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

tigger123 · 08-08-2013 03:35PM

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 · 08-08-2013 03:36PM

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 · 08-08-2013 03:40PM

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 · 08-08-2013 03:44PM

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 · 08-08-2013 03:44PM

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 · 08-08-2013 03:47PM

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 · 08-08-2013 03:50PM

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 · 08-08-2013 03:53PM

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 · 08-08-2013 03:55PM

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 · 08-08-2013 04:04PM

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 · 08-08-2013 04:05PM

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 · 08-08-2013 04:06PM

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 · 08-08-2013 04:09PM

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 · 08-08-2013 04:09PM

Me fail Maths? Thats unprobable...

JRant · 08-08-2013 04:13PM

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 · 08-08-2013 04:14PM

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 · 08-08-2013 04:15PM

Higher B3 in 2001.

Happy with that, I was.

April O Neill · 08-08-2013 04:16PM

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 · 08-08-2013 04:18PM

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 · 08-08-2013 04:20PM

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.

Aglomerado · 08-08-2013 04:20PM

April O Neill wrote: »

Urgh. I hate your primary school.

I hate it too. The principal (5th and 6th class teacher) was a Catho-Fascist Wagon. The others were lovely, but she ruined the last two years! One of the maths teachers in the secondary school used to bang his head off the wall when he found out he had pupils from her school in his class!

Amirani · 08-08-2013 04:23PM

April O Neill wrote: »

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

Absolutely. Teachers tend to simplify things far too much a second level (whether through incompetence or good intentions). The result is that people who are good at rote-learning prosper, while people who rely on understanding to learn actually struggle more than they should.

tomatosauce34 · 08-08-2013 04:24PM

blackwhite wrote: »

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.

Not to mention if too many people are doing too well or too badly in a particular question. Scaling marks within papers for any reason, instead of just providing a raw score, is a bit dubious to be honest. It's marked out of 600 marks to pit the country against each other. That is the nature of relative grading.

Compare the University of Cambridge OCR additional maths exam paper 2008 in the UK for instance, which has content broadly similar to LC Ordinary maths. The marking scheme states that an individual who gains 58 out of 100 marks for that paper gets a grade B. That is an absolute score. How does that compare to the Leaving Cert scoring system? Massive difference. That student would be lucky to get a C or even a D in Ordinary Level Maths if curved grading is used.

Paper 2008:
http://www.ocr.org.uk/Images/57802-question-paper-unit-6993-01-instructions-for-candidates.pdf

Mark scheme 2008:
http://www.ocr.org.uk/Images/57525-mark-scheme-june.pdf

Sierra 117 · 08-08-2013 04:31PM

I got a D3 in Ordinary. I'm actually not bad at maths but we didn't have a regular maths teacher for a while and when we did, he wasn't able to control the class and teach properly.

Ave Sodalis · 08-08-2013 04:40PM

I got a B1 in Ordinary Maths. We were one of the test schools for Project Maths and the first year to do both papers. It wasn't great when the teachers didn't really know what it was they were teaching.

TheBody · 08-08-2013 04:42PM

sup_dude wrote: »

I got a B1 in Ordinary Maths. We were one of the test schools for Project Maths and the first year to do both papers. It wasn't great when the teachers didn't really know what it was they were teaching.

I think this is a huge problem regarding the new project maths syllabus. The training the teachers received was not at all adequate, especially for the purposes of teaching higher level.

Cool Mo D · 08-08-2013 04:45PM

tomatosauce34 wrote: »

Compare the University of Cambridge OCR additional maths exam paper 2008 in the UK for instance, which has content broadly similar to LC Ordinary maths. The marking scheme states that an individual who gains 58 out of 100 marks for that paper gets a grade B. That is an absolute score. How does that compare to the Leaving Cert scoring system? Massive difference. That student would be lucky to get a C or even a D in Ordinary Level Maths if curved grading is used.

There is no "scaling" and you do get a raw score from the leaving cert.

And you clearly don't understand how curved grading works. Normal curved grading works by ranking the students from best to worst, and giving the top 5% A's the next 20% B's, etc. When you are examining 10,000+ students at once, there is no point in applying this approach, because the large number of students means that the scores will be pretty close to a bell curve anyway.

The leaving cert works the same way as the cambridge exam - there is a marking scheme, your paper is marked according to that scheme, and you get a grade.

Here is a copy of last year's leaving cert honours maths marking scheme: http://www.examinations.ie/archive/markingschemes/2012/LC003ALP000EV.pdf.

As you can see, it's unambiguous about what you need to answer to get a certain mark, without regard to fitting the results to a curve.

Copper_pipe · 08-08-2013 04:48PM

I'll find out my result next week!

seven_eleven · 08-08-2013 04:52PM

C2 in Foundation maths.

Was thrown into foundation in second year and never left because I struggled with it all my life from a very young age. Just kinda gave up eventually and stopped caring, as I had already passed a point of no return by the time I got to 6th year, I missed out on so much stuff. I genuinely tried a bit in 6th year to get back on the ordinary level course, but it was too hard and I couldnt cope.

Then I tried to repeat leaving cert maths this year externally. They changed the entire course since I was last in school to the new project maths, so now I am unfamiliar with the majority of the problems that we have to know, so that sets me back even further where I have to start from scratch, perhaps at 4th year or even before to gain an understanding of the new cirriculum.

The maths system in this country is extremely unfair. Unless you get above a certain grade in ordinary maths, then there is absolutely ZERO chance a college or university will give you an offer in the CAO, unless you go back as a mature student or FETAC student.

Its bloody ridiculous, even for courses that have little or no math application in them at all. You just get fúcked over.

Not everybody is good at maths. I find it so damn difficult its upsetting. And then you have the people who will lecture you about how important it is (I know its important), and will tell you that you're not trying hard enough or you should have a higher standard of education. Usually the people that work mathematically intense jobs or love the subject.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyscalculia

pickarooney · 08-08-2013 04:52PM

tomatosauce34 wrote: »

Nobody who scores even an A1 in Ordinary or Higher in the Leaving qualifies as "good at maths".

Well that's certainly a nice example of how not to use basic logic.

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

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