Changes to study designs!! Thoughts?

[TigerMum]

Can only speak for maths, but I would have preferred that the end of year exams had their weighting increased to compensate for the lost SACs. (But in general I don't like SACs and would prefer to just have 100% exams, perhaps with mid-year exams). I know that students regard exams as quite stressful, but I think they are a fairer assessment overall, and are more straightforward to prepare for.

On the reduction of content: I think the omission of inferential statistics from both Methods & Spesh can partially be taken as an admission from VCAA of how pointless and stupid the inclusion of those topics was. It would be better if they are removed from the new study design from 2022 onwards.

It is disappointing that Methods retained normal distributions (which is little more than an exercise in pushing buttons on CAS) but got rid of continuous probability distributions (which allowed for a connection between probability & calculus). Presumably this is because the normal distribution is required for Spesh. (Ugh).

Further is now extremely light on. The subject was already essentially just an arms race in who could practice the most past exam questions, but now it's even worse. I suspect that most schools will have finished data in term 1, and so now have two terms to cover finance and one module (which could normally be done in one term, or perhaps one term + a couple of weeks).

Obviously it's a difficult and unanticipated situation, but what has happened with the adjustments really highlights how awful the study designs were to begin with.

Some excellent points made here. I commented earlier on this topic that I was bewildered as to how increasing the weighting of a SAC covering content taught during online classes was supposed to lessen the impact of online classes on students. I already share similar levels of contempt for SACs for the reasons you outlined and I would prefer that the weighting of final exams increased across all subjects.

Also agree about Methods; continuous probability distributions were probably (haha) the most interesting thing in the prob/stats area of study and it was unfortunate that they were given the axe ahead of normal distributions.

In relation to the study designs for 2022, what content would you like to see added/removed for maths subjects?

[J_Rho]

Can only speak for maths, but I would have preferred that the end of year exams had their weighting increased to compensate for the lost SACs. (But in general I don't like SACs and would prefer to just have 100% exams, perhaps with mid-year exams). I know that students regard exams as quite stressful, but I think they are a fairer assessment overall, and are more straightforward to prepare for.

100% agree with this!
I'm doing further and the changes to the study design are the only subject I'm not mad about but it SUCKS that methods barely got changed like its not fair at all because arguably all the maths are equally competitive within themselves.

[S_R_K]

In relation to the study designs for 2022, what content would you like to see added/removed for maths subjects?

That would be a massive post, and would derail this thread. I think the overall design of the curriculum is fundamentally flawed, and just tinkering around the edges by adding / removing a few bits of content would not change that much.

A good model would have been the HSC maths curriculum, prior to their changes for 2020. This was the gold standard for Australian maths education, and every other state paled in comparison.

[TheEagle]

How do y'all think the grade distribution would look like this year? Specifically for methods and spesh

[Sine]

How do y'all think the grade distribution would look like this year? Specifically for methods and spesh

I don't think it would change that much. In reality, the grade distribution is absolutely arbitrary. VCAA can decide to give out an A+ to 20% of students or may only give it out to 8%. However, this grade given does not dictate your study score. Your position ranked is what is used to determine your study score.

[Lilyyyy]

I'm just so excited that they took out the entire stats and probability part from spesh! That part is my least favorite.

[Failingvce]

Hey Guys!

As some of you may know, the study designs for further, methods, spesh, English language and biology have changed recently for 2020. What are everyone's thoughts?

MOD EDIT: removed all caps title

I hate that for some subjects they’ve increased the weighting for unit 3 and decreased it for unit 4. Learning is already so difficult since we are all in quarantine so I really don’t understand why they thought increasing it would be a good idea. Especially for schools like mine who are doing their sacs online, in addition to stress about the SAC we now also have to worry about technological difficulties among other things. Even some of my teachers have told us that they expect us to do worse in our unit 3 sacs so it doesn’t make any sense.

[a weaponized ikea chair]

Uh dumb question but this won't change study design for 2021, right, assuming covid19 blows over?

[Joseph41]

Uh dumb question but this won't change study design for 2021, right, assuming covid19 blows over?

These particular amendments are for 2020 only.

[Joseph41]

Hi everybody!

We've put together an article summarising our interpretation of some of the changes below:

https://atarnotes.com/vce-study-design-changes/

[Sine]

Based on the subjects that I am familiar with I don't really feel like the changes are either great or bad. It would be frustrating for someone who has already learnt the content of the course and then VCAA just chucking some parts out but I still think learning those concepts will add an extra layer of knowledge for those students which could be helpful since different parts of the study design in ceratin subjects are linked quite a bit.

The changes to sac weighting (giving more weight to U3 than U4) is annoying especially since a lot of unit 3 sacs are already done. So changing the weighting of something after it has happened is not fair IMO. Could have just given some U4 weighting to the exam.

As others have said I would have thought the best solution would be to increase the exam weighting - it is the only thing that is 100% standard across the state so less prone to corruption.

[Lear]

I am interested to see how this will affect how university courses as certain cut out topics are assumed knowledge in university due to the course's prerequisite. For example, many courses which have methods as a prerequisite will assume that you have an understanding of sample proportions and confidence intervals. However, this has now been removed from the methods study design and therefore students will not have that background.

[HUA0007]

Is there a website that has the SACs for each subject for easy VCE prep?

English: SAC 1, 2, 3 etc
No oral
More essays

Methods: Exam 1 + Exam 2
etc..