SAC scaling

[SE_JM]

Hello,
My maths teacher at school told everyone in class that we should really make an effort to help each other during the year because it will scale everyone's marks up.
So, he said that we are not competing 'each other' but competing with 'other schools' so if we want to score good, we will need to help our classmates more (like answer questions, and explaining to each other if one person doesn't get something)

I'm not saying I never help my classmates (actually, I help out quite a lot of friends when they get stuck) but do I need to actually make an effort to help other people (who I'm not even close to) so all the scores gets scaled up?

One of my friends said I have better chance scoring better by  just studying hard myself than trying to help others instead...
Is my teacher actually right or is he just saying that to increase the overall score?

[grannysmith]

Hello,
My maths teacher at school told everyone in class that we should really make an effort to help each other during the year because it will scale everyone's marks up.
So, he said that we are not competing 'each other' but competing with 'other schools' so if we want to score good, we will need to help our classmates more (like answer questions, and explaining to each other if one person doesn't get something)

I'm not saying I never help my classmates (actually, I help out quite a lot of friends when they get stuck) but do I need to actually make an effort to help other people (who I'm not even close to) so all the scores gets scaled up?

One of my friends said I have better chance scoring better by  just studying hard myself than trying to help others instead...
Is my teacher actually right or is he just saying that to increase the overall score?

It's true that if everyone else does well on their exam, then your SAC marks will be favourably moderated upwards. That being said, if you're ranked high (say, rank 1 or 2 but it depends on how strong the top students are), then it doesn't really matter as the people ranked below you won't affect your SAC marks.

Although it's a good thing to be helping others, it's a very difficult task to help everyone. I'd argue that you'd be much better off studying hard yourself than to be dedicating too much of your time helping others.

Again, helping others is a good thing but if everybody else just worked as hard, then that'd be much easier for everybody

[keltingmeith]

I think your teacher is telling you all of this, less so that you'll help each other out, and more so that you don't get hyper competitive against each other.

VCE makes people do weird things - some people, upon realising that the VCE is a ranking system, and you get the highest score by being better than everyone else, end up turning it into a "it's me against them" kind of war. After this, they don't help anybody, and end up making enemies and just having a shit time all throughout year 12. It's not a healthy work environment, and I'm pretty sure your teacher just wanted to stop it from happening.

Hell, going out of your way to help people constantly isn't healthy either - they're two extremes that you should aim to not go to. You should just aim to work hard, do your best, but help people if they ask you and need it (assuming you're able, too). Remembering - if you help people when they need it, they'll be more likely to help you when you need it.

[odeaa]

Helping people also helps you though, if you can teach something to others you will find that it helps your own understanding. I often find that when I try to teach something to someone else I realize that I wasn't as proficient as I thought and it has helped me find weak spots in my knowledge

[SE_JM]

Thanks everyone!
Great advice