ATAR Notes: Forum
VCE Stuff => Victorian Technical Score Discussion => Topic started by: wildareal on January 23, 2010, 07:34:30 pm
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If you do super scaled languages, is the bonus on only one? IE. French and Latin
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If you do super scaled languages, is the bonus on only one? IE. French and Latin
You mean the government bonus?
That bonus is incorporated in the scaling so in effect, it is in both languages, I believe.
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government bonus?
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government bonus?
It's an incentive from the government to get students to study a LOTE.
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I haven't heard of this before... what is it exactly?
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government bonus?
It's an incentive from the government to get students to study a LOTE.
isn't it just that all lotes are scaled by +5, then are scaled either more or less depending on strength of cohort. like french would be scaled score of +7 rather then +12 otherwise.
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It adds to all. I can tell from experience with people who scored above 50 in several subjects. =)
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they way it works is, is that all lotes get 5 points added on to the mean before they are scaled.
so a subject that has a mean of say 32, gets another 5 added to the mean, making it 37. then it is scaled like normal, but because the mean is now quite high, the scaling is also very good.
in some cases where the mean is exceptionally high, the subject will scale above 50.
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Seeing as though someone at my school got 99.95 from two 50+ scaled LOTE scores, I don't think so.
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Seeing as though someone at my school got 99.95 from two 50+ scaled LOTE scores, I don't think so.
That's just cheating :( Of course I only say this because I'm not doing it. :P
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Haha i do agree the bonus is somewhat unfair for people not doing languages/ dont have a language background.
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Haha i do agree the bonus is somewhat unfair for people not doing languages/ dont have a language background.
That's why it is an "incentive". You do not have to do it. For many languages, it requires a lot of time and dedication and because of this, I think the government wants to encourage students to pick up languages as part of their VCE program. As you are aware, a few languages are starting to lose accreditation (ie. you can't do them in VCE any more) due to low enrolments. And some have already lost accreditation in the last few years.
Therefore, I think in the end, it is "fair". It just depends whether or not you want to take up the opportunity.
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Haha i do agree the bonus is somewhat unfair for people not doing languages/ dont have a language background.
That's why it is an "incentive". You do not have to do it. For many languages, it requires a lot of time and dedication and because of this, I think the government wants to encourage students to pick up languages as part of their VCE program. As you are aware, a few languages are starting to lose accreditation (ie. you can't do them in VCE any more) due to low enrolments. And some have already lost accreditation in the last few years.
Therefore, I think in the end, it is "fair". It just depends whether or not you want to take up the opportunity.
+1
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I really think there should be a background speakers category like in the HSC for most LOTEs.
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Therefore, I think in the end, it is "fair". It just depends whether or not you want to take up the opportunity.
I agree that it is a reasonably fair system. However I must point out that it's not necessarily as simple as whether you want to take up the opportunity. I studied both french and italian from year 7 year 9 but had no knowledge of such incentives, so when I came to select subjects I neglected to continue with them. I did this as I believed I would be disadvantaged in a LOTE subject compared to say a commerce one.
Once I finally realised I would not be 'disadvantaged' as such, I had missed a year and a bit and had missed the chance to do a LOTE in vce.
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I really think there should be a background speakers category like in the HSC for most LOTEs.
I think it is due to the number of people in that category that is the problem. E.g. some LOTEs don't even have a first/second language category. Also identification of whether they are background speakers or not would be a big problem.
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most lote's don't have first/second language.
i would love to see for experimental purposes, the scaling incentives removed from lote.
watch the class numbers drop tenfold...
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Totally agree. But normally they say they do it for the interest though. (Not sure why German, Latin, Chinese, Japanese is still particularly popular lol)
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I really think there should be a background speakers category like in the HSC for most LOTEs.
I think it is due to the number of people in that category that is the problem. E.g. some LOTEs don't even have a first/second language category. Also identification of whether they are background speakers or not would be a big problem.
For Chinese, I remember that upon enrolment, I had to fill out a form listing my educational history and that would "determine" whether or not I was a first/second language student.
I really would like this problem with LOTEs to be fixed with the introduction of the national curriculum. If not, then that is one massive loophole for the nation, not to mention a massive pain in the backside.
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But like what if your chinese and speak english at home?
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Then I don't think you should have to do 'background' speakers.
Lots of LOTEs (such as French, Japanese and German in particular) have people who've completed a bilingual education (which has somehow been missed by VCAA) or exceptionally long exchanges. I don't think that's fair for everyone else.
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But by saying it is fair might not be reasonable. How about those people who have done maths since they were young? Could that give them a better opportunity than those who hadn't? Or had more influence, in let's say, biology? This is all subjective and it would be difficult to make something entirely fair.
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Hmm, but I think with a language experience shows to a greater degree, whereas it's not so obvious with maths/science because the knowledge in the course is what's tested, not the knowledge of the language as a whole.
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True true.
Hmm, but I think with a language experience shows to a greater degree, whereas it's not so obvious with maths/science because the knowledge in the course is what's tested, not the knowledge of the language as a whole.
True true, I agree with that. Was just raising another point :P
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But by saying it is fair might not be reasonable. How about those people who have done maths since they were young? Could that give them a better opportunity than those who hadn't? Or had more influence, in let's say, biology? This is all subjective and it would be difficult to make something entirely fair.
But you can't really equate maths to a language, because maths is universally partaken.
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But by saying it is fair might not be reasonable. How about those people who have done maths since they were young? Could that give them a better opportunity than those who hadn't? Or had more influence, in let's say, biology? This is all subjective and it would be difficult to make something entirely fair.
But you can't really equate maths to a language, because maths is universally partaken by everyone.
Yeah that's correct :P But I guess nothing can ever be totally fair :(
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I'd just like to say on the topic of Chinese, the system is terribly corrupt. Corrupt beyond any means, as one particular school just dominates all the time and has a large handful of assesors. Even with second language, many children born here like me speak it and are semi-familiar already. Plus I believe it's hard for caucasians to learn, intonation, characters etc.
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Latin is Arts' answer to Specialist Maths.
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Latin is Arts' answer to Specialist Maths.
AGREED, I loooove latin
It's the best subject, the scaling is just an extra 'bonus' :D
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I guess from the perspective of Non-native speakers taking up LOTE in VCE, the markup is well worth it, given the enormous work one puts into learning the language.
For example, Hebrew has a higher markup than Spec, but I work harder in Hebrew, so naturally the markup should be greater.
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I thought Hebrew would only be offered in ethnic schools like Mt Scopus?
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I fucking hate you people. I did a LOTE that gets scaled down. Oh, yes work your ass off so your study score doesn't go up by 13, no it goes DOWN...
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I thought Hebrew would only be offered in ethnic schools like Mt Scopus?
Not so. It's offered in quite a few public schools as well as through vsl.
On a side note, I don't believe any school in Victoria defines itself by ethnicity - so this is a patently false assumption. Religion based maybe, not ethnic.
I fucking hate you people. I did a LOTE that gets scaled down. Oh, yes work your ass off so your study score doesn't go up by 13, no it goes DOWN...
What lote is that kakr0t?
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I thought Hebrew would only be offered in ethnic schools like Mt Scopus?
No so. It's offered in quite a few public schools as well as through vsl.
On a side note, I don't believe any school in Victoria defines itself by ethnicity - so this is a patently false assumption. Religion based maybe, not ethnic.
St Johns Greek Orthodox College
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I thought Hebrew would only be offered in ethnic schools like Mt Scopus?
No so. It's offered in quite a few public schools as well as through vsl.
On a side note, I don't believe any school in Victoria defines itself by ethnicity - so this is a patently false assumption. Religion based maybe, not ethnic.
St Johns Greek Orthodox College
Lol, i think you're just trying to be funny. You do realize that 'greek orthodox' refers to a church. You don't have to be greek to believe in or attend this schools.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Orthodox_Church
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dunno why people do languages when they're pretty good at them in the first place. For me, i dont give two shits about the atar score. Considering i wasn't born here and my native language is done here in vce but there's no "FL/SL etc", i couldve got an easy 45+ =P. instead i'm doing Lit ^____^.
I do subjects to learn new things, not to boost my marks.
p.s i find it funny in my lit class, we have quite a few immigrants who've been here less than 5 years. One girl is doing ESL as well as lit, ahaha
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dunno why people do languages when they're pretty good at them in the first place. For me, i dont give two shits about the atar score. Considering i wasn't born here and my native language is done here in vce but there's no "FL/SL etc", i couldve got an easy 45+ =P.
Answered yourself there lol. Yeah the LOTE system fails epically.
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i think it works, since i benefited from it ;)
i took latin & french (no background in either), and the scaling has made a CSP place at uni possible which i probably wouldn't have got otherwise.
otoh, a unit 2 german class i sat in on was mostly made up of students who spoke german at home who were using it as an easy option. If the point of the scaling is to encourage people to get some language qualifications, then even if FL learners get in, isn't it still doing the job?
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I am doing Latin (at one of the only two government schools offering it) and I must say... the level of difficulty and amount of hard work deserves that boost of 16/17...
Of course no one should be choosing subjects purely on scaling prospects.. but a Latin 35 to 50 just seemed so darn tempting. But I also chose it because I want to get into Law.. and it also helps a LOT with English (now that grammar/linguistics has been neglected in secondary english).
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Wish more schools offered Latin, I hope uni somehow offers it as an elective.
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Wish more schools offered Latin, I hope uni somehow offers it as an elective.
I would assume Latin would be in a course like Arts?
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Yep! http://arts.monash.edu.au/classical/ugrad/latin.php
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Yep! http://arts.monash.edu.au/classical/ugrad/latin.php
Actually, I know someone studying Latin atm. She says it helps infinitely with French.
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Yep! http://arts.monash.edu.au/classical/ugrad/latin.php
I've seen the one in monash, its under classical studies or something. Unfortunately I don't think I'll be pursuing arts, but I really want to learn Latin/continue French. URGH inflexible uni. jks.