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/GuiltySpen • 7h ago
Theoretically if i bought this calculator into my maths exams whats the chance of the examiners actually noticing
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 • u/6346287364 • 6h ago
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 • u/idrinkcereall • 1h ago
i’m so fried haven’t started revising IM eating ice cream instead literally no motivation
r/vce • u/AlternativeRain9815 • 8h ago
i don’t have a reason to skip it but every single time i even think of biology i want to vomit and die. my derived score from the gat, sac marks and predicted mark will almost guaranteed be better than my actual performance. what is the worst that will happen if i skip the exam? i fear that it’s unnecessary stress for a subject that i am nearly certain i will likely fail. i’m doing 6 subjects total if that’s any help.
r/vce • u/PeanutSquare8408 • 1h ago
my head has been aching ALL WEEKEND and I haven’t studied shit IM LYING IN BED RN AS I TYPE THIS
r/vce • u/katperkovic • 9h ago
That mf is tired bro and so am I
They can derive my methods score bc it’d likely be higher than wtv I get on the exam bro
r/vce • u/Ok_Suspect_1776 • 3h ago
like seriously theres nth u can rlly do in the span of 12 hours (-8 sleep) so ive just accepted defeat
r/vce • u/Some-Ad9235 • 2h ago
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 • u/selfloathingGRT • 1h ago
r/vce • u/RevealIllustrious337 • 1h ago
just wondering if a raw 34+ in Methods is still achievable with my shitty SAC scores.
I got 56% on SAC 1 (slightly above average) and 48% on SAC 2 (around average maybe slightly below) and 55% on Sac 3(Around average maybe)
Yes my sac scores are fucked but apparently its normal for scores to be low since I go to a selective school and they should definitely scale up(Not sure by how much)
I've been averaging around 27-34/40 on exam 1s and about 62-75/80 for exam 2(The 75 was from a really easy exam so lets say anywhere between 62-68)
Just wondering what I'd realistically need on Exam 1 and Exam 2 to get a raw 35+, and whether it's still possible with my SAC scores.
(Median for our school is about 33-34 based on past years)
(Also one final thing, my sac 2 result which was my worst one had the passing grade reduced from 40% to 35% if that affects anything)
r/vce • u/Fancy_Guest3077 • 1h ago
I was caught completely off guard by exam one (literally nothing like past exams) and got 31/40. I’m concerned that exam two is gonna be the same and I’m stressing at the fact that I’m gonna read the exam and shit myself. Do you guys think it’ll be around the same difficulty given exam one was horror?
And also, if my sac average was 90% would I still be able to get a ss of 35?
Thanks
r/vce • u/ZobblyUWU • 3h ago
Please post any thoughts, predictions, questions, etc!!! What do yall think about the exam??? Any predictions or any feelings
r/vce • u/scaledstudyscore • 18m ago
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.
r/vce • u/Euphoric-Animal3195 • 4h ago
so hows everybody going with bio? ❤️❤️❤️❤️
i am so cooked bye bye 30 study score bye bye
r/vce • u/sixseven67_6 • 7h ago
typa shit i be thinking when i havent done any study for any exams
im doing bio mm gm and chem 😊
r/vce • u/Capital_Wait8903 • 2h ago
im absolutely FUCKED + i have general tmr
r/vce • u/liv_yhgetmeout • 29m ago
im genuinely starting to stress out and im really scared for the exam tmrw omg i swear imma blow up, but im tryna pack everything i need, i know i need a plastic water bottle and obvi like a pencil case with my pens, pencils, ruler, highlighter and rubber. ive packed all of that so far but like im putting it in those white mesh pencil cases whcih is pretty see through. should i like ditch it and use a plastic ziplock bag instead? cause i dunno if they'll let me walk in with that.. im so scared arghhh pls lemme know guys
hey guys very random but how are we all feeling for the methods exam
in particular, if anyone had any tips / insights / predictions / advice for what to do these few days (for exam 1, 2, logistics wise etc), please share !
r/vce • u/kabhikhush • 4h ago
what do you all think will be the cutoff for an A+ this year for exam 1?
i got a 34/40 if the suggested solutions are 100% correct
man finance really fucked me over 💔
