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March 29, 2024, 08:41:18 am

Author Topic: Guide to how Study Scores and ATARs are calculated!  (Read 74580 times)  Share 

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pi

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Re: Guide to how Study Scores and ATARs are calculated!
« Reply #15 on: July 15, 2012, 01:21:53 am »
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This means that if you have gotten an ATAR of 98.50, your aggregate is better than 98.50% of the state.

Does that mean if you get an ATAR of 65, your aggregate is better than 65% of the state? If so, how come 65 is around the average? I've never quite understood why it's not 50 ???


It's percentiles. My understanding is that <30 doesn't count for the same amount as percentiles as between say 60-90 ATAR.

I'm not sure on the specifics though, good question, I'm interested too :)

FlorianK

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Re: Guide to how Study Scores and ATARs are calculated!
« Reply #16 on: July 15, 2012, 09:46:17 am »
+1
Very nice explanation, Paul, thank you very much.

Just to clarify something. With the SAC scaling, does that mean that if you're in an average cohort, but with a strong upper quarter or so, and you sit in that section that you're not really disadvantaged by having a slightly lower rank? I'm in this current situation where I'm sitting in an average strength cohort of 97 for Further, but the top 20 students are really strong. So if I was to sit anywhere between ranks 1 and 20 and all of us in that section aced the exams, then we would all do really well, right? I'm thankful that I'm currently holding rank 1 but I guess I would like to know that it's not the end of the world if I drop a couple of marks on the next two SACs. :)

Also, I think I can tell you why the mean sits at 30, rather than 25. Basically, there's a lot of students that enrol in subjects at the start of the year and then do absolutely nothing, meaning there is a very large cluster of outliers that sit at a study score of 0. I think VCAA moves the standard distribution in such a way that even if you do really badly in all of your assessments, you will most likely receive a study score of 10 for actually completing the study. Hence, the mean is slightly bumped up.

You're welcome, but OK - you're absolutely right, you should not worry at all. The truth is, if you're ranked, say, 5th, you'd have to rely on the fact that there are 5 students (and you may be one of those five or you may not be) who will perform really well on the exam, because you will get the 5th highest exam mark as your own SAC GA mark. Whatever happens below you, doesn't really matter. For example, if you're ranked 5th in a cohort of 5 students, then you will get the 5th ranked exam mark as your SAC mark - like I have just explained. However, let's say you add in another 50 students below those 5, it still won't matter, you will still get the same SAC GA mark give that - 1) those 50 students don't rank within the top 5 and 2) those 50 students don't score higher than the other 5 on the exam.

You might be right, but essentially nobody gets a Study Score of 0, even if you don't do the exam. To be honest though, I don't know of anyone with a study score of below 25 up the top of my head - so I won't be able to tell you. Setting the mean at 25 wouldn't work though, because 3 SDs from the Mean will be 46, unless they adjust the SD to 8-ish, but hmm, it probably doesn't matter.
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Re: Guide to how Study Scores and ATARs are calculated!
« Reply #17 on: July 15, 2012, 10:53:06 am »
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it includes all students of the VCE age, even those who have dropped out of school, failed or otherwise; such that a 50 ATAR is better than 50% of the state, but probably only better than 30% of the state who has done VCE

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Re: Guide to how Study Scores and ATARs are calculated!
« Reply #18 on: July 15, 2012, 01:24:51 pm »
+1
I'm a bit confused about the relationship between your SAC ranking and your study score. Does that mean that if you're 1st in your cohort in the SACs and bomb on your exam you'll still get the exam score of the person who got the highest mark in your cohort for the exam? 


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Re: Guide to how Study Scores and ATARs are calculated!
« Reply #19 on: July 15, 2012, 06:45:14 pm »
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You'll get their exam score as your SAC mark, but keep your own exam mark
But this probably means that they'll still get a higher score overall, unless they had a horrible ranking
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Re: Guide to how Study Scores and ATARs are calculated!
« Reply #20 on: July 15, 2012, 08:27:41 pm »
+1
In a nutshell:

Your exam score remains your exam score.

If you are rank x in SACs, YOUR SAC score, when SCALED, will REFLECT (be equivalent to) the exam scores of the person who gets rank x in your school IN THE EXAM. Therefore, your SAC rank will remain as rank x.
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Re: Guide to how Study Scores and ATARs are calculated!
« Reply #21 on: July 15, 2012, 08:31:16 pm »
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Are you certain that your SAC score will directly correlate with the exam scores the cohort achieves? I only ask because I think there's a few more factors involved, i.e. I was under the impression the general GAT score of a school can help push scores up?
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Re: Guide to how Study Scores and ATARs are calculated!
« Reply #22 on: July 15, 2012, 08:56:39 pm »
+1
Are you certain that your SAC score will directly correlate with the exam scores the cohort achieves? I only ask because I think there's a few more factors involved, i.e. I was under the impression the general GAT score of a school can help push scores up?

A number of factors can play in the moderation of SAC scores, that's right, but nobody apart from VCAA knows how that works - but truth to be told, I know someone with a 98.95 ATAR who wagged the GAT :P

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Re: Guide to how Study Scores and ATARs are calculated!
« Reply #23 on: July 15, 2012, 09:11:47 pm »
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Are you certain that your SAC score will directly correlate with the exam scores the cohort achieves? I only ask because I think there's a few more factors involved, i.e. I was under the impression the general GAT score of a school can help push scores up?

A number of factors can play in the moderation of SAC scores, that's right, but nobody apart from VCAA knows how that works - but truth to be told, I know someone with a 98.95 ATAR who wagged the GAT :P

Yeah, I wasn't suggesting the GAT matters on an individual level (unless you miss your exams), more that the average GAT score for the school, if good, can also push up average SAC scores.
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Re: Guide to how Study Scores and ATARs are calculated!
« Reply #24 on: July 15, 2012, 09:34:43 pm »
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Are you certain that your SAC score will directly correlate with the exam scores the cohort achieves? I only ask because I think there's a few more factors involved, i.e. I was under the impression the general GAT score of a school can help push scores up?

A number of factors can play in the moderation of SAC scores, that's right, but nobody apart from VCAA knows how that works - but truth to be told, I know someone with a 98.95 ATAR who wagged the GAT :P

Yeah, I wasn't suggesting the GAT matters on an individual level (unless you miss your exams), more that the average GAT score for the school, if good, can also push up average SAC scores.

Yup, GAT can affect SAC scores, but apparently to a VERY minimal extent.

What I said was a simplification. This is the reason I said "reflect" rather than "be equal"
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Re: Guide to how Study Scores and ATARs are calculated!
« Reply #25 on: July 15, 2012, 09:51:14 pm »
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Are you certain that your SAC score will directly correlate with the exam scores the cohort achieves? I only ask because I think there's a few more factors involved, i.e. I was under the impression the general GAT score of a school can help push scores up?

A number of factors can play in the moderation of SAC scores, that's right, but nobody apart from VCAA knows how that works - but truth to be told, I know someone with a 98.95 ATAR who wagged the GAT :P

Yeah, I wasn't suggesting the GAT matters on an individual level (unless you miss your exams), more that the average GAT score for the school, if good, can also push up average SAC scores.

Yup, GAT can affect SAC scores, but apparently to a VERY minimal extent.

What I said was a simplification. This is the reason I said "reflect" rather than "be equal"

Echhh, this is slightly worrying for me I guess.

In a subject like Chemistry, if I get an A+ on both of my exams (low to mid) but I'm ranked, at MHS, maybe in about the middle of the cohort, what kind of study score could I be looking at?
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pi

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Re: Guide to how Study Scores and ATARs are calculated!
« Reply #26 on: July 15, 2012, 09:57:36 pm »
+1
Are you certain that your SAC score will directly correlate with the exam scores the cohort achieves? I only ask because I think there's a few more factors involved, i.e. I was under the impression the general GAT score of a school can help push scores up?

A number of factors can play in the moderation of SAC scores, that's right, but nobody apart from VCAA knows how that works - but truth to be told, I know someone with a 98.95 ATAR who wagged the GAT :P

Yeah, I wasn't suggesting the GAT matters on an individual level (unless you miss your exams), more that the average GAT score for the school, if good, can also push up average SAC scores.

Yup, GAT can affect SAC scores, but apparently to a VERY minimal extent.

What I said was a simplification. This is the reason I said "reflect" rather than "be equal"

Echhh, this is slightly worrying for me I guess.

In a subject like Chemistry, if I get an A+ on both of my exams (low to mid) but I'm ranked, at MHS, maybe in about the middle of the cohort, what kind of study score could I be looking at?

Mid-low 40s, possibly 42-45 :)

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Re: Guide to how Study Scores and ATARs are calculated!
« Reply #27 on: July 18, 2012, 07:04:23 pm »
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So essentially...does that mean your own sacs don't really mean much if you dominate your own exam and will just use the person ranked above you his/her exam mark as YOUR sac mark? So it is possible to even get a lower SAC mark if the person ranked above you did worse in the exam than your SAC average.

and also, what happens if your SACs are calculated differently? Like there are the 10% SACs, some 40% ones etc, in the end is it just the average of ALL your sacs combined out of a 33% ?
« Last Edit: July 18, 2012, 07:12:25 pm by duhherro »

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Re: Guide to how Study Scores and ATARs are calculated!
« Reply #28 on: July 19, 2012, 11:48:11 am »
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So now, say you are ranked nth. What VCAA will do is they will give you the nth exam mark in your cohort as your SAC mark.

So if there are three students, Thushan, Dan and Paul in a cohort and they each get an average SAC mark of 100, 70, 60 respectively, this means that Thushan will be ranked 1, Dan will be ranked 2 and Paul will be ranked 3. Say they all sit the exam, and on the exam day, Dan's beard has grown so much that he can't see his exam paper anymore, thus, their exam marks are 100, 20, 70.

This means that for the SAC GA - Thushan will get 100, Dan will get 70 and Paul will get 20.


Will Paul still obtain a higher SS than Dan?

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Re: Guide to how Study Scores and ATARs are calculated!
« Reply #29 on: July 19, 2012, 02:36:26 pm »
+1
If the 2 GA's were weighted equally, then they'd have the same score, because Dan's poor exam result affects both him and Paul
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