The VCE is biased

[kendraaaaa]

Through this year I've learnt one solid fact, the VCE is extremely biased towards the Maths and Sciences. Have a look around, the vast majority of those who have obtained 95+ have done the 'asian five' or 'curry six' - (Methods, Spesh, Physics, Chem, Acc). Nearly all of these subjects get scaled extremely, yes they are hard however the learning curve for these subjects is quite smaller for those, who are naturally biased to the type of thinking that these subjects require. From observing those at my school, the kids studying the aforementioned subjects *generally* don't perform as well in English. Those A+ marks in Spesh SACs are quite rarely matched in English SACs.

I'll use one subject from the humanities to clearly illustrate my point - History: Revolutions. Last year, a raw 40 scaled down to a 39. I'm doing this subject myself this year, along with Chemistry (as a comparison). To obtain an A in a Revs SAC I had to do the following. Firstly, obtain a basic grasp of what happened, this required 3 months worths of classes in which we were taught the 'basics'. In about a week prior to the actual SAC, I started revising. This included revisiting all the content firstly on a basic level, then on an analytical level, and finally synthesize all the information to be prepared for the SAC. I had to memorize 5 quotes, 6 four-numbered statistics, and have my essay in my head - which totalled 10 pages in the acutal SAC.

For a recent Chem SAC I also obtained an A. The task was on electrolysis, galvanic cells, and fuel cells. This was taught to us in ~2 weeks. 4 days prior to the SAC I did all the extended-response check point questions releveant to electrolysis. I also did about 10 for each of the other areas of study. The SAC was about 4-5 pages long, and we finished it in a period.

Now, the point I'm trying to make is this. For the lead up to the exams, I will (and have) put in about 3x the hours for Revolutions than Chemistry - to obtain (hopefully) A+ on both of the exams. However, the reward for my efforts in History are it being scaled down. In Chem, a 35 gets me a 40. I'm not trying to insult the maths/sciences, what I'm saying is that those subjects compared with the humanities require a totally different approach.

[kurrymuncher]

haha kendra, Its always been known that the VCE is biased towards people that do the asian 5 or curry 6. Just forget about it, and study hardcore, by the time you get your enter score and get your first preference, this wont even matter anymore.

[Over9000]

how long does it take for u to memorise "5 quotes, 6 four-numbered statistics, and have my essay in my head"

coz some people can memorise 50 essays in about a 4 - 5 days.

[xXNovaxX]

i THINK, just a thought, the reason subjects get scaled isn't purely for moderation and making is cough cough "fair" I think it also has to do with skill shortages (thoguh it never is mentioned anywhere). Like that's why spesh, LOTEs, and the sciences get scaled up hardcore. It's not scaled because its necessarily harder, for you can't compare history with science, or maths with English/languages.

And like kurrymuncher said, dw about it. It's almost over, complain only when you get ur marks . LOL. But yeah. That's why they say choose subjects u enjoy and are good at. There are hundreds of people who do what they like, and score betetr than pplz who chose spesh or sciences. Some have gotten in the 90's with just arts/music/humanities

[kendraaaaa]

how long does it take for u to memorise "5 quotes, 6 four-numbered statistics, and have my essay in my head"

coz some people can memorise 50 essays in about a 4 - 5 days.

really? i dont know if you're being sarcastic because i really hope so. please show me who can memorize 150,000 words in 4-5 days. the essay i wrote was about 3000 words long. and no i didn't memorize it word for word, but i pretty much came close.

[Over9000]

how long does it take for u to memorise "5 quotes, 6 four-numbered statistics, and have my essay in my head"

coz some people can memorise 50 essays in about a 4 - 5 days.

really? i dont know if you're being sarcastic because i really hope so. please show me who can memorize 150,000 words in 4-5 days. the essay i wrote was about 3000 words long. and no i didn't memorize it word for word, but i pretty much came close.

truetears can, since year 7 hes memorised like wat probs 500 essays by now, he memorised around 60 - 70 chinese essays last year for exam.

[kurrymuncher]

how long does it take for u to memorise "5 quotes, 6 four-numbered statistics, and have my essay in my head"

coz some people can memorise 50 essays in about a 4 - 5 days.

really? i dont know if you're being sarcastic because i really hope so. please show me who can memorize 150,000 words in 4-5 days. the essay i wrote was about 3000 words long. and no i didn't memorize it word for word, but i pretty much came close.

truetears can, since year 7 hes memorised like wat probs 500 essays by now, he memorised around 60 - 70 chinese essays last year for exam.

faaaaaaaaark me!

[bloodboy]

HOYL SHITT

[mypurpleundercracka]

Revs should get scaled up, by far the best and one of the most challenging subjects in the vce course

[kendraaaaa]

how long does it take for u to memorise "5 quotes, 6 four-numbered statistics, and have my essay in my head"

coz some people can memorise 50 essays in about a 4 - 5 days.

really? i dont know if you're being sarcastic because i really hope so. please show me who can memorize 150,000 words in 4-5 days. the essay i wrote was about 3000 words long. and no i didn't memorize it word for word, but i pretty much came close.

truetears can, since year 7 hes memorised like wat probs 500 essays by now, he memorised around 60 - 70 chinese essays last year for exam.

Are you really trying to use that as some sort of evidence?

[TonyHem]

When I saw the title, I thought this was going to be about schools/teachers/examiners.
There is no way to make VCE "fair". Someone is always going to complain or have a sook about something.

[TrueTears]

I've never liked the VCE system with all the scaling and moderation and all that bs.

Why can't we just get the score we get.

[Fyrefly]

I've never liked the VCE system with all the scaling and moderation and all that bs.

Why can't we just get the score we get.

Because then no-one would do Latin or Specialists.

And before you point out that you would do Spec anywayz TT, know that you are an exceptionally brilliant and rare person.

[TrueTears]

I've never liked the VCE system with all the scaling and moderation and all that bs.

Why can't we just get the score we get.

Because then no-one would do Latin or Specialists.

And before you point out that you would do Spec anywayz TT, know that you are an exceptionally brilliant and rare person.

hahahaha that's a good point.

but still all this scaling and moderating annoys me lol

[ninwa]

really? i dont know if you're being sarcastic because i really hope so. please show me who can memorize 150,000 words in 4-5 days. the essay i wrote was about 3000 words long. and no i didn't memorize it word for word, but i pretty much came close.

I memorised a 2000 word essay an hour before the exam (this included about 10 statistics as well). Your short-term memory can be amazing if you are desperate enough

Now, the point I'm trying to make is this. For the lead up to the exams, I will (and have) put in about 3x the hours for Revolutions than Chemistry - to obtain (hopefully) A+ on both of the exams. However, the reward for my efforts in History are it being scaled down. In Chem, a 35 gets me a 40. I'm not trying to insult the maths/sciences, what I'm saying is that those subjects compared with the humanities require a totally different approach.

A different approach, sure, but not necessarily more difficult nor necessarily deserving of reward.

Remember that scaling takes into account the cohort's performance in that subject as compared to their other subjects. Maths/sciences are scaled up so much more than, for example, Revs because the maths/sciences cohort generally performs worse than the Revs cohort.

I don't think the VCE is magically "biased" towards maths/sciences and against humanities/arts. Examples:

• Further scales down.
• Music (solo and styles) scales up.
• International studies and politics scale up more than biology does.

Btw LOTEs are scaled up so much because the government believes that there are great benefits (I'm guessing in terms of commerce, diplomacy etc.) to more students knowing foreign languages, and therefore it has been incentivised.

Languages Other Than English (LOTEs)

As a result of government policy to encourage the study of LOTEs, the mean of each LOTE is adjusted up by adding five to the ENTER subject score mean. This does not imply that all LOTE students receive an increase of five ENTER points. For each LOTE the scaled mean equals "normal" scaled mean plus five. In general all students of a LOTE receive an adjustment, but it is not a uniform adjustment. For example, a student achieving a perfect study score of 50 is guaranteed an ENTER subject score of 50, with the maximum ENTER subject score only going above 50 when the scaled mean plus twice the scaled standard deviation exceeds 50.

I firmly believe that if you are a humanities person, you can do just as well as a maths/sciences person.

EDIT: I'M SORRY ABOUT THE RANT I'M VERY BORED TONIGHT.