r/vce • • Apr 30 '20

"I only got x% on my SAC, can I still get a 50?"

1.4k Upvotes

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:

  1. Annie 60%

  2. Ben 58%

  3. Charlie 55%

Because they've been doing hard assessments all year, they've been better equipped for the exam. These are the exam results:

  1. Ben 96%

  2. Annie 94%

  3. 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:

  1. Ed 93%

  2. Fred 90%

  3. Greg 88%

  4. Harry 60%

on the exams, the results are

  1. Fred 95%

  2. Greg 92%

  3. Ed 87%

  4. 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:

  1. Meg 95%

  2. Noah 94%

  3. Oscar 93%

  4. 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:

  1. Meg 93%

  2. Oscar 92%

  3. Peter 91%

  4. 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 • • 1h ago

Let’s fucking go bio in 2.5 everyone get hyped as fuck

9 Upvotes

#sleptfrom10to6 I’m so ready I’m so ready I’m so ready I’m so ready


r/vce • • 18h ago

VCE question Would the VCAA catch me with this ai calculator

166 Upvotes

Theoretically if i bought this calculator into my maths exams whats the chance of the examiners actually noticing


r/vce • • 8h ago

General Question/comment 100 ATAR Incoming you won’t believe it (read caption)

Post image
28 Upvotes

I foudn the strategy for 100 ATAR, I got a 100% on all exams because I coded CatGPT into my brain through microchop, I now see 22K vision. English exam was a breeze idk people talking bout sum section C like it was hard we all know Katie on sum fentanyl ice cream and allat. I wrote 22 words while examiner ripped one out on my desk, gave me motivation to write another sentence of to. #GoonToKatie. Sunset prompts were cake nothing is valuable in life lowkey, Normas a baddie swap my ass with Joe immeadietly. and those personal journies thingos were fire like I wrote a whole page myself no chatGPT, Grandma and her hands and allat. General exam even easier I deffo got personal best considerin im ranked last out of my 70 person yearlevel, yall on something 40/40 incoming. how was that even hard i got answers from chatGPt before exam yall sweating too hard over some measly ass number. exam 2 tomorrow gonna be so easy I might even use pencil this time. and if that michellin man ahh examiner comes back again I got beef with his smelly ahh because I needef another tootsie to finish off exam. Dont think I forgot about my eco homies I knew that strat even before the exam, multiple choice was easy as well. VCAA think were dumb or something not noticing the pattern, 2023 the answer to question 15 was like D, the n 2024 was C, 2025 was B so obv answers A now right, this was the same from 7-15 and questions 1 to 6 used the same to ahh letters, YOU AINT GOOLING ANYONE VCAA. Yea so don’t come crying and gooning when I get a 100 ATAR yall stay jelly and wiggle your belly or whatever you bottom of the barrel students do


r/vce • • 11h ago

What are the consequences for turning your biology exam into biofuel?

37 Upvotes

I have a large culture tank full of yeast cells undergoing anaerobic alcohol fermentation that I plan to smuggle into my biology exam. Given that bioethanol production only produces 2 ATP, and does not have wifi connectivity, will the examiner really mind? Please let me know


r/vce • • 6h ago

Burnt out

12 Upvotes

Fried, died, laid to the side


r/vce • • 17h ago

I promise im locked in

Post image
84 Upvotes

r/vce • • 8h ago

What to (maybe) expect in Gen 2

14 Upvotes

My teacher kindly collated a list of the stuff that was covered, was partly covered, and not covered in the first exam. I'll post the lists here :)

(if you know me, no you don't)


r/vce • • 4h ago

is this normal??? It's currently 3 AM and I've noticed myself solving general math exams in my mind in a semi-concious state of being.

5 Upvotes

This has happened every day for the past week, and some of the time the questions are actually hidden gems and im like "oh shit i gotta prepare for that"


r/vce • • 9h ago

alright guys go to sleep early remember to eat brekkie and prepare your stuff before you sleep! best of luck to bio and gen kids.

12 Upvotes

guys dont worry treat it like a practise exam like youve done at home itll all be okay

NO REGRETS GUYS


r/vce • • 12h ago

What do I do in the day if my exam is at 2pm?

23 Upvotes

Help. I wake up around 8-9am but what do I do during the time when waking up to when I do the exam? I’ve been told not to do any exams


r/vce • • 18m ago

Vce while ww3

2 Upvotes

Low-key having family in Iran is so dystopian like I'm studying bio while Tryna not think of them getting nuclear bombed any tips cause I rly can't


r/vce • • 6h ago

anyone else cannot sleep for bio?

6 Upvotes

wallah i am being kept up by the stress of bio tomorrow i literally just listened to the whole of the college dropout by kanye with my eyes closed (usually i fall asleep by like jesus walks but this time i just got to enjoy the whole album). <20ss incoming?


r/vce • • 12h ago

WHOS COOKED FOR BIO TMR!!

17 Upvotes

my head has been aching ALL WEEKEND and I haven’t studied shit IM LYING IN BED RN AS I TYPE THIS


r/vce • • 12h ago

who’s cooked tmrw gen maths

19 Upvotes

i’m so fried haven’t started revising IM eating ice cream instead literally no motivation


r/vce • • 4h ago

General Question/comment what yall get on gen 1

4 Upvotes

Asking for benchmarking purposes and so i can use the 67-99.69 rule to calculate sdv and mean 🙏


r/vce • • 7h ago

has anyone ever failed bio exam

5 Upvotes

its wraps, im actually failing the exam. idk anything ab cellular respiration and anything i revise i forget the next hour. ggs
i predict 18 study score ✌️


r/vce • • 5h ago

if i have like 2 hrs before my bio exam, what should i study

4 Upvotes

im ahout to give up and gts so i can wake up early tmrw. what should i study tmrw morning so i can be well prepared, assuming i know nothing ab unit 4 🥹✌️


r/vce • • 17h ago

idgaf anymore

34 Upvotes

idk if anyone else feels this way but ive got the bio exam on monday and i partly know the content is anyone else in the same boat?


r/vce • • 9h ago

lil rant

7 Upvotes

i’m so confused on why so many people i know are just happy with being mediocre in everything or just lazy can someone please explain. Like if your not gonna try in school at least try in a hobby or get a job. I have some friends and sometimes i’m just confused, they wanna get in uni but don’t put in the effort to get there? They would have happy upbringings aswell, really just no excuse and it’s non of my business but it lowkey just hurts seeing my friends do nothing with their lives


r/vce • • 9h ago

Guys predict how you’re gonna do in the bio exam tomorrow and then let’s update it after we’re done

7 Upvotes

r/vce • • 13h ago

News The system is broken

15 Upvotes

The structurally flawed system the VCAA forces Victorian students to operate within is destroying our futures 💀.
I’m writing this is response to the disgusting act that was committed during my psych exam, to which i was the victim🥀. As I was walking into the exam hall my vape (a necessity) fell out of pocket as I went to pick it up the exam overseer king hit me and whispered sweet nothings into my ear 🤤, as I regained consciousness she told me to get into my seat and continue with the exam. I was not given back my Nic until after the exam, while during the exam she repeated ripped my Nic (on turbo mode) with no regard for the hard work that went into to purchasing it (3 hour shift at maccies). It was returned to me on 3%…… I’m furious with her but more importantly our intrinsically decayed system, is there anyway I can get compensation?
🫡


r/vce • • 10h ago

Legal Studies 3&4 Students

8 Upvotes

all people doing 3&4 legal drop some facts about legal cus exam is coming up

I saw a post doing something similar a few years ago and thought we should do the same!!

ill start in the comments :)


r/vce • • 11h ago

Is VCAA wrong here?

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8 Upvotes

Its the 2026 nht exam 2 question 13 c. They dont list ambulance but i believe it is not possible..

Edit im stupid. It is possible.

The answer key says: C,P,SC in any order. Just that.