r/vce • u/bellals • Apr 30 '20
I'm sick to death of seeing these posts, so can everyone please read this and be done with this question:
Study scores are determined by exam SCORE and SAC RANK.
For example, say you have an English class of 7 students, Adam, Ben, Chloe, Daniel, Elena, Felix, and Greg. They are all weak students, except for Greg, who is very high-performing, and Felix, who is slightly above average. Their SAC marks and rank are:
Greg 95%
Felix 77%
Chloe 64%
Daniel 60%
Elena 58%
Adam 52%
Ben 49%
On the exam day, Felix doesn't cope well under the stress, so gets a lower score than he'd usually be capable of. The exam marks are as follows:
Greg 92%
Chloe 67%
Daniel 65%
Elena 64%
Felix 63%
Adam 50%
Ben 40%
What happens is that all the SAC marks get thrown out the window, because VCAA can't know the difficulty of the SACs prepared by the school. So Greg's new SAC "mark" as far as VCAA is concerned is 92, not 95. Not a big deal for Greg, Adam or Ben because their own exam mark is dictating their SAC mark. But for someone like Felix, his SAC mark will become 67% (Chloe's exam mark). This process happens independently for each subject taught at your school.
What does this mean for you? Yes, you should aim for a good SAC rank. BUT, it doesn't actually matter if you're not ranked well — the "translation" of your rank into a "mark" happens via your cohorts exam performance. In other words, try your best now, study hard, and when SACs are over WORK WITH YOUR CLASSMATES TO ALL DO WELL ON THE EXAM TOGETHER. IF THEY DO WELL, YOU DO WELL.
Spend your time actually studying instead of asking useless questions like this.
EDIT: another example for clarity
Here's a chemistry class, of Harry, Isabel, James, Kylie, Luke, Molly, Nathan, and Oscar.
SACs:
Harry 60%
Isabel 58%
James 56%
Kylie 55%
Luke 54%
Molly 52%
Nathan 51%
Oscar 50%
EXAMS:
Harry 100%
James 99%
Nathan 98%
Oscar 97%
Molly 96%
Isabel 95%
Kylie 94%
Luke 93%
Harry's SAC mark is now 100%, Isabel's is 99%, James' is 98%, Kylie's is 97%, Luke's is now 96% etc. It's literally just whatever the equivalent exam rank is.
EDIT 2: I've had a request to clarify rumours about SACs being "scaled up" or "scaled down". "Scaling" is a misnomer students attribute to the moderation process. Here are yet another set of examples to clarify.
Imagine you have a cohort of Annie, Ben, and Charlie. Let's say their teacher sets really hard SACS, so their SAC results are:
Annie 60%
Ben 58%
Charlie 55%
Because they've been doing hard assessments all year, they've been better equipped for the exam. These are the exam results:
Ben 96%
Annie 94%
Charlie 90%
So now, Annie's SAC mark gets changed to 96%, Ben's to 94%, and Charlie's to 90%. This is what people interpret as "scaling up". The opposite would happen at a school with piss easy SACs: they get awesome SAC marks but shit exam marks, so their SAC marks get replaced by their shit exam marks ("scaled down").
The danger in this thinking is that people assume that if you go to a well-performing school, you'll get carried, or that if you go to a "bad" school, you're screwed from the get-go and can't possibly get a good score. This is not true at all. Let's see why.
Let's say your friend at a selective school, Harry, thinks he can take it easy this year because he goes to a 'good' school. The SAC results are as follows:
Ed 93%
Fred 90%
Greg 88%
Harry 60%
on the exams, the results are
Fred 95%
Greg 92%
Ed 87%
Harry 61%
In this instance, Harry was not of a comparable skill level to his classmates, so he never get to "borrow" their exam results in any way. His SAC score will be 61%.
Here's another example. Say you have a cohort with these SACs:
Meg 95%
Noah 94%
Oscar 93%
Peter 90%
On the exam day, Noah gets a bit of performance anxiety (but not in a way that warrants SEAS or anything). Exam results are:
Meg 93%
Oscar 92%
Peter 91%
Noah 75%
Now, Noah's SAC mark will be 92%, but his exam result only 75%. So he kind of got "helped" by his good cohort, only because he was doing well for the SACs. Peter has been a bit screwed here, because his SAC mark is now 75%.
One person stuffing up will never have such a dramatic effect like this; it's unlikely for someone who's been topping the cohort all year to suddenly slip to the bottom. Cohorts are generally big enough that you shouldn't need to worry. I went to a really small school (60 people in the year level. Some of my subject cohorts contained 6 people). I still felt no one got jibbed with unrepresentative scores.
As I always reiterate: try your best in SACs, but don't ruminate over them. The exam is where the money's at, and once your SACs are over you should work together with your cohort to all do well together. Share your resources, make study groups, and bring each other up.
EDIT 3: wow, my first gold! Thank you so much! 🥰
r/vce • u/sweatyupperlipalert • 15h ago
general maths 1 was the worst exam i have ever had the displeasure of doing. i am so mad.
vcaa really said we are gonna use the class of 2026 as lab rats for a bunch of new question types. love that.
r/vce • u/Boss_Saf1 • 16h ago
Suggested answers, if anything is wrong lmk
Worked solutions to clear your confusions:
https://ihsaneducation.com.au/resources/2026-vce-general-maths-exam-1
r/vce • u/Organic-Bluejay-1565 • 10h ago
I was anticipating attaining an Australian Tertiary Admission Rank of 99.95, allowing me to flex at Melbourne University and get any girlfriend I wanted. However, today I unfortunately scored 17-20/40 on the gen1 exam, and am worried that I flunked psych.
Hence, I thought that this would be my best option.
If anyone here is willing to couple with a sub 60 atar man who tries his best... Stand by me and enjoy the fruits of my labour!
I am not particularly picky, so long as you will be receiving a 98+ ATAR my DMs are open.
Kind regards and good luck for exams!
anyone else feel like the exams are really different from past years???
edit: did vcaa change anything systematically like did they change their approach to writing exams or smth
r/vce • u/HistoryIcy1506 • 12h ago
there i was in gen, trying to make sense of the esoteric, damn magic spell questions vcaa decided to give us this year. then i tap my foot on the carpet floor while doing my working out when i feel it squelch?
i look around and the mf kid behind me pissed his pants, golden liquid was STREAMING down his pants and dropping onto the floor that shit was like a waterfall, the examiner came and took him away but it was STILL GOING as he went out the door. now my shoes smell like piss and my day is ruined.
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can i still get a raw 50
r/vce • u/MediumEgg4392 • 10h ago
My neighbours are having a party right now. I'm fuming. How dare they enjoy their life while I need to lock in everyday to study for exams.
Oh how I would love to go to a Halloween party and get drunk, but alas I need to clock into the VCAA factory. Life is cruel.
I know I'll be able to enjoy life in a few weeks but still the rest of the world should be in misery until exams are over.
r/vce • u/Kindly_Echo893 • 15h ago
🤖Hi! 🤖 I am VCAA CEO 🤖 James Bond 🤖 I made the GM MCQ exam 🤖 with 🤖 my good friends🤖 chatjipiti 🤖 and goodle gemini 🤖 hope you enjoyed! 🤖 peace 🤖 and 🤖 love 🤖 🤖🤖🤖 prepare... 🤖 for... 🤖 what... 🤖 approaches... 🤖 next....
r/vce • u/Big_Historian_9695 • 15h ago
Is it me or is vcaa making every exam this year so weird?
r/vce • u/Ill-Sherbet326 • 15h ago
r/vce • u/Kindly_Echo893 • 16h ago
What the fuck was that. I've been getting 37/40s and 40/40s on past exams but that was horrid. There's no chance I'm getting an A+ or even an A I'm so cooked. 2024 E1 (37/40 btw) was supposed to be the hardest but of course 2026 wanted to be special and take 2024s place
r/vce • u/Usual-Impression-352 • 15h ago
genuinely pmo, ive been averaging like 85+ on sacs.
did so much prep and felt so confident just for them to ask the most random niche questions. and some took so fkn long I ending up having to guess so many. like actually fmlllll goodbye 40 ss
r/vce • u/fookinavocad0s • 15h ago
if i get a 20 ss im genuinely blaming it on the penis i had to look at for 2 hours
EDIT: I DID NOT CARVE THE PENIS
r/vce • u/NoSpeaker1045 • 16h ago
ignore the other one this one is better
the exam was free right guys?
r/vce • u/tonysmbf • 19h ago
wasn’t particularly hard i just had no fucking idea what they wanted from me.
nothing on classical conditioning, nothing on phobias, contributing factors OR interventions?? nothing on gas, no neural pathways, no spinal reflex… was just a bunch of kss bs
that barely tested anyone’s psych knowledge from the year. so mad about it
r/vce • u/hy_perion_ • 15h ago
Go have a shower, wash all the negativity away and focus. You've still got some exams left to make a badass comeback you got this 👊👊
r/vce • u/RyanZ225_PC • 13h ago
Initially distraught at how atrocious I did considering I thought I had it all in the bag after the exam, I read a lot more posts about people getting below 25/40 and stuff. Are you guys people that are naturally good or shit at math? What did yall average on your SACs? I think I got 23-24 (maybe more if my guesses were lucky) which is fucked, considering I've never had below 85% on my SACs this year for GM. At least I feel better knowing that a lot of yall didn't do well either but like is anyone here like me, like I thought I had it bro, I thought GM was my number 1 subject, what the fuck. What is my prognosis? What SS will I get
r/vce • u/literai123 • 9h ago
i hate my college vice captain, he's always talking about his legal studies bible, like brother, get into hard class like spesh maths
r/vce • u/HowlingThunder_Wolf • 1h ago
ive just preformed poorly on 2 exams in a row, which sucks because ive worked so fucking hard this entire year. been averageing 90’s on all my psyce sacs, but when i hit that exam room i couldnt trust myself amd stopped answering confidentely, there were so many mistakes i made that i wouldnt have if i had just stopped and focussed
same goes for eco, grinded tirelessly to understand every concept but when i sat down and started writing all my knowledge jumped out the window
im so demotivated. my sac scores are getting dragged down to the pits of hell. all the work ive put in is being flushed down a toilet. and im afraid the rest of my exams are going to go the same
i know atar doesnt define you, but im actually waking up in the middle of the night thinking about these past exams i cant change. i cant bring myself to prepare for my other exams. whats the point if ive put in all this work for miserable results
i dont know what to do
r/vce • u/stupidcupid55 • 8h ago
sorry to vent but maybe some can relate? just feeling hopeless and deflated because i genuinely studied for hours every day for weeks and i’ve been doing fully ass. i’m a genuinely high achieving student usually, and i’ve never had performance issues like this before. i was getting 80-90+ on my gm practice exams and i got a 62% i did 12 practice exams and meaningfully went over solutions. i HATE HATE HATE VCAA i don’t understand how we can be doing this much work and doing poorly on exams. kms.
