Is the Leaving Certificate more of a memory test than intelligence or aptitude?

Smacruairi · 09-09-2020 07:34AM

Wanderer78 wrote: »

The truth is, the majority of people truly don't, particularly when they enter the workforce, very little of the knowledge learned in our educational system is actually used during people's working careers, our educational system is also acedemically biased, it's ultimately geared towards further education. Don't get me wrong, we need people who have been acedemically prepared for the work force, but society in fact equally needs non acedemically trained people, such as trades people, who generally are treated atrociously in our educational system, by being largely ignored and even sometimes ridiculed.

Our educational system is long outdated, it rarely, if ever, prepares most for adulthood and the workforce, drop out rates at the very early stages of third level, is actually very high, it's very likely due to pupils not having the necessary life skills to deal with such a dramatic life change, this can deeply overwhelm many, leading to early drop out. Many, if not most, have very poor understanding of what their chosen courses are even truly about, only truly discovering this upon beginning it, potentially also leading to early drop out.

There's a possibility the idea of homework should be banned, as it's effectively telling kids, not only do you have to go to school (work) all day, you must also bring that work home with you, and if you don't, there's a good chance you ll be a failure in life.

Our educational system should reflect societies actual needs, not just simply prepare what I call 'worker drones'. complex social and psychological issues are on the rise, people are becoming more and more unhappy, disillusioned, disenfranchised and disconnected, our educational systems are playing a critical role in these issues, but it could play an even more critical role, in trying to rectify them, it just needs our will to change it.

Theres a whole other thread on the the purpose of Schools. Your point is well made, but we share different ideas of what the purpose of schooling is. I don't believe, as you say, that school is to prepare students for the work force. The disillusionment you point towards, I also agree with, but again, not the fault of Schools in my opinion, but a general ennui in Western society built on immediate gratification.

_Brian · 09-09-2020 07:41AM

Eleven Benevolent Elephants wrote: »

Much of the Leaving Certificate is based on rote learning, prose and poetry for Irish and learning off blocks of essays in the hope that one of those themes might come up, even for the oral exam you were already given several cards with text, one of which was guaranteed to come up in the oral when I did my LC in 2008.

Since I did my LC in 2008, I have checked some of the chemistry, physics and maths papers from subsequent years and in my opinion, they are massively dumbed down from when I did the exams in 2008. Project Maths is a disaster btw.

I went to college (where I did physics and chemistry and a lot of mathematics modules). I remember a girl in our first year who got over 500 points with a B3 or something like that in Physics which gained her entry to the course, the requirements at the time were 300 ish points and a C3 in HL in any science.

I remember her being all smug that she could cram for the exams weeks before and sail through them. Our exams were open book for many of the modules, our lecturers and tutors focused on our understanding of the material rather than rote memorisation. Unfortunately, this girl, even though she did swimmingly in her LC, had to repeat her first year and failed it again and eventually dropped out to change courses and did psychology instead. I still keep in touch with her, she's excelling in her career and now is a social worker.

The LC failed her and led her to believe that because she achieved such good results that she could automatically do any course. I barely met my minimum requirements and I was constantly put down by my teachers telling me I won't amount to anything. Now I work in a niche science field happy as a pig in sh1t.

The LC is not fit for purpose IMO.

From my own experience at school and those I know well completing it afterwards it accurately reflects the combination of intelligence and ability to apply one’s self to learning and completing tasks.

It’s a good system

StevenToast · 09-09-2020 07:43AM

The Leaving Cert is a good test of character...builds abit of resilience and toughness....whatever about the educational merits of it, it forces kids into abit of pressure for maybe the first (and only) time...

This years batch will forever be known as the ones that got away without doing the LC....the ones that sit it in November will have my respect

Wanderer78 · 09-09-2020 07:47AM

Smacruairi wrote: »

Theres a whole other thread on the the purpose of Schools. Your point is well made, but we share different ideas of what the purpose of schooling is. I don't believe, as you say, that school is to prepare students for the work force. The disillusionment you point towards, I also agree with, but again, not the fault of Schools in my opinion, but a general ennui in Western society built on immediate gratification.

sadly, this is what it is, and its doing it extremely badly, as ive outlined, we desperately need to change it, so it reflects societies actual needs, we need to prioritize the well being of those that are involved in our educational system, including staff. our educational and training systems, are a critical component of our social structures. we enter these systems, shortly after birth, and remain there for a large proportion of our lives, particularly during critical life moments for self development etc, get things wrong here, could potentially spell disaster for certain individuals, for the rest of their lives. sadly many, possibly most of these individuals end up in long term unemployment situations, and/or regularly in and out of our prison systems, and sadly, some eventually take their own lives. never underestimate how critical our educational and training systems are, for these reasons

Wanderer78 · 09-09-2020 07:52AM

StevenToast wrote: »

The Leaving Cert is a good test of character...builds abit of resilience and toughness....whatever about the educational merits of it, it forces kids into abit of pressure for maybe the first (and only) time...

This years batch will forever be known as the ones that got away without doing the LC....the ones that sit it in November will have my respect

the leaving cert is not fit for purpose, it creates unnecessary stresses and anxieties, 'failing' the leaving really isnt that important, as thankfully, we live in a part of the world that has alternative options, and access to third level is still possible, to a degree, even if failure occurs at second level.

you maybe putting the leaving on a pedestal, we ve no clue how or how not these individuals will be perceived in the future, but i suspect attempted shaming of them on the internets isnt exactly helpful nor productive

bb1234567 · 09-09-2020 07:55AM

You speak as if memory and intelligence are mutually exclusive . Memory is an incredibly essential characteristic of an intelligent person. You are not intelligent if you have a bad memory.

Wanderer78 · 09-09-2020 07:56AM

bb1234567 wrote: »

You speak as if memory and intelligence are mutually exclusive . Memory is an incredibly essential characteristic of an intelligent person. You are not intelligent if you have a bad memory.

so you are saying a person like myself, potential maybe unintelligent?

bb1234567 · 09-09-2020 08:02AM

Wanderer78 wrote: »

so you are saying a person like myself, potential maybe unintelligent?

I'm saying that in some situations a poor memory will for sure mean your colleagues would consider you unintelligent. I'm just thinking about my job as an architect you've to remember hundreds of commands in software to complete and edit 3D models. If I forgot these commands everyday and have to be retrained do you think anyone in my office would consider me intelligent? In addition to that the merit of my 'design' is now completely useless as I don't have the memory to use software to display my design skill. Do you think I'd have the aptitude to hold down my job? The answer is everyone would consider me an idiot and the lacking element of memory meant other areas of my skills suffered and made my job impossible. I'm sure almost all jobs would be the same way when you boil it down.

Memory is an essential characteristic you must have to work in most professions.

Damien360 · 09-09-2020 08:09AM

bb1234567 wrote: »

You speak as if memory and intelligence are mutually exclusive . Memory is an incredibly essential characteristic of an intelligent person. You are not intelligent if you have a bad memory.

Strange comment. I have terrible memory for names of people and things. You could put a poem in front of me for 2 hours and I still couldn’t recite it. But in my job, understanding a problem and resolving it is more important. Memory would be useless as many problems are not in the manuals and need to be worked out to conclusion. I know plenty of people that I visit daily with degrees (as I have in chemistry) and pHD’s but they honestly have a terrible ability to understand the data they see in front of them. They could probably recite the data but genuinely don’t understand it. I would argue they lack that critical part of intelligence.

Wanderer78 · 09-09-2020 08:10AM

bb1234567 wrote: »

I'm saying that in some situations a poor memory will for sure your colleagues would consider you unintelligent. I'm just thinking about my job as an architect you've to remember hundreds of commands in software to complete and edit 3D models. If I forgot these commands everyday and have to be retainer do you think anyone in my office would consider me intelligent? In addition to that the merit of my 'design' is now completely useless as I don't have the memory to use software to display my design skill. Do you think I'd have the intelligence to hold down my job? The answer is everyone would consider me an idiot and I wouldn't have the job

the idea of connecting intelligence and memory is deeply flawed, its a critical element of where our educational and training systems fail, and very badly, for some. im actually autistic and dyslexic, both of these disorders have complex memory issues, in all aspects, long term, short term and working memory. the stats of long term unemployment and amongst prison populations, for both disorders, is actually disturbingly high, for example, it is believed up to 80% of individuals on the spectrum end up in long term unemployment situations, and im aware of a research project within a Scottish prison, some years ago, showed, up to 60% of in mates had undiagnosed dyslexia. you ll find most, if not all of these individuals struggled within our educational and training systems, from a very early age, until the left these systems, if thats not enough proof.....

bb1234567 · 09-09-2020 08:20AM

Damien360 wrote: »

Strange comment. I have terrible memory for names of people and things. You could put a poem in front of me for 2 hours and I still couldn’t recite it. But in my job, understanding a problem and resolving it is more important. Memory would be useless as many problems are not in the manuals and need to be worked out to conclusion. I know plenty of people that I visit daily with degrees (as I have in chemistry) and pHD’s but they honestly have a terrible ability to understand the data they see in front of them. They could probably recite the data but genuinely don’t understand it. I would argue they lack that critical part of intelligence.

You seem to be confusing rote learning ability with memory. I'm sure there are many essential formulae and methodology you would have learned over the time in your profession that you know so well they are second nature to you and not something you consciously remember , but still need a grasp of in order to implement solution within these varied situational problems.

You can have a good memory and be lacking in other areas of intelligence, sure, never said otherwise.

Also you say you're bad with names but what if your poor memory extended to grammar and vocabulary? If you had such a bad memory you couldn't form full coherent sentences and communicate properly, would you consider yourself less intelligent then if your communication skills were that impacted my your memory and also how do you think your intelligence would be rated by others? Most people in this thread funnily enough are assuming a moderately adequate level of memory recall in all of these scenarios. They aren't appreciating how crucial memory is to almost all other areas of intelligence, a really poor memory limits basically all other elements intelligence .Critical thinking doesn't exist in a vaccuum. How many Alzheimer's patients who used to be data analysts would be good at your job?

If somebody had such bad memory that they forgot we drive on the left of the road would you consider them intelligent? If somebody had such a bad memory that they left the cooker on all night and burned the house down would you consider them intelligent? If somebody forgot their dog needed to be fed everyday and it starved would you consider them intelligent?

Wanderer78 · 09-09-2020 08:24AM

bb1234567 wrote: »

You seem to be confusing rote learning ability with memory. I'm sure there are many essential formulae and methodology you would have learned over the time in your profession and need a grasp of in order to implement solution within these varied situational problems.

You can have a good memory and be lacking in other areas of intelligence, sure, never said otherwise.

Also you say you're bad with names but what if your poor memory extended to grammar and vocabulary? If you had such a bad memory you couldn't form proper sentences and communicate properly, would you consider yourself less intelligent then if your communication skills were that impacted my your memory and also how do you think your intelligence would be rated by others? Most people in this thread funnily enough are assuming a moderately adequate level of memory recall in all of these scenarios.

i know a severely autistic man, his iq was measured as extremely high, much higher than my own, hes unable to realistically communicate his ideas to other humans, he had a major breakdown while moving through our educational system, he ll probably never complete his studies, and may never truly work in an environment that shows his true intelligence, this is our reality

Ficheall · 09-09-2020 08:26AM

I learned and understood (or at least thought about) stuff in my leaving cert, and remember more of it now than I do of what I "learned" in uni, where the stuff only stayed in my short term memory until I left the exam hall (or entered it, as the case may be).

Wanderer78 · 09-09-2020 08:28AM

Ficheall wrote: »

I learned and understood (or at least thought about) stuff in my leaving cert, and remember more of it now than I do of what I "learned" in uni, where the stuff only stayed in my short term memory until I left the exam hall (or entered it, as the case may be).

maybe your memory was a lot stronger when you were younger, and older generations were effectively emotionally abused in our system, forcing them to recite work

chrissb8 · 09-09-2020 08:30AM

It’s a memory test. Even down to the answers you have to curate to the questions in the heavier writing based subjects such as English, Geography, History etc.

I was taught how to answer the papers and make a series of makeshift answers that could be altered slightly, to fit a question I.e. one essay for 3 questions.

Everything about it for me was repetition and solidifying the knowledge. You could count Maths, Accounting and even business to an extent as the tests of problem solving. A real marker of intelligence.

But I think the LC is a great curriculum either way, compared to other nations the average person generally has better overall knowledge. I can still remember a lot of my biology, English and History from the LC and it has stood to me.

Wanderer78 · 09-09-2020 08:33AM

chrissb8 wrote: »

It’s a memory test. It’s the answers you have to curate to the questions in the heavier writing based subjects such as English, Geography, History etc.

I was taught how to answer the papers and make a series of makeshift answers that could be altered slightly, to fit a questions I.e. one essay for 3 questions.

Everything about it for me was repetition and solidifying the knowledge. You could count Maths, Accounting and even business to an extent as the tests of problem solving. A real marker of intelligence.

But I think the LC is a great curriculum, compared to other nations we are generally at a base level without 3rd level a nation with better overall knowledge. I can still remember a lot of my biology, English and History from the LC and it has stood to me.

society still needs the other, more creative and expressive subjects, they are equally important, as the more logical subjects

chrissb8 · 09-09-2020 08:34AM

Wanderer78 wrote: »

society still needs the other, more creative and expressive subjects, they are equally important, as the more logical subjects

Definitely, but I’m just talking mostly from my experience.

S.M.B. · 09-09-2020 08:42AM

Ficheall wrote: »

I learned and understood (or at least thought about) stuff in my leaving cert, and remember more of it now than I do of what I "learned" in uni, where the stuff only stayed in my short term memory until I left the exam hall (or entered it, as the case may be).

This, if the LC was one big memory test I certainly didn't realise it or have the intelligence to game the system back then (I would have been fairly young at 16 doing my LC).

Once in the University system I then became exceptionally good at doing exams as opposed to simply educating myself.

Ficheall · 09-09-2020 08:49AM

Yeah, the ponzi scheme aspect of education, as mentioned earlier in the thread, is far more evident in uni. Get them in, get the money, pass them by any means necessary, get more people in.

pwurple · 09-09-2020 08:50AM

chrissb8 wrote: »

I was taught how to answer the papers and make a series of makeshift answers that could be altered slightly, to fit a question I.e. one essay for 3 questions.

That in itself is a skill.

Taking the knowledge you already have and applying it to a new problem. It's what most people do every day in their jobs. Whether you are in business development, adapting an existing presentation to a new customer. In project planning, taking your experience of a previous job and applying it to the new one.

Even in creative jobs, like screenwriting, graphics, advertising. You base all of it on your previous experiences.

Wanderer78 · 09-09-2020 08:52AM

Ficheall wrote: »

Yeah, the ponzi scheme aspect of education, as mentioned earlier in the thread, is far more evident in uni. Get them in, get the money, pass them by any means necessary, get more people in.

its an unfortunate bi-product of everything in society nowadays, market and sell everything!

bb1234567 · 09-09-2020 09:04AM

pwurple wrote: »

That in itself is a skill.

Taking the knowledge you already have and applying it to a new problem. It's what most people do every day in their jobs. Whether you are in business development, adapting an existing presentation to a new customer. In project planning, taking your experience of a previous job and applying it to the new one.

Even in creative jobs, like screenwriting, graphics, advertising. You base all of it on your previous experiences.

And that is based on memory. Which some are arguing is not important to be intelligent

spurious · 09-09-2020 09:06AM

In case anyone wants to have a look at what was expected of Inter. and Group. candidates in the 70s.

Old Group and Inter papers

Group Cert. History in particular was quite a challenge, even then, in terms of the breadth of the course. This was for people leaving school at 14/15.

Wanderer78 · 09-09-2020 09:09AM

bb1234567 wrote: »

And that is based on memory. Which some are arguing is not important to be intelligent

im not saying its not important for intelligence, but its a poor way of deciphering and measuring intelligence, as theres different ways in expressing intelligence, those of us that have memory issues have found alternative ways in expressing our intelligence, our educational and training systems are very restrictive in accepting and encouraging these different types of intelligence

bb1234567 · 09-09-2020 09:10AM

Wanderer78 wrote: »

im not saying its not important for intelligence, but its a poor way of deciphering and measuring intelligence, as theres different ways in expressing intelligence, those of us that have memory issues have found alternative ways in expressing our intelligence, our educational and training systems are very restrictive in accepting and encouraging these different types of intelligence

For sure, sorry I was wrong in my post to say somebody can't be intelligent if they have a bad memory.

Wanderer78 · 09-09-2020 09:11AM

spurious wrote: »

In case anyone wants to have a look at what was expected of Inter. and Group. candidates in the 70s.
Group Cert. History in particular was quite a challenge, even then, in terms of the breadth of the course. This was for people leaving school at 14/15.

interesting, but im struggling to read and understand it, i ll try later, but my brain is poorly designed for such activities

Wanderer78 · 09-09-2020 09:13AM

bb1234567 wrote: »

For sure, sorry I was wrong in my post to say somebody can't be intelligent if they have a bad memory.

thats no problem at all, i think people shouldnt be judgmental towards others who struggle in our system, its ultimately more system failure than individual failure

Mr_Muffin · 09-09-2020 09:16AM

It's only as you get older that you realise how ridiculous the pressure put on students to perform in the LC is.

Wanderer78 · 09-09-2020 09:17AM

Mr_Muffin wrote: »

It's only as you get older that you realise how ridiculous the pressure put on students to perform in the LC is.

absolutely, theres no need for it, there are other opportunities for success for people, some of the most successful humans, were in fact, educational drop outs

Earthhorse · 09-09-2020 09:42AM

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

Seems to be dumbed down to sh1t

Compare last years leaving cert papers to the mid 90's and before

today's stuff is more like the junior cert we sat

People were saying that about the exams in the 90s compared to the exams in the 80s and 70s though. Everyone's convinced everything is degrading all the time and, heck, maybe it is. But I've yet to see these claims backed by any meaningful evidence.

Ficheall wrote: »

Yeah, the ponzi scheme aspect of education, as mentioned earlier in the thread, is far more evident in uni. Get them in, get the money, pass them by any means necessary, get more people in.

How is that a ponzi scheme?

Like others, I never learnt off an essay I could adapt to any situation. Seems like some people had teachers who knew how to game the system and the truth is, no matter how you design a system there will always be ways to game it.

I got an A1 in English by showing familiarity with the material; I barely quoted from the texts at all. My mind went blank in that regard on the day. I also answered two questions from the poetry section when our teacher had prepared us to answer two questions from the plays section. So, I don't know, I still think the system accurately rewards individual ability but it can also be gamed.

I didn't find university much different to be honest. If anything, it was worse. Lecture halls are not conducive to discussing the material; you just show up, listen, take notes, read the text. I didn't think my course (Commerce) asked me to demonstrate an understanding of the material any more than the Leaving did. I managed to graduate with a an Honours degree having not put too much work in and certainly not relatively as much as I did into my Leaving.

Is the Leaving Certificate more of a memory test than intelligence or aptitude?

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