ATAR Notes: Forum

VCE Stuff => Victorian Technical Score Discussion => Topic started by: homeworkisapotato on June 08, 2020, 07:46:57 pm

Title: SAC marks
Post by: homeworkisapotato on June 08, 2020, 07:46:57 pm
Hi everyone!
I'm a Cory student and I was wondering if failing one sac can harm my aim of a 45+ study score? For my previous sac I did get one of the top marks in the cohort but I'm scared that if I get a really bad mark now it will ruin any headstart I had. We haven't exactly gotten our marks back but I'm trying to lower my expectations on my results.
Thank you!
Title: Re: SAC marks
Post by: Erutepa on June 12, 2020, 11:16:26 am
Hi homeworkisapotato!
This is a really hard question to answer as its very very dependent on the specifics of your situation - things I don't really know. Firstly it depends on what you classify as a 'failure' - is this hypothetical really bad mark a 90%? 50%? 10%? It also is highly dependent on how others in your class perform. Perhaps you considered it a 'failure' when in reality it might have just been a particularly hard SAC where the rest of the cohort also 'struggled'. In this case, your mark might still put you in the top few in your class and might not be much to worry about.
Regardless of what mark you get, if getting this 45+ study score (or as close to) is important to you, then the best way to do so is not to worry about what mark you might get or to try and calculate your potential study scores, the best thing you can do is to work on improving what you struggled with in the SAC. Reflect honestly and identify your weak areas (this is a hard habit to get into but a very useful skill) so you can smash the next SAC. Worrying about if this last SAC performance is going to ruin your study score is not going to help you improve those skills - it is likely just going to stress you out.

Hopefully you are making out your performance on this last SAC as worse than it actually is and I hope that you are happy with it, but even if its not that OK and I wish you luck in improving for the next one!
Title: Re: SAC marks
Post by: colline on June 12, 2020, 11:37:08 am
Considering how strong Cory is at bio, I think you should be fine. One of my Cory friends got below 60% in one SAC and still got a mid-40s score.

Regardless of what mark you get, if getting this 45+ study score (or as close to) is important to you, then the best way to do so is not to worry about what mark you might get or to try and calculate your potential study scores, the best thing you can do is to work on improving what you struggled with in the SAC.
Absolutely!
Title: Re: SAC marks
Post by: homeworkisapotato on June 15, 2020, 08:09:59 pm
Thank you so much guys! Seriously, I feel so much better! By fail I mean get less than 80% on a pretty easy Bio sac.. especially when unit 3 sacs are weighted more heavily this year due to covid...
Thank you again guys!
Title: Re: SAC marks
Post by: b123 on June 15, 2020, 08:20:32 pm
Hey guys I am new too, and I am struggling to cope with the stress of whether I will be able to get into what I want after the exams, because of my results, I did pretty well last year but this year it was just went down hill.Are my results even capable of atar of at least 85 cause it seems pretty impossible? Do I still have time to improve?

my results are:
Further maths: 53, 73- only done 2 sacs
Legal studies:81, 73,58
Business:60, 65, 77
Title: Re: SAC marks
Post by: Stormbreaker-X on June 15, 2020, 09:40:54 pm
Hey guys I am new too, and I am struggling to cope with the stress of whether I will be able to get into what I want after the exams, because of my results, I did pretty well last year but this year it was just went down hill.Are my results even capable of atar of at least 85 cause it seems pretty impossible? Do I still have time to improve?

my results are:
Further maths: 53, 73- only done 2 sacs
Legal studies:81, 73,58
Business:60, 65, 77
You can still get a good atar, but that depends on how your cohort goes. If your cohort does well then you might get scaled up, if they do bad then you get scaled down a lot. For further/business I would try to push it up a bit, apparently to get a good study score for those subjects you need in the 80%-90% ish.
Title: Re: SAC marks
Post by: colline on June 16, 2020, 01:58:44 pm
Thank you so much guys! Seriously, I feel so much better! By fail I mean get less than 80% on a pretty easy Bio sac.. especially when unit 3 sacs are weighted more heavily this year due to covid...
Thank you again guys!
Oh my gosh hahah nah you'll be fine!

My school was ranked very similar to Cory, I had like a 60-70% average for unit 3 bio and it got moderated up to an A. :)
Title: Re: SAC marks
Post by: b123 on June 16, 2020, 07:02:14 pm
You can still get a good atar, but that depends on how your cohort goes. If your cohort does well then you might get scaled up, if they do bad then you get scaled down a lot. For further/business I would try to push it up a bit, apparently to get a good study score for those subjects you need in the 80%-90% ish.

Thank you so much it actually helped a lot.But yeah for further and business I do need to push a lot but I think I can do it because the next few sacs the topics in the study design are something we covered a lot in unit 1 and 2.Thank you again, and hopefully next time I will get a 90  :)
Title: Re: SAC marks
Post by: homeworkisapotato on June 27, 2020, 08:09:40 pm
Hey guys thank you so much for your helpful replies! I got 90% on that sac and only lost a few marks because of a few silly mistakes... I think I dropped a few ranks down to top 5-10 out of like 70-100 people though. I looked at the VCE honour roll for suzanne cory in the past few years and only about 5-6 people get above a 43 study score every year from my school.. does that mean that I cannot get a 45 study score anymore?
Thank you!
Title: Re: SAC marks
Post by: colline on June 28, 2020, 11:07:04 am
Hey guys thank you so much for your helpful replies! I got 90% on that sac and only lost a few marks because of a few silly mistakes... I think I dropped a few ranks down to top 5-10 out of like 70-100 people though. I looked at the VCE honour roll for suzanne cory in the past few years and only about 5-6 people get above a 43 study score every year from my school.. does that mean that I cannot get a 45 study score anymore?
Thank you!
Definitely not! Not everyone gives permission for the honour roll to publish their name. I personally know 2 people from Cory who scored 40+ in bio but aren't on the honour roll, and there are undoubtedly more.

You also still have more than 4 months to keep improving your chances at a mid/high 40. Your marks aren't set in stone yet, so just keep working on solidifying your knowledge and doing practice exams. You can still definitely get a 45 (or even higher). :)
Title: Re: SAC marks
Post by: homeworkisapotato on July 10, 2020, 09:51:18 pm
Definitely not! Not everyone gives permission for the honour roll to publish their name. I personally know 2 people from Cory who scored 40+ in bio but aren't on the honour roll, and there are undoubtedly more.

You also still have more than 4 months to keep improving your chances at a mid/high 40. Your marks aren't set in stone yet, so just keep working on solidifying your knowledge and doing practice exams. You can still definitely get a 45 (or even higher). :)

Thank you for replying! Is it possible for people who are not in the top 10 SAC ranks to get above 45?
I was looking at the study design and it seems that the unit 3 sacs are weighted more than the unit 4 sacs, and that the unit 4 aos 1 sac is worth 40 marks instead of 30. How does all of that affect how the averages are calculated?
Title: Re: SAC marks
Post by: Sine on July 10, 2020, 09:55:34 pm
Thank you for replying! Is it possible for people who are not in the top 10 SAC ranks to get above 45?
I was looking at the study design and it seems that the unit 3 sacs are weighted more than the unit 4 sacs, and that the unit 4 aos 1 sac is worth 40 marks instead of 30. How does all of that affect how the averages are calculated?
Hmm depends on how far out of the top 10 they are. Obviously further away from the top 10 makes it harder. If they are not jsut on the fringes of the top 10 they would likely need an exam score equivalent to high 40's/50 to yield a 45+ study score.

It doesn't really change how averages are calculated. Unit 3 and Unit 4 are still calculated separately so you will get two ranks.
Title: Re: SAC marks
Post by: homeworkisapotato on July 10, 2020, 10:20:14 pm
Hmm depends on how far out of the top 10 they are. Obviously further away from the top 10 makes it harder. If they are not jsut on the fringes of the top 10 they would likely need an exam score equivalent to high 40's/50 to yield a 45+ study score.

It doesn't really change how averages are calculated. Unit 3 and Unit 4 are still calculated separately so you will get two ranks.
So does unit 4 aos 1 sacs being worth 40 marks rather than 30 like the other unit 4 sacs make it weighted higher? Sorry for the continuous questions! I'm just really confused and whenever I ask people at school they just tell me to trust fate  :o
Title: Re: SAC marks
Post by: Sine on July 10, 2020, 10:25:55 pm
So does unit 4 aos 1 sacs being worth 40 marks rather than 30 like the other unit 4 sacs make it weighted higher? Sorry for the continuous questions! I'm just really confused and whenever I ask people at school they just tell me to trust fate  :o
no, in the updated study design both unit 3 and unit 4 are worth 20% each with the exam worth 60%.

I think it is 40 vs 30 marks because before the study design update unit 4 was worth more than unit 3.

https://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/Documents/vce/adjustedSD2020/2020BiologySD.pdf
Title: Re: SAC marks
Post by: homeworkisapotato on July 11, 2020, 08:48:51 am
no, in the updated study design both unit 3 and unit 4 are worth 20% each with the exam worth 60%.

I think it is 40 vs 30 marks because before the study design update unit 4 was worth more than unit 3.

https://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/Documents/vce/adjustedSD2020/2020BiologySD.pdf
but individually unit 4 sacs are worth less right? because now unit three sacs are worth 10% each and unit 4 sacs are worth like 6-ish% each.
Title: Re: SAC marks
Post by: Sine on July 11, 2020, 12:38:38 pm
but individually unit 4 sacs are worth less right? because now unit three sacs are worth 10% each and unit 4 sacs are worth like 6-ish% each.
Possibly, different schools can have a different amount of sacs for each unit since some teachers like to break them up into many sacs or combine sacs together. So if you have more sacs for a certain unit then they are each worth less (assuming they are all equally weighted).

When I did Biology (old study design) I had 10 sacs across the whole year.
Title: Re: SAC marks
Post by: homeworkisapotato on July 18, 2020, 07:24:20 pm
I was wondering how does sac weighting affect your ranking? If one outcome is weighted less, how do they rank you?
Title: Re: SAC marks
Post by: Sine on July 18, 2020, 07:43:24 pm
I was wondering how does sac weighting affect your ranking? If one outcome is weighted less, how do they rank you?
They don't combine rankings from sacs if that is what you are asking. Your ranking in a single sac is not that relevant. E.g. it is possible to never rank 1 any sac and end up being the overall rank 1.

The simplest explanation I can think of is that at the end of the semester all the sacs are reduced down or scaled up to a total of 100 marks.
So e.g. for simplicity you have two sacs in a semester one worth 40% and one worth 60%.

So imagine each sac is 25 marks. A student gets 15/25 for the 40% sac and 20/25 for the 60% sac.
You would then find how much of the 40% and 60% was obtained by the student.
E.g. 15/25 x 40 = 24
E.g. 20/25 x 60 = 48
So the final mark out of 100 will be 72.

This will be done for all students and they will be ordered fro highest to lowest and ranked.
Title: Re: SAC marks
Post by: issycohen on July 30, 2020, 08:46:25 pm
Hey everyone

If you get lets say a pretty mediocre mark for Unit 3 (say for example 65-70%) and you ace Unit 4 Sacs (lets say 90%+) and get a mid-high A+ for the exam, would 40+ be possible? Cause would getting like A A+ A+ for your GAs automatically cut you from getting a 40 - 45?

Cohort is pretty strong overall so sacs will scale up at least like 10% as a guess
Title: Re: SAC marks
Post by: Sine on July 30, 2020, 09:27:59 pm
Hey everyone

If you get lets say a pretty mediocre mark for Unit 3 (say for example 65-70%) and you ace Unit 4 Sacs (lets say 90%+) and get a mid-high A+ for the exam, would 40+ be possible? Cause would getting like A A+ A+ for your GAs automatically cut you from getting a 40 - 45?

Cohort is pretty strong overall so sacs will scale up at least like 10% as a guess
You can still do pretty well with A A+ A+ 40-45 is still within that range if the exam score is very good however it would get a lot more difficult to get 46+
Title: Re: SAC marks
Post by: Coolgalbornin03Lo on July 30, 2020, 10:04:44 pm
You can still do pretty well with A A+ A+ 40-45 is still within that range if the exam score is very good however it would get a lot more difficult to get 46+

Wait so not all GAs have to be A+ to get above 40? Can one be a B+ and the rest A+?
Title: Re: SAC marks
Post by: Genshai on July 31, 2020, 02:07:46 pm
Wait so not all GAs have to be A+ to get above 40? Can one be a B+ and the rest A+?

I got a B+ A+ A+ and got a 40. I'm sure its possible to get more, especially with a strong exam mark :)
Title: Re: SAC marks
Post by: homeworkisapotato on August 01, 2020, 05:24:33 pm
So say if I get around rank 10 for Unit 3, average for Unit 4, and get 110+/120 in the bio exam, how would they scale my sac? Usually all the explanations about scaling sacs after determining exam ranking uses one sac rank rather than two  :o
Thank you!!
Also does anyone know how Suzanne Cory's sac marks usually scale?
Title: Re: SAC marks
Post by: Kikiopmed on June 01, 2021, 07:47:14 pm
Hey guys,
Can someone please explain to me what is GA1, GA2 and GA3??

Because I read it's mid year exams but I don't have any so is GA1 and GA2 sacs??
and also do unit 3 and 4 sacs combine in one rank??

Thanks : )