1
Applied Maths- Higher- H2

I got 578 points in the LC and 160 (65th %ile) in the HPAT and am planning on repeating in a fee paying school this year with the same subjects as I did this year as well as one other.

I'm unsure to take up Physics given my familiar background with Maths and Applied Maths or to take up Ag.Science with my Biology familiarity. I've heard that it is easier to get a H1 in Ag.Science out of the two...BUT in contrast the statistics show that there were 10.8% H1's in Physics in 2017 and 2018 whereas Ag.Science only had 4.5% H1's in 2017 and 2018.

Any knowledge or personal experiences regarding which subject would be easier to take up in a year and ideally allow me to push for that H1 to get Medicine next year would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Tom

Stanford

If you are proficient in Maths then its not a huge leap to do Applied Maths

Tommac36922

Stanford wrote: »

If you are proficient in Maths then its not a huge leap to do Applied Maths

Thanks for the reply Stanford,
I'm actually already doing applied Maths as I said above, am just wondering what subject to do along with it and my 5 other honours.

Stanford

Apologies I see that now, its easier to do well in Ag Science because its not very popular and would probably bore you although it might get you that extra honours subject, why so poor in English?

Tommac36922

Well in the Junior Cert I only got a C in Honours English and to be honest I'm neither interested nor good at English so I decided to drop to Ordinary Level at the start of the 5th year. Also in my school aswell as the one I'm going to this year every student that is aiming for Medicine does Ordinary Level as the course is too long and takes up too much time when it could be spent on more significant Subjects such as Maths and the HPAT aswell.

Stanford

Fair answer, my sense is that Physics will hold your interest better than Ag Science and the Maths is sometimes a little below LC Hons level and should be well within your comfort zone. I suggest you go into www.examinations.ie and go through the 2017 Marking Scheme for Physics and see how you feel about it

UnknownEntity

If you're strong at Maths and did business studies for the JC, I would strongly recommend Accounting

Tommac36922

Thanks for your reply Stanford that's a very valid point that I was considering as I found the Plant section in Biology very boring and as a result ended up studying less of it than I should have prior to the exam.Thanks again

Funnily enough I dropped Accounting at Xmas of 6th year as I had no real interest in the subject and frankly I was poor at the subject only getting 70s and lower in class tests. Thanks for the reply however, Unknown

Stanford

No problem, the 2017 Marking is on the site as well as the 2017 Paper so you can thumb your way through bought whereas the 2017 Marking Scheme is not up yet but the questions tend to follow a pattern, have a look at these as well as other suggestions on this site and you will be better informed, I recommend Physics as it plays to your mathematical ability.

Bazinga_N

Tommac36922 wrote: »

Hi all,
After realising I'm not going to get Medicine this year I've decided to Repeat the Leaving Cert aswell as the HPAT as I feel I can bring up both scores. My dilemma is... I'm unsure of what subject to take up as my 7th honour just as a safety in case an exam goes pear shaped on me like Maths this year. My Leaving cert results this year were as follows,

English- Ordinary- 01
Maths- Higher- H3
Irish- Higher- H2
French- Higher- H1
Biology- Higher- H1
Chemistry- Higher- H1
Applied Maths- Higher- H2

I got 578 points in the LC and 160 (65th %ile) in the HPAT and am planning on repeating in a fee paying school this year with the same subjects as I did this year as well as one other.

I'm unsure to take up Physics given my familiar background with Maths and Applied Maths or to take up Ag.Science with my Biology familiarity. I've heard that it is easier to get a H1 in Ag.Science out of the two...BUT in contrast the statistics show that there were 10.8% H1's in Physics in 2017 and 2018 whereas Ag.Science only had 4.5% H1's in 2017 and 2018.

Any knowledge or personal experiences regarding which subject would be easier to take up in a year and ideally allow me to push for that H1 to get Medicine next year would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Tom

Would definitely recommend Physics! Not too tough of a course and given your proficiency in Maths and Applied Maths you've already got a great basis. Mechanics is one section of the course and having Applied Maths makes it much easier to do. Other topics like Light, Heat, Waves, Electricty, Atomic Physics, etc. are quite easy once you get a grasp on the understanding. There's plenty of resources out there for Physics such as Khan Academy, but the The Physics Teacher is brilliant!! Definitely check it out. You can also get lots of the experiments on Youtube. Exam Papers and Marking Schemes are key for Physics so definitely focus on them more than anything.

eclipsechaser

Physics makes most sense if you've only a year to learn a course and are good at Maths and Applied Maths. Combined, they are like 2.5 subjects worth of learning instead of 3. You also got a H1 in Chemistry and Biology - you're good at the sciences.

Work on your Maths - if you got a H2 in Applied Maths, you should definitely be able to equal or better that result in Maths.

emmerkrk

as a repeat who got into medicine this year do not repeat, the extra points you'll get will be negligible to the amount of work put in.

I would suggest getting a part time job and focus on doing as much as you can on Improving your grade in the hpat using stuff like me****try.

I got 142 the first year and 210 this year so don't give up!

Tommac36922

emmerkrk wrote: »

as a repeat who got into medicine this year do not repeat, the extra points you'll get will be negligible to the amount of work put in.

I would suggest getting a part time job and focus on doing as much as you can on Improving your grade in the hpat using stuff like me****try.

I got 142 the first year and 210 this year so don't give up!

Thanks very much for the reply. I was strongly considering just repeating the HPAT and doing as you said get a part time job.

However, in my own case I didn't properly start studying for the Leaving until after the HPAT and I only started the HPAT study in January, so I know there is more in me in both.

Personally I know myself that there will be LOADS of pressure on me next February if I just repeat the HPAT and correct me if I'm wrong but won't I have to go back and repeat the Leaving again in 2019/2020 if I don't get Medicine in 2019? Honestly I'd have big regrets with myself if this happened and I didn't go with my gut feeling of repeating this year.

Emmerk did you study the HPAT much the first time around?

Thanks in advance for any more replies from anyone. Tom

emmerkrk

Tommac36922 wrote: »

Thanks very much for the reply. I was strongly considering just repeating the HPAT and doing as you said get a part time job.

However, in my own case I didn't properly start studying for the Leaving until after the HPAT and I only started the HPAT study in January, so I know there is more in me in both.

Personally I know myself that there will be LOADS of pressure on me next February if I just repeat the HPAT and correct me if I'm wrong but won't I have to go back and repeat the Leaving again in 2019/2020 if I don't get Medicine in 2019? Honestly I'd have big regrets with myself if this happened and I didn't go with my gut feeling of repeating this year.

Emmerk did you study the HPAT much the first time around?

Thanks in advance for any more replies from anyone. Tom

No you would not have to repeat your leaving cert as it is always valid, the hpat is the one thats only valid for one year, you can only go up 9 points in the leaving, max!
whether in the hpat you can potentially go up more.
I would start prepping for hpat now as thats what I did but everyones different, good luck in whichever path you choose!

Skibbboi

Just wondering would you have any particular tips which you think helped to improve your score by so much especially for section one and two. I myself am thinking of repeating the hpat but I’m just not sure how I can improve in these two particular sections

emmerkrk wrote: »

as a repeat who got into medicine this year do not repeat, the extra points you'll get will be negligible to the amount of work put in.

I would suggest getting a part time job and focus on doing as much as you can on Improving your grade in the hpat using stuff like me****try.

I got 142 the first year and 210 this year so don't give up!

redia2411

Just going to give my tuppence ha'penny worth.

I repeating the leaving for medicine a few years back.

I was super sick both 5th and sixth year so I really only had one proper year if study in the repeat year.

Same situation as you had chem bio maths and applied in first leaving cert, and took up physics and ag in the repeat year ended up getting an a1 in both subjects, Now in 4th med.

Personally I found physics to be easier because I had done mechanics in applied so that was one whole question done, the only hard part is the amount of experiments however after doing many exam papers it was very easy.

The project in ag took up a lot of time for me but I didn't really mind as I enjoyed doing it, and learning about farm animals

Basically I think they are both really great subject and both similar in difficulty,
I would look at the exam papers and see which ones you can answer the most questions in at this point in time and stick to that subject.

Open to any questions you have in relation to either subject, best of luck

The Hound Gone Wild

You need to play this smart. Have a look at the requirements for every medicine course in the country, some of them need all requirements in 1 sitting, most don't.

IMO I would only keep one of Irish, French, English & Biology. All require a massive amount of study but you seem fairly good at them. I'd keep maths, applied maths, take up physics. Certain things pop up on all 3 courses so studying one thing can cover 3 subjects. Repeat chemistry as it's the same aul thing every year then Id look at home ec. You have all the course requirements for medicine. This time it's about setting yourself for 600

Tommac36922

So... after all that I've decided to repeat the HPAT only predominately due to the fact that I feel like if I repeat the Leaving and the HPAT whilst I believe my Leaving should and hopefully would have come up to 601 (and maybe 625) I believe that this extra 4 points (9 points) will be useless if I don't have the time to give HPAT enough time and effort to get a high score in as the fee paying school I intended to go to is basically 8am to 6 pm excluding the 3 hour study also offered there. All in all I suppose I'm just backing myself to improve my HPAT and I was possibly just unsure of myself when I decided to repeat something I have more control in the outcome I suppose (Also possibly due to laziness and the fact that I found HPAT study 10 times more difficult and draining than LC study).

However, having that said at least the advice regarding this dilemma is still there should anybody else be debating on repeat subjects to take up in a year with a similar subject background as myself. Having that said thanks to anybody who has previously offered advice on this dilemma to me and whomever else encounters this subject choice confusion.