I've heard about ranking before but I'm still not really sure what it is or how it affects your study score? Is it only for biology or do they have this for other subjects too? Thanks for any help (:
It's for every subject, and what it basically means is that your final SAC mark isn't based on your raw SAC marks in school, but your ranking in your school for that subject (that is, if you had the overall highest SAC marks, you'd be ranked first).
The way I saw it explained (somewhere on this board) was:
Say you have 3 people (Alice, Bob and Chris). Let's say they make up a cohort.
- Alice gets 80 for her SAC mark, 75 for exam
- Bob gets 60 for his SAC mark, 90 for exam
- Chris gets 40 for his SAC mark, 40 for exam
Alice, as rank 1 in SACs, would get a SAC mark based upon the highest exam mark in her cohort (which may or may not be her). In this case, this is Bob's exam mark of 90 (note that she still gets her exam score of 75, it's only her SAC mark that's based on her SAC ranking). Similarly, Bob as rank 2 in SACs would have his SAC mark based on Alice's exam performance and so on.
This is why the strength of your cohort matters, and if you go to a "bad" school you want to be rank 1 in SACs so it's based upon your own exam performance (if you're able to get the highest in your school).