VCE is a flawed system.

[lbeste12]

VCE is something that greatly frustrates and annoys me!

Why is it a flawed system? Because it favours an elite group of kids who represent probably about 2% of the state.

For example...if I were to get all 50's in my 6 subjects (I'm talking absolute perfection here!) then I would still only get a 99.90.
Is this not highly unfair? I mean, achieving perfection in all subjects SURELY deserves a perfect score? NO IT DOES NOT APPARENTLY!

Figuratively speaking, the only way for me to get a 99.95 is if I do specialist or a language.
I talked to a girl today who is taking specialist and french. I quote 'the only reason why I'm doing them is because I want a 99.90'.

This is hypocrisy! They tell us that we should pick subjects we like! That scaling shouldn't matter! BUT IT DOES!
If I knew this before they decided to let spesh get scaled up by 13 something, then I probably would never have dropped a language or I would have tried to destroy my brain with spesh when I know that I'm not capable of doing such an advanced maths subject!

VCE favours an elite group of kids. Not all of us are equipped with a maths brain! I struggle to understand maths, but I am very good at english and lit.

Whilst I am capable of a score above 99, I am NOT a maths person. Some people just understand it way easier than I do, so why am I being disadvantaged because I am more humanities based than maths based?

I strongly believe that subjects shouldn't be scaled above a 50. This system should be equal and shouldn't favour kids who are good at maths, because we're not all human calculators, some of us may be history freaks. Put a spesh kid in a history kids shoes and most would struggle to get a high score(no generalisation intended)

Whilst I understand that spesh is a bloody hard subject to score well in and I respect people who do it, any subject is hard to do well in, because you're competing against other kids. In my perspective, scoring a 50 in further is probably equally as hard as scoring say, a 45 in spesh which gets marked up to 53. Ridiculous!

VCE...you do my head in.

I realise that many of the 3000 or so spesh kids out there would disagree with me, but the 47000 (approx) out there, we are not getting the same opportunity...not everyone is a genius at maths or languages.

Once again, VCE is a flawed system.

[shinny]

Has been argued many times, but it's not exactly flawed. Well, not much at least. Sure, it's flawed for the ones who intend on but miss out on the ~30 or so spots who get 99.95, but that's about it. However, the system doesn't exist to serve this minority. For the other 99.95% of students, it works quite fine actually. I'd say that's a fairly good success rate.

The only other flaw isn't the fact that subjects such as languages scale above 50, but more so the fact that they get an inherent +5 to their study score, and hence why they go above 50. This most certainly is unfair, but it's the State's way of encouraging people to study languages, and there's not much you can do about it really. These slight problems you're mentioning are more or less 'bugs' which pop up as a result of the systems that VCE has implemented exactly for the purpose of ensuring equality. You're picking on minor issues, but without systems such as scaling and so on, the system would be far more unfair. Imagine what would happen if there wasn't scaling and moderation at all to begin with.

[abd123]

Most Maths/Science/language subjects scale a lot and Yes its easier to get a 99.90 or 99.95 from the scaling effect. A lot of humanities subjects either stays standarised, moves up by 1 or 2 (depending on the percentile) and scales down. A lot of students choose humanities subjects over maths/sciecne subjects, because some humanities are seen as route learning subjects right? and it seems to be the norm of doing subjects i.e. 'legal studies'

Maths/Science/languages are not Necessary for you to get you a 99.90 or 99.95. They are some Humanitie kids that gotted 99.90's and 99.95's. Of course if your doing the subjects you enjoy are much more prone to do better than the subjects you hate, do I stand correct?

I reckon that the  Humanities subjects too deserve the scaling effects as the maths/science/subjects .

[mark_alec]

The scaling is made in order to equalise things. The fact of the matter is that the population that chooses to do specialist maths does on average better at other subjects (such as English) than the population that takes history. Subjects are scaled to take account of the fact scoring average results in different subjects (i.e. a raw study score of 30) does not imply equal difficulty or academic merit.

[Camo]

There are so many more worse things in the world.

Have a go at the Government for Centrelink, to many annoyances there.

[lbeste12]

yes i agree shinny, scaling is essential, but scaling shouldn't go above 50. people should do languages because they like it. most kids at my school actually hate french and wish they werent doing it, but they are fighting it out because of the benefits.

yes, humanities subjects should have higher scaling! writing an entire essay on the russian revolution in 30 minutes is really hard!
but like i said, i dont do spesh or a language...but if i were to get all 50s, due to the new scaling of spesh, id only get a 99.90. 99.95 seems to be reserved for those 30 kids who manage to score well in spesh or languages.

[lbeste12]

The scaling is made in order to equalise things. The fact of the matter is that the population that chooses to do specialist maths does on average better at other subjects (such as English) than the population that takes history. Subjects are scaled to take account of the fact scoring average results in different subjects (i.e. a raw study score of 30) does not imply equal difficulty or academic merit.

if I was aware of this before I chose my subjects, I would have taken scaling into consideration and I would never have dropped french in year 10.

I am not disagreeing with anyone here, in fact all the points I agree with, but what bugs me is the fact that with the subjects I'm doing, if I got 6 50's, I still wouldn't get a perfect score, despite getting perfect study scores.

[LOLs99]

The scaling for spesh seems alright to me because it's not a subject that can be taken lightly and it really requires heaps of tough work and understanding...and the reason why most languages scaled up above 50 is because vcaa/pm encourage more vce students to do a language becuase it's beneficial..I know it's unfair to humanities students but there's less competition in those subjects compared to maths/science subjects. Of course I agree that at some point, humanities students are more worried about these stuff, but you have to accept that it's set by vcaa, so that's a fact, you can't change it..

[oliverk94]

I don't see why you should get stressed about not getting 99.95 when 99.00 is an extremely good score..

[Starlight]

Yeah i think people should be able to get a perfect score with whatever subjects their doing, but scaling over 50 to me doesn't seem like too much of a concern.

[kensan]

I don't see why you should get stressed about not getting 99.95 when 99.00 is an extremely good score..

agree.

People who have skills in mathematics and science will be of more benefit to society in the future in general (imo and opinions of science/maths teachers I've talked to).
And usually the art/commerce courses have a lower minimum ATAR compared to medical and engineering courses anyway, so I think it works out.

[mark_alec]

I am not disagreeing with anyone here, in fact all the points I agree with, but what bugs me is the fact that with the subjects I'm doing, if I got 6 50's, I still wouldn't get a perfect score, despite getting perfect study scores.

The problem is not in any single subject, but that the system reduces it to a single number. There might be better ways of doing it, but those would require universities to define what skills they want for their courses and to weight individual subjects accordingly.

Either that or go to an IB type system where everybody is required to take the same mix of subjects (e.g. one maths, one science, one humanities, one language etc.)

[shinny]

yes, humanities subjects should have higher scaling! writing an entire essay on the russian revolution in 30 minutes is really hard!

Scaling never had anything to do with difficulty. It's about the level of competition within that particular cohort. The ability of languages to go above 50 has already been explained. Spesh; I'm not too sure actually. Does anyone actually know VCAA's actual justification behind that? Is it purely due to it's difficulty (which is quite inconsistent of them considering no other subject takes this factor into account) or are they trying to achieve something similar to what they do with languages? 

but if i were to get all 50s, due to the new scaling of spesh, id only get a 99.90. 99.95 seems to be reserved for those 30 kids who manage to score well in spesh or languages.

Well yeh, in the government's eyes, they are more deserving of a 99.95 considering their subjects are more useful/difficult (not trying to degrade humanities subjects here; more talking in terms of priorities for the government atm). There can only be 30, so that's how they'll choose them. But really, if you're whining about not being able to get a 99.95 due to these 'flawed' rules of the game, wait until you get out into the real world >_> VCE land is pretty damn fair and tame as far as I'm concerned. Basically, learn to play the game; VCE and many other parts of life and society are no different.

[mark_alec]

Does anyone actually know VCAA's actual justification behind that? Is it purely due to it's difficulty (which is quite inconsistent of them considering no other subject takes this factor into account) or are they trying to achieve something similar to what they do with languages?

Besides comparing them against other subjects, the maths subjects are directly compared against each other, so that specialist > methods > further. The extra scaling given that can be given to specialist maths is to account for the fact that is *objectively* harder than maths methods.

[Starlight]

yes, humanities subjects should have higher scaling! writing an entire essay on the russian revolution in 30 minutes is really hard!

Scaling never had anything to do with difficulty. It's about the level of competition within that particular cohort. The ability of languages to go above 50 has already been explained. Spesh; I'm not too sure actually. Does anyone actually know VCAA's actual justification behind that? Is it purely due to it's difficulty (which is quite inconsistent of them considering no other subject takes this factor into account) or are they trying to achieve something similar to what they do with languages? 

but if i were to get all 50s, due to the new scaling of spesh, id only get a 99.90. 99.95 seems to be reserved for those 30 kids who manage to score well in spesh or languages.

Well yeh, in the government's eyes, they are more deserving of a 99.95 considering their subjects are more useful/difficult (not trying to degrade humanities subjects here; more talking in terms of priorities for the government atm). There can only be 30, so that's how they'll choose them. But really, if you're whining about not being able to get a 99.95 due to these 'flawed' rules of the game, wait until you get out into the real world >_> VCE land is pretty damn fair and tame as far as I'm concerned. Basically, learn to play the game; VCE and many other parts of life and society are no different.

I thought that was summed up pretty well shinny