ATAR Notes: Forum

VCE Stuff => VCE Results and ATAR Discussion 2021 => Topic started by: C123456789L on June 04, 2021, 09:06:23 pm

Title: When should I be helping out my cohort?
Post by: C123456789L on June 04, 2021, 09:06:23 pm
Hello!

I was wondering when I should be helping out my cohort and friends with their assessments?

I am currently in year 11 but I'm having trouble understanding how the marks of my peers during my preliminary study will affect my overall atar in the future (year 12).

I'm not a very competitive person but I have recently observed a lot of the high achiever's "turtling"

I understand that assessments have to be our own work and that we can't receive any outside help but these students are going to extreme lengths, behaviour patterns include:


Now usually I wouldn't be bothered by this, or at least in the past (year 10) I haven't, I usually rank top 5-3 in most of my subjects (apart from adv English and Economics) but the people partaking in this kind of behaviour are usually my competition and I'm worried I should be doing something similar?

I try to help out people as much as possible, reading over people's assessments, helping people understand concepts ect. I'm not a competitive person but I am starting to get the feeling that I should be? I'm not sure but I'd like some advice from someone who has experienced something similar or at least can reassure me that I'm doing the right thing by helping people and sharing my study notes ect.

P.S. I don't usually post on here so please excuse me if I do anything wrong or "not normal"

Thanks, Casey
Title: Re: When should I be helping out my cohort?
Post by: whys on June 04, 2021, 09:18:03 pm
You will get less out of class if you remain secluded, distance yourself and refrain from partaking in class discussions. It is more beneficial for you if you engage in class and help out your peers. You will learn more in the process. People who display this behaviour are under the false impression that it will help them achieve higher SAC marks. Many of the peers I have who did extremely well were the ones who didn’t think twice to help others understand a concept and put their hand up in class. Everything is a two-way exchange - both you and the recipient will benefit from the extra practice. After all, once SACs are over, your school cohort are all in it together when it comes to exam time. Only if you all do well on the exam can your SAC marks scale up afterwards. Of course, there are rankings diving you and your classmates that are determined by SAC scores, but refraining from participating and helping seem like unhealthy behaviours that won’t do you any good in the long run.  In theory and hopefully in practice as well, collaborating, as I’ve already said multiple times in this post already (whoops), is a much better way to approach it unlike the high-achieving peers you are describing.
Title: Re: When should I be helping out my cohort?
Post by: The Cat In The Hat on June 05, 2021, 12:57:41 pm
Keep doing what you're doing! Keep helping. Besides, VCE isn't the be-all and end-all of life. Helping will make you a better person.

Also, seconding whys' comments.
Title: Re: When should I be helping out my cohort?
Post by: blueycan on June 05, 2021, 05:15:48 pm
Echoing whys and Cat's posts, VCE definitely isn't the end all of your path in education and school serves so much more purpose than just studying. Even though VCE is a ranked system and is viewed as competitive, I believe that it's important to keep perspective of what being in a learning environment can bring. Being open with others & building friendships with your classmates can really boost morale, especially when you're stressed or confused about a topic/assessment.
Not to mention that when there is a sense of collective effort between students and everyone is able to help each other out, everyone ends up doing better, which ultimately helps everyone's individual result. It's easy to get wrapped up in numbers and rankings but remember that you're still in Year 11 and these things won't matter too much until next year (learned that from experience lol) Collaborating with your friends and taking time to just hang out, too, will contribute to your personal growth, communication and social skills which is equally if not more important than your scores. I'm in year 12 and I've noticed the best classes I have are the ones where everyone is down for a chat or debate and everyone is willing to help each other out, it just feels good to know that people have your back and are willing to help people succeed– also you get more out of school in itself.
Everyone's different when it comes to learning, there may even be other factors influencing these peers of yours as to why they're choosing to adopt that style of learning. While you may feel like you need to start emulating these people in order to achieve similar results, your best results will come from you in your best environment, so I think the best advice is just to keep doing what feels right for you and if that's helping your peers, than keep at it (:
All the best
Title: Re: When should I be helping out my cohort?
Post by: mabajas76 on June 05, 2021, 06:12:58 pm
lololol by helping out ur other students u r messing up the other guys, those who keep to themselves can only improve so much, ur not only getting exposure to different questions, answers and thoughts that only a genius would be able to think of all on his own which is basically getting u exposure without u having to put in as much work but ur proving urself to be a F incredible person. In year 11, ranking and cohorts and stuff dont matter one bloody bit, it is only in year 12 where it becomes more important but the other posts have already explained this. Honestly, those people feeling shy or not sharing r stupid. They are limiting their own answers and experience and really showing their character. Whilst getting low sac marks as a cohort and high exam marks is theoretically good, it isn't AS good as just getting good sac results then a good exam score lol.
Title: Re: When should I be helping out my cohort?
Post by: Sine on June 06, 2021, 09:29:34 am
Hello!

I was wondering when I should be helping out my cohort and friends with their assessments?

I am currently in year 11 but I'm having trouble understanding how the marks of my peers during my preliminary study will affect my overall atar in the future (year 12).

I'm not a very competitive person but I have recently observed a lot of the high achiever's "turtling"

I understand that assessments have to be our own work and that we can't receive any outside help but these students are going to extreme lengths, behaviour patterns include:

  • *not participating in class discussion or not answering questions "publicly" in front of the class
  • *asking teachers questions about assessments in private and not sharing with peers (keep in mind the teacher usually ends up sharing the info with the class as a whole the next lesson but you get the point)
  • *asking to review other people's work but not letting people review their own
  • *overall very secluded from everyone else during class (sitting by themselves during class, not participating in study groups ect.)

Now usually I wouldn't be bothered by this, or at least in the past (year 10) I haven't, I usually rank top 5-3 in most of my subjects (apart from adv English and Economics) but the people partaking in this kind of behaviour are usually my competition and I'm worried I should be doing something similar?

I try to help out people as much as possible, reading over people's assessments, helping people understand concepts ect. I'm not a competitive person but I am starting to get the feeling that I should be? I'm not sure but I'd like some advice from someone who has experienced something similar or at least can reassure me that I'm doing the right thing by helping people and sharing my study notes ect.

P.S. I don't usually post on here so please excuse me if I do anything wrong or "not normal"

Thanks, Casey

You are probably better off just helping anyone at any point in time. It will likely help you understand the content better as well but even if it does mean slightly lower SS and ATAR surely it is still worth it if someone else gets some benefit from it.
Title: Re: When should I be helping out my cohort?
Post by: heids on June 06, 2021, 10:29:00 am
Honestly, it seems to me that sometimes being Slytherin af does get you 'ahead' in life.  No, it's not always the people with integrity that 'succeed' - often cheating, manipulation, corruption and undermining others is quite effective.

But that doesn't mean that it's worth it.

Scores feel like the be-all and end-all, but they're just... really not.  (Okay, there are some areas where they do matter deeply, e.g. getting into med, but I'd argue that people don't have just one calling in life that's the only way they'll ever be fulfilled and valuable.)  Your relationships, your character, your integrity, your mindset, your maturity: they honestly matter so much more in the real-life job market.  At work, you're typically expected to work together as a team (I'm now wondering what percentage of job ads use the words "team player" or some equally meaningless equivalent)

Your co-students are displaying insecurity, immaturity, selfishness, pettiness, and a rockin' scarcity mindset that's going to damage them for a long time.  These are the games that immature children play.  Yes, lots of people play them well into adulthood.  Lots of people treat team-based work as a single-player exercise where their role is to undermine others to show their own individual brilliance - I definitely feel the urge often enough.  And it sometimes works.  It really, really sucks.

But at what cost?

Your relationships and mindset and integrity are what are going to matter to you in the long run, and I can't see how it's worth it to set up a habit of undermining these - of undermining happiness for yourself and others - just for a score.

(Oh, and yeah - I really do think that explaining concepts to others is one of the absolutely best ways to learn.)
Title: Re: When should I be helping out my cohort?
Post by: amyzzwq on June 24, 2021, 05:48:02 pm
SAC scores are scaled up if your cohort do better in the final exam than in your sacs (it shows that your school gives hard sacs)
So of course it would be good to help your peers improve, those people who like to seclude themselves from everyone are only disadvantaging themselves.