My English tutor is currently undergoing research at Melbourne university on tests such as the GAT, UMAT etc. She claims her professor is the chief of the UMAT this year. She may be fibbing but has no reason to. Anyway, she said yes the GAT is sort of like an insurance policy, but she also said that it is taken into consideration when calculating the study scores. She then showed us the formula VCAA use, very long but it did use the GAT. I'm not sure where all these people who think the GAT isn't important got their information from. Perhaps they are correct and my tutor is using scare tactics, but I doubt it. She claimed that she petitioned against vcaa who at one stage were attempting to make the GAT contribute to the actual atar score. She said it was terrible because they would be rewarding natural intelligence instead of hard work.
She showed us that, the study scores and scaling of the sacs is highly related to your schools overall performance on the GAT. To this I got quite upset. First of all I am disadvantaged because I go to my school (which is a wonderful place, but has a focus more on trades and passing) and then I am even more disadvantaged because no one in my school cares about the GAT.
Anyway its over now. I just wanted to contribute because I think a lot of people are like whats the point! I also think its a little bit of a shame people don't put a lot of effort into it because it really is quite interesting! Especially the artwork and the first writing task! You can have a lot of fun with it! So sorry this is so long, well done if you read it all!