Each paper is two and a half hours and carries 300 marks. That is 150 minutes for 300 marks, or two marks a minute, which converts every question on the paper into a time budget without any arithmetic worth the name. A 10-mark part is about 5 minutes. A 50-mark question is about 25. Most students have no idea they are behind until it is far too late to do anything about it.
The marking scheme divides almost every part into a scale: low partial credit for a relevant start, high partial credit for getting most of the way with an error that does not undermine the method, and full credit for the complete response. The jump from nothing to low partial credit is the cheapest transaction on the paper, and it costs about 90 seconds of relevant writing. A student who leaves parts blank is declining marks that require no insight at all.
Two rules in the front matter of those schemes are worth more than most revision. Errors carried forward: a wrong answer in part (a), used correctly in part (b), generally leaves part (b) marked on its own merits, so abandoning the rest of a question after one slip gives away marks that were still there. And method over answer: schemes credit a correct method carrying an arithmetic slip far more generously than a correct answer with no visible working. Showing your work is not pedantry, it is where the marks are allocated.
This is what we teach from. Lessons work off the State Examinations Commission schemes rather than a generic curriculum, because understanding a topic and writing an answer that collects every mark going are two different skills, and only the second one is examined.
Broadly, Paper 1 is the algebraic half: algebra, complex numbers, sequences and series, functions, calculus and financial maths. Paper 2 is the geometric and applied half: coordinate geometry, trigonometry, the theorems, probability and statistics, area and volume. Students are rarely equally strong in both, and the two need different preparation.
Both papers split into Section A, concepts and skills, and Section B, contexts and applications. Section B is where the marks are most often lost, and usually not because the mathematics is harder. A long, wordy Section B question is very often three ordinary Section A skills wearing a costume. Reading it once, calmly, and identifying which topic it is really testing is worth more than the first five minutes of flailing at it.
Higher and Ordinary Level run as separate classes here, at separate times.
At Leaving Cert the two levels have separate classes, separate tutors and separate times. Each has its own page, because the question a family arrives with is different at each level. At Higher it is usually how to stop losing marks they already understand; at Ordinary it is very often whether moving down is a failure. It is not.
Higher Level: two lessons a week, aimed at the marking scheme and at staying in the room for the bonus points.
Ordinary Level: two lessons a week as well, at its own time and with its own teacher, taught on the assumption that everyone in it can do the course.
Higher Level maths carries 25 additional CAO points at H6 or above. A H6 is a pass. The points are not a reward for a top grade. They are a reward for staying in the room, and they change what a realistic Higher Level student should be optimising for.
The decision most students face in fifth year is not "can I get a H1" but "am I better off at H6 with the bonus than at O1 without it". For a large number of students the answer is yes, and they drop anyway, usually in the months when the course is hardest and least rewarding. Staying is often a support problem rather than an ability problem, which is the specific thing two lessons a week plus a place to ask questions is for.
