Specialist scaling in 2012

[Pup]

will specialist scaling stay the same as last years. I heard from people, it is increasing its scaling by another 3 in 2012.

[Greatness]

will specialist scaling stay the same as last years. I heard from people, it is increasing its scaling by another 3 in 2012.

That's ridiculous it was already insane last year. It would probably stay the same or go up/down by 1. If anything it would drop imo.

[jasoN-]

It will probably drop back down this year.
It depends on the students performance on the exam, I reckon they will make it easier this year, hence scaling will go down to something more appropriate, like 8 or 9

[mikesguns]

How hard/easy the exam is has nothing to do with the scaling. It is to do with the strength of the total Specialist Maths cohort against their performance in other subjects.

[Truck]

It will most likely stay around the same, with a variation of + or - 1.

[Special At Specialist]

I haven't heard of any scaling next year, but I'm guessing it will stay the same (perhaps +1 or -1) since the system of marking is not going to change.

How hard/easy the exam is has nothing to do with the scaling. It is to do with the strength of the total Specialist Maths cohort against their performance in other subjects.

This is correct. The specialist exam was actually very easy last year and it was still a +12.

[Ravit]

not verified information but my spesh tutor who is also a VCAA assessors discussed the liklihood of spesh scaling to be around 12-13.

[InsaneMcFries]

This is correct. The specialist exam was actually very easy last year and it was still a +12.

How hard/easy the exam is has nothing to do with the scaling. It is to do with the strength of the total Specialist Maths cohort against their performance in other subjects.

That's partially incorrect. If an exam is too easy, the spread of the students will be bunched up at the higher end of the marks, causing average and excellent students to be in very similar positions. When this happens, it means that good students that make small mistakes could fall behind a lot of other students, meaning that the scaling will be higher, as any small mistake could cost you multiple study score points.
On the flip-side, the methods exam last year was very difficult, meaning that the spread between students was very even, and the better students were spread out better. This meant the scaling had to drop, because it was easier to stand out at your skill level and you got a study score that suited your skill level better.

[Truck]

This is correct. The specialist exam was actually very easy last year and it was still a +12.

How hard/easy the exam is has nothing to do with the scaling. It is to do with the strength of the total Specialist Maths cohort against their performance in other subjects.

That's partially incorrect. If an exam is too easy, the spread of the students will be bunched up at the higher end of the marks, causing average and excellent students to be in very similar positions. When this happens, it means that good students that make small mistakes could fall behind a lot of other students, meaning that the scaling will be higher, as any small mistake could cost you multiple study score points.
On the flip-side, the methods exam last year was very difficult, meaning that the spread between students was very even, and the better students were spread out better. This meant the scaling had to drop, because it was easier to stand out at your skill level and you got a study score that suited your skill level better.

Ehm... don't know where you got that from, but Scaling is just determined by how well people do in a Subject vs. how well they do in other subjects. None of what you said really matters, the reason Spec. goes up 12 is because your average person who gets a 30 in Spec will get a 42 in a subject with no scaling. There isn't really much correlation between difficulty of exam(s) and scaling, because you still have the same "type" of student doing it regardless of scaling. Case in point: Further Maths. Very competitive, one mark in an exam lost basically = one study score lost... still scales down.

[pi]

This is correct. The specialist exam was actually very easy last year and it was still a +12.

Poor reasoning, but ok...

It was only +12 because VCAA added some points beforehand.




ANYWAY, don't worry about scaling lol, just try your best to get a good raw score!

[Reckoner]

Exam difficulty doesn't affect scaling. Scaling is determined by comparing how the students in Subject A go in subject B,C,D... with those who don't do Subject A but still do Subjects B,C etc. The spesh (Subject A) students will have their chemistry (Subject B) compared with the chemistry scores of those who don't do spesh. This comparing is done for every subject B (english, physics, art etc.). If, in general, the students doing Subject A do better in subjects B,C... than those who don't do subject A, subject A scales up and vice-versa. This happens for every subject (there may also be some points added on by VCAA for various reasons).

I hope that make sense...

[LOLs99]

Hope Spesh scales up more every yr...

[Becky2012]

But it couldn't be too much less could it? Because really, having the scaling the same, or just one more than in methods is just ridiculous considering how much harder the subject is. Isn't that part of why it went up more last year?

[Special At Specialist]

Poor reasoning, but ok...

Not really. I was giving an example of a subject which had high scaling despite an easy exam to emphasise the point that an easy exam does not necessarily result in a mark down.
It is also a premise leading to the conclusion that the difficulty of an exam does not affect its scaling.
How is that poor reasoning?

[thushan]

OK - i'll clear up a few things.

Spesh scaling was supposed to be +11-12 the whole time. It was +11-12 in 2006 and before. However, what happened was that more and more of the spesh students started doing methods in year 11 rather than in year 12. When VTAC does scaling, they compare Methods and Spesh directly. What they did before was consider people who do Methods and Spesh concurrently only, and not ppl who do Methods in Year 11 and Spesh in Year 12. Because of this shift to Methods in Year 11, and VTAC's lack of consideration of that factor, scaling for Spesh started to drop from +11 to about +7.

Then, last year, VTAC realised their mistake and adjusted their scaling method to consider students who did Methods in Year 11 and Spesh in Year 12 and compare their raw scores in those subjects. As a result of this, the scaling returned back to the normal +11-12.

Prior to 2006, Spesh scaling was quite consistent, so I would say that this year the spesh scaling will also be about +11.