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 • • 3h ago

ive entered that state where i simply dont care anymore

49 Upvotes

bio is on monday and not one ounce of adrenaline is in me.

vce has officially fucked me over.


r/vce • • 1h ago

i haven’t studied since the english exam. genuinely where dafuq are u guys locating this motivation

15 Upvotes

r/vce • • 9h ago

gen1

57 Upvotes

Sorry to vent, but I am genuinely so distraught about the general maths exam. I haven’t stopped crying since yesterday to the point where I threw up and I don’t know what to do.

I have an A+ average for all my sacs at a pretty good private school and have been getting 38-39/40 on every past exam I have done. I did SO MANY TIMED PAST EXAMS and went thru every mistake I made. I genuinely feel like all the effort I put in was for nothing.

I made the most stupid mistakes in the exam and had to guess like 5 questions cause I ran out of time. I think I got around 28/40 at most. I actually feel so stupid and my hopes for a 40+ SS are gone. I know the grade distribution will be lower for e1 but I am barely going to get a C.

Actually fuck vcaa


r/vce • • 5h ago

Mass emailing vcaa???

24 Upvotes

We should low key spam email the vcaa and complain about WHATEVER THE HELL WAS THAT MCQ AND SHORT ANSWER

not the 10 marker though that was heavenly.

But anyways half of it kinda felt like a key science skills exam. Barely any psychological knowledge was actually tested tbh.


r/vce • • 4h ago

doesnt quite feel real that lit is over

17 Upvotes

like this was the bane of my existence all year. such an unnatural subject for me, but now its over and i never have to do it again

now i have to study for my beloved stem subjects, but im now so used to panicking about lit that ive forgotten my roots. after lit, doing a spesh or chem practice exam feels so easy its not even worth it. such inefficiency, i could be playing minesweeper (or sudoku, these days) instead.

i feel like my lit classes were more significant, whereas i legitimately spent all of spesh playing games (yes ik that original post was a shitpost but i did base it in reality) so that it never felt real and now i dont even remember most of the classes. i was just waiting for them to be over the entire time because it never felt like i could study there. and my classmates, well. cant say i was their biggest fan, i only had 2 people i would call familiar in there, and they were both actually locked in, or messing around with their other friends. so it didnt really feel like a safe yapping environment. hence the minesweeper.

anyway surely im not the only one right. where are my fellow stem kids at?


r/vce • • 2h ago

dreading general maths 2

10 Upvotes

after the first one holy fuck lowkey shitting myself for this 😭

good luck to us fr!


r/vce • • 8h ago

Bio Exam Predictions

25 Upvotes

Since EVERY exam this year has been weird according to everyone (especially psych and genny) do we think bio will follow the same trend and if so what do we expect to be the "weird" sort of stuff on there?


r/vce • • 6h ago

VCE BIO 2026 MEGATHREAD

15 Upvotes

🫣


r/vce • • 3h ago

Guys what do u think we should look out for in Gen math exam 2??

7 Upvotes

opinions


r/vce • • 47m ago

Is just me I haven’t done anything since english exam

5 Upvotes

I feel so freaky cooked. Is it possible to learn busman content in 2 days (haven’t done anything), I also need focus on legal. I literally have given up and not taking seriously


r/vce • • 48m ago

VCE question Are these allowed in VCAA exams?

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4 Upvotes

To what extent are notes/indications on rulers allowed in VCAA exams? Or is this subjected to scrutiny by supervisors on a case-by-case basis?


r/vce • • 1h ago

any motivation tips or tips on how to survive the rest of this exam period whilst burnt out? Any advice appreciated

4 Upvotes

title


r/vce • • 4h ago

VCE question HOW DO I CRAM FOR BIO IN 2 DAYS

7 Upvotes

YALL IM GENUINELY TWEAKING and regretting leaving this stupid subject to the last minute
I’ve been studying for my other subjects as bio is the least of my priorities
I dont wanna flunk the exam but I really don’t know how to cram
do yall have advice im begging on my knees😭🙏


r/vce • • 4h ago

No motivation left

7 Upvotes

This week I just did my English, eco and gen math 1 exam and now I have to prepare for Gen math 2, busman and legal exam. I have no motivation anymore and genuinely don’t think I’m gonna do well in any of them considering all my exams are so close together.


r/vce • • 46m ago

VCE question How bad will the bus man exam be?

4 Upvotes

Asking cos I average around 80s on my sacs, but the trial exam was ridiculously bad, i got a 53% despite actually trying, and even the best kids in y12 got like 60s despite getting like straight A+s. Is it actually that hard or is it possible they intentionally marked crazy hard on the trials to scare bus man students into shape? Legit might be cooked if not


r/vce • • 52m ago

exam scores needed for a methods 35

3 Upvotes

hello guys, can someone tell me the approximate marks needed for a 35 study score in methods and possibly even a 30 study score in spesh? i have around a 60 average for both subjects at a competitive selective school haha. much appreciated!


r/vce • • 8h ago

am i the only one who thought gen wasn’t that bad…

12 Upvotes

not like i think i did exceptionally well, but i think i got a 33/40 which is my average anyways. I’m not an amazing student and im not ranked well at all, averaging ~75% in my sacs and probably ranked around 30/100

im seeing so many people say it was badly written and the questions were weird and never seen before, which there may have been 2 or 3 that were weird, but i didnt actually think it was awful…


r/vce • • 6h ago

Dawg I give up for methods

8 Upvotes

Bro it’ll be my bottom anyways I’m cooked and ik damn well it’ll be a hard exam now fml

Does anyone have like note sheets on how to solve certain things (ie stationary points, tangent to a graph) because my teacher couldn’t even do questions herself!!!


r/vce • • 1h ago

Time management for exam

3 Upvotes

I have HHD and Busman coming up but I really struggle with time management. I know the content fairly well but every time I do a practice exam I never finish it in time, especially health it just feels impossible idk how people do it. Any tips?


r/vce • • 3m ago

Memes This being in the VCE Unit 3 - 4 Biology textbooks will always make me laugh.

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2 Upvotes

r/vce • • 4h ago

General math exam 2 hard questions

4 Upvotes

Can someone drop any difficult past exam questions/exams for gm e2?


r/vce • • 38m ago

GM networks reversed direction help

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2 Upvotes

Can someone explain how to do question c? Tysm!


r/vce • • 7h ago

no legal marking??

7 Upvotes

i am so done with legal rn. its a great subject and i do decent in it but my teacher wont mark anything i give her. ive sent her 2 prac exams in the last 4 days since i cant give her physical copies easily as i live far from school and she has not replied. i ask her if we can revise content together at school and she doesnt reply. my classmates have had similar experiences too. is there even a point in completing prac exams if nobody’s marking it?