STUDY SCORES

[rebeccacar]

I need clarification on a particular question that I believe the whole state is really wondering in this point, DO SAC SCORES REALLY MATTER? I have heard so many different opinions, and I am unsure on what to believe at this time.

And please tell me the truth. I would rather hear they don't matter, however my ears are open for all suggestions

This is due to the fact that:

I haven't performed well in some subjects as I wish I had, due to lack of confidence and stressing too much. My averages for my subjects in sacs are

Further: 50-60%
Legal: 90%
Vis com: 88%
Biology: 75%
English: around 75%,

As you can tell, I'm not quite happy with my further, biology and English scores. I am aiming for at least 40+ in biology hopefully, and a high 30-40 in further. Are these results still achievable considering the bad sac marks if I do very well in my exam 90%+

[PhoenixxFire]

The actual SAC scores don’t really matter - because they’re not necessarily an accurate reflection of your ability. Your rank matters, and the strength of your cohort (students studying that subject at your school) matter. For example if everyone gets 30% on SACs and then 100% on the exam (obviously everyone won’t get the same, this just makes it easier to explain), then VCAA assumes this means that your SACs must have been super hard - so your SAC scores get scaled up (so the actual percentages don’t matter).

However if your SACs are an accurate reflection of your ability (so say everyone gets 60% on SACs and then also gets 60% on the exam), then VCAA assumes that your SACs were the correct difficulty and your SACs won’t get scaled.

So yes your SACs matter however it’s hard to interpret how well you’re doing based on raw SAC marks.

[rebeccacar]

The actual SAC scores don’t really matter - because they’re not necessarily an accurate reflection of your ability. Your rank matters, and the strength of your cohort (students studying that subject at your school) matter. For example if everyone gets 30% on SACs and then 100% on the exam (obviously everyone won’t get the same, this just makes it easier to explain), then VCAA hunks this means that your SACs must have been super hard - so your SAC scores get scaled up (so the actual percentages don’t matter).

However if your SACs are an accurate reflection of your ability (so say everyone gets 60% on SACs and then also gets 60% on the exam), then VCAA assumes that your SACs were the correct difficulty and your SACs won’t get scaled.

So yes your SACs matter however it’s hard to interpret how well you’re doing based on raw SAC marks.

Okay that makes much more sense. What about if your ranking is particularly low in one subject lets take biology for instance (I'm not sure regarding my accurate rank because teachers don't say, but let's just assume) I am ranked 20th in a cohort of around 60 people, with a moderate-high strength cohort and pretty basic sacs. If I completely smash out the exam and end up with a 90+, am I capable of achieving above 38-40+

[PhoenixxFire]

Okay that makes much more sense. What about if your ranking is particularly low in one subject lets take biology for instance (I'm not sure regarding my accurate rank because teachers don't say, but let's just assume) I am ranked 20th in a cohort of around 60 people, with a moderate-high strength cohort and pretty basic sacs. If I completely smash out the exam and end up with a 90+, am I capable of achieving above 38-40+

I would say it's possible -  but I really hate trying to predict study scores because I'm effectively just guessing based on what I know of study scores other people have gotten with varying SAC results. It might be worth having a look at the vce high achievers list (google it) and seeing how many people at your school got 40+ in bio last year. I think that in order to be getting much higher than 40, you would probably want to be getting closer to 95% on the exam - but then, like I said, I'm really just guessing. It partly depends on how well your cohort, specifically the people ranked above you, do. It also depends on how close together the ranks are - like is there a 10% difference in scores between people or 1% difference.

[rebeccacar]

I would say it's possible -  but I really hate trying to predict study scores because I'm effectively just guessing based on what I know of study scores other people have gotten with varying SAC results. It might be worth having a look at the vce high achievers list (google it) and seeing how many people at your school got 40+ in bio last year. I think that in order to be getting much higher than 40, you would probably want to be getting closer to 95% on the exam - but then, like I said, I'm really just guessing. It partly depends on how well your cohort, specifically the people ranked above you, do. It also depends on how close together the ranks are - like is there a 10% difference in scores between people or 1% difference.

Okay that's fair enough, I think I only know of one person who achieved 50 in biology last year hahah... but that makes much more sense. Thanks for clarifying that with me

[Sine]

I would say it's possible -  but I really hate trying to predict study scores because I'm effectively just guessing based on what I know of study scores other people have gotten with varying SAC results. It might be worth having a look at the vce high achievers list (google it) and seeing how many people at your school got 40+ in bio last year. I think that in order to be getting much higher than 40, you would probably want to be getting closer to 95% on the exam - but then, like I said, I'm really just guessing. It partly depends on how well your cohort, specifically the people ranked above you, do. It also depends on how close together the ranks are - like is there a 10% difference in scores between people or 1% difference.

The difference between rankings don't matter, vcaa do get this information but they don't use it, they only use your ranks to standardise your raw sac scores (by looking at the spread of scores in the exam from your cohort).
A rank 1 with 100% sacs and a rank 2 with 99.5% sacs is treated the same as a rank 1 with 100% sacs and a rank 2 with 60% sacs.

[stephh1]

The actual SAC scores don’t really matter - because they’re not necessarily an accurate reflection of your ability. Your rank matters, and the strength of your cohort (students studying that subject at your school) matter. For example if everyone gets 30% on SACs and then 100% on the exam (obviously everyone won’t get the same, this just makes it easier to explain), then VCAA assumes this means that your SACs must have been super hard - so your SAC scores get scaled up (so the actual percentages don’t matter).

However if your SACs are an accurate reflection of your ability (so say everyone gets 60% on SACs and then also gets 60% on the exam), then VCAA assumes that your SACs were the correct difficulty and your SACs won’t get scaled.

So yes your SACs matter however it’s hard to interpret how well you’re doing based on raw SAC marks.

So what about if the entire cohort doing is doing average on sacs (lets say averaging 60s), and then in the exam the entire cohort gets like an average of 30%, but you manage to get 95%.. what does that mean for you?

[Lear]

So what about if the entire cohort doing is doing average on sacs (lets say averaging 60s), and then in the exam the entire cohort gets like an average of 30%, but you manage to get 95%.. what does that mean for you?

Depends on your rank. If you are rank 1, your SACs will scale up to ~95% and your exam stays as it is at 95%
However, if you are say even rank 2, and everyone but you receives a 30% or so, your SAC score will be scaled down to a 30% as your sac score is dependent on the 2nd highest exam score from your cohort. Thus if the second highest exam score is 30%, your SACs will be 30% and exam still 95%. On the other hand, rank 1 will take you exam score of 95% as their sac score and in turn have a 30% Exam score and a 95% Sac score thanks to you.