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

Wise Old Elf · 08-08-2013 04:56PM

B1 in Higher level, way back in 1997. Couldn't do any of it now though.

Mudmask · 08-08-2013 05:04PM

A1 in ordinary.
I was always good at maths but was pressured into doing ordinary after I failed a higher maths paper (the only maths exam I ever failed). I'm always raging I listened to that teacher!.

Frank Lee Midere · 08-08-2013 05:09PM

tomatosauce34 wrote: »

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

But that proves that Ireland has tougher marking not the opposite.

pickarooney wrote: »

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

He doesn't really get his own argument.

He is right though about Irish mathematical papers getting easier, anybody want to post a LC maths paper from before it dumbed down ( early 90's I think).

Frank Lee Midere · 08-08-2013 05:13PM

Here's 2008. Seems hard enough. So maybe the dumbing rumors are just that.

http://examinations.ie/archive/exampapers/2008/LC003ALP100EV.pdf

seven_eleven · 08-08-2013 05:17PM

Frank Lee Midere wrote: »

Here's 2008. Seems hard enough. So maybe the dumbing rumors are just that.

http://examinations.ie/archive/exampapers/2008/LC003ALP100EV.pdf

Keep in mind that the whole cirriculum has changed to "project maths" now. So its much different from in 2008, and infact I only think it will be fully implemented in the 2014 paper. The 2013 paper was 3/4 project maths, 1/4 old paper.

From what I hear, most students are having a really hard time with the project maths. More so than the previous papers.

That coupled with how few maths teachers there are in this country doesnt help. Most math teachers are not actually qualified to teach maths. They're just geography or religion teachers etc but due to shortages they're allowed to teach if they got a certain grade in their leaving cert.

MurdyWurdy · 08-08-2013 05:21PM

B1 at higher level but I also had to study it in college. I was terrible at maths in primary school but pretty good in secondary school. No idea why that is. I have had jobs where I've needed good maths skill as well so it's stood me in good stead

Ave Sodalis · 08-08-2013 05:22PM

TheBody wrote: »

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.

Definitely. We had one of the best maths teachers in the school but the first day she walked in (or marched, as she was in the habit of doing) and told us that if it was the year before, she'd get us all As, no bother at all. However, since it was our year, she'll be lucky if she got many Bs.
She'd read a problem in the book and then have to sit down and figure it out herself before she could explain it. One other teacher understood it a little better so she gave classes on the basics. Luckily for the Honours, as this was the class she taught.

Crooked Jack · 08-08-2013 05:23PM

Im terrible at maths, it's too rigid. I remember my first day in English lit our teacher said to us that "there are no right or wrong answers here" and I thought "this is the class for me."

Pherekydes · 08-08-2013 05:59PM

Nothing*.

Another poll with no option for poor me...

*I skipped the LC.

Not G.R · 08-08-2013 06:11PM

A1 in higher
A1 in applied Maths
A1 in Physics

Study physics at Uni...

Blisterman · 08-08-2013 06:21PM

April O Neill wrote: »

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.

I agree completely. That's how it was taught in my school. If a question takes a certain form, then memorise these steps to solve it. No explanation of how or where they would be applied. It was only well after the leaving cert that I found out that "log" related to exponential growth, for example.

Mugatuu · 08-08-2013 06:24PM

I'm absolutely terrible at maths! Failed my ordinary level maths mock exam but managed to scrap a pass in the actual exams and get into college! Thank god! :rolleyes: Saying that our teacher was dreadful and nearly all of my class were getting grinds outside of school hours!

Celly Smunt · 08-08-2013 06:25PM

Ordinary D1 in the leaving cert.
Now in posession of an MEng.

Moral of the story,leaving cert is bullcrap.

April O Neill · 08-08-2013 06:39PM

NiallSparky wrote: »

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.

Well, interestingly, when I went to college, I completely changed my way of learning to the latter method. I now can't learn things off, I HAVE to understand them first.

April O Neill · 08-08-2013 06:40PM

Blisterman wrote: »

It was only well after the leaving cert that I found out that "log" related to exponential growth, for example.

Same here.

ECEng · 08-08-2013 06:48PM

B1 Ordinary in the leaving, have gotten A in math for past 2 years in college tho.

Galwayguy35 · 08-08-2013 06:52PM

Was terrible at maths, did fountation level and barely passed.

andyman · 08-08-2013 06:57PM

A2 at higher, was the king of Calculus, me.

Galwayguy35 · 08-08-2013 07:01PM

I used to think things were bad till he tried to teach us theorems, sure what would you want with stuff like that in real life.

JohnMearsheimer · 08-08-2013 07:17PM

I got a D1 at ordinary level. Other than that I did a fairly decent Leaving Cert. Maths always got me though, ever since primary school. I was more of a history and English kind of person.

languagenerd · 08-08-2013 07:48PM

A2 in Higher Level. That was four years ago and I don't know how much of it I could do now. I was always good at Algebra- and Geometry-based questions but found Calculus very difficult because I just didn't understand what it was. I needed someone to explain it to me in straight English but everyone just said "You do it like this because that's the formula".

I don't know what our problem with Maths is in this country, but I doubt Project Maths is gonna fix it! My brother did Project Maths LC last year and some of the questions were just ridiculous. It was really unfair on the class of 2012 : 12 years of learning maths the old way and suddenly having to learn to approach it a whole new way at the age of 16...

wazky · 08-08-2013 07:50PM

I did Ordinary level, and still only 25 out of my 20 classmates passed.

parc · 08-08-2013 08:02PM

NiallSparky wrote: »

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

So what you're saying is...

Say a million students do the exam.
The highest top 10% get As.
The next 10% get Bs
Next 10% Cs and so on (or something in that vein)

This happens regardless of the fact weather they guys who got As got >89% of the questions right?

So hypothetically speaking, if the highest scorer in the country only got 60% of questions right (a C2) which would then he would get an A anyway because he's rated against his peers?

snooples17 · 08-08-2013 08:06PM

parc wrote: »

So what you're saying is...

Say a millions students do the exam.
The highest top 10% get As.
The next 10% get Bs
Next 10% Cs and so on (or something in that vein)

This happens regardless of the fact weather they guys who got As got >90% of the questions right?

So hypothetically speaking, if the highest scorer in the country only got 60% of questions right (a C2) which would then he would get an A anyway because he's rated against his peers?

I really dont think this can be true seeing as students can and often do view their papers after the leaving cert. Maybe you would get away with it in English, history or subjects like that but no way could it happen in Maths.

And when the papers are corrected the person qrites on them so what they do when they are changing it to a different grade to go with this apprent bell curve theory....

languagenerd · 08-08-2013 08:13PM

parc wrote: »

So what you're saying is...

Say a million students do the exam.
The highest top 10% get As.
The next 10% get Bs
Next 10% Cs and so on (or something in that vein)

This happens regardless of the fact weather they guys who got As got >89% of the questions right?

So hypothetically speaking, if the highest scorer in the country only got 60% of questions right (a C2) which would then he would get an A anyway because he's rated against his peers?

No, it's not as extreme as that. As far as I know, the marking scheme is reviewed after the exams. If a large proportion of the candidates seemed to have trouble with a certain question, they might change the marking scheme so that it's worth less marks (so that one question doesn't bring everyone down). Or if the supposedly "harder" part of the question turned out too easy, they might re-allocate the marks and make all parts equal or something. I don't think it's all that common, but it does happen.

There is a marking scheme and those marking schemes are made public, so they can't do anything too extreme. After all, it's Maths, in most cases you're either right or wrong.

Language-based papers can be skewed to the bell-curve idea, but Maths generally can't be changed too much.

Cosmicfox · 08-08-2013 08:16PM

I was terrible and struggled the whole time. Got a C3 in the LC in ordinary level, which was better than I was expecting to get I'm that dire at it. I did mine last year when we had half the project maths course and half the old course, which was confusing for us and our teacher. Sometimes things would 'click' and I'd be able to understand but then I get different methods mixed up with different questions, for get what formula to use where and so on.

Really annoys me that I struggle so badly at one of the subjects that's considered the most useful.

Cody Pomeray · 08-08-2013 08:22PM

The highest individual result (32 votes at present, 13%) is for Higher A1; more than twice the national average: complete BS, or self selection bias?

GLaDOS · 08-08-2013 08:26PM

Got a B2 in higher level. Had general maths in 1st year of my degree and calculus in 2nd year and breezed through both of them (Was actually great for bringing up my average). Also did well in physics in LC and 1st year of my degree.

Only have to do fairly basic concentration based calculations and the occasional bit of algebra these days so I wouldn't be as good now through lack of practice. I'd say I'm above average though.

ninebeanrows · 08-08-2013 08:28PM

So the poll illustrates what we already know, Boards.ie certainly does not represent an average cohort of society. Nerds!

UCDVet · 08-08-2013 08:52PM

How do they compare scores between the various countries that don't take the same exams?

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

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