Login

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

March 29, 2024, 11:38:29 pm

Author Topic: QCE scaling  (Read 5924 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

XD12345

  • Forum Regular
  • **
  • Posts: 67
  • Respect: +2
QCE scaling
« on: August 27, 2020, 03:50:07 pm »
0
Hi everyone
Before I start, I am 100% aware that scaling is dependent on the rest of your cohort and how it changes depending on where you sit etc.
I am hoping to get some answers on how much scaling would affect me.

Currently these are my subjects and my percentages

English: 78%
General Maths: 77%
Biology: 100% (I killed this subject lmao)
Psychology: 98%
Music: 82%
Legal Studies: 92%

I am doing really well I think; however, these are moderately low scaling subjects. I think the hardest subject I’m doing is biology. I am curious on how much scaling will drag me down because I have no clue. I don’t need an exact number, I just have no idea if my subjects will decrease by 1 point or 20 points, idk the degree of effect that scaling has.

I am asking because my entire family and friends are very supportive and they’re all saying “you’re gonna get into the course you want” and all my friends are saying that too. But I’m worried I will disappoint them since they don’t understand that scaling may have an effect, and that a B student in chemistry and physics might get a better ATAR than an A student in Psychology.
I am hoping I can ease my nerves a bit since I have no context in how severe scaling actually is. I am aiming for an ATAR of 85-88 and I’m worried that my family will be sad if I end up with something lower than that because my subjects are scaled down.

I know that scaling can’t be predicted, and I know it’s impossible to get any accurate number. I’m hoping to only get some form of context on how severe scaling will effect me.
For example: could my 82 in music be scaled down to 78 or 60, maybe even 50... Again, no clue how severe scaling actually is.

« Last Edit: August 27, 2020, 08:02:43 pm by XD12345 »

Bri MT

  • VIC MVP - 2018
  • Administrator
  • ATAR Notes Legend
  • *****
  • Posts: 4719
  • invest in wellbeing so it can invest in you
  • Respect: +3677
Re: QCE scaling
« Reply #1 on: August 28, 2020, 11:36:45 am »
0
Hey,

thanks for writing the whole - disclaimer etc. thing, as I'm sure you understand you can apply all of that to what I'm about to say.

For me in VCE I achieved 47/50 (it's a different score system) in bio and psych. Bio tends to scale up in Vic whereas psych tends to scale down.
My bio score scaled to 47.66 whereas my psych score scaled to 46.75. (in both cases that's still in the top 1% of the state so it's not a huge jump). How much your score is scaled by depends on how high it is but the highest I can see for those 2 subjects in the year I graduated are 1 point up from scaling (for bio) and 2 points down from scaling (for psych).  Some scaled a more than bio or psych but with the exception of languages (which get special scaling) and specialist maths (which benefitted from inter-maths scaling) none were by 10 or more in my year & I'd be surprised if that wasn't more generally true as well.  VCE study scores probably won't make too much sense to you given it's a fairly different system but here's a link if you're interested in looking it up for other subjects and years.

UAC (equivalent of QTAC in NSW) produces a detailed report each year which includes a table showing what the highest ATAR achieved by someone studying each subject was. Here's the 2019 one and you can see that students had 99+ ATARs across a broad range of subjects.


If you had a 80 mark in music be scaled down to 50 or 60 I would be very surprised. Obviously I can't guarantee anything about what the specific numbers will be etc. as you've said, but in general I'd say you have less cause to be anxious about the impacts of scaling than you think.


I hope this puts you at ease a bit and please feel free to follow up if there's anything you'd like clarified here :)
« Last Edit: August 28, 2020, 11:38:35 am by Bri MT »

XD12345

  • Forum Regular
  • **
  • Posts: 67
  • Respect: +2
Re: QCE scaling
« Reply #2 on: August 28, 2020, 07:21:08 pm »
+1
Thanks so much this helped a lot. I have decided to put less effort into stressing and just throwing myself into exam preparation and hoping for the best.