Exam and SS

[Ram007]

Does ranking in the exam affect your SS?

Do you receive your own exam mark regardless,  but only your  SAC's get moderated?

[mishamigo]

Yep, your exam mark isn't changed.

[MagicGecko]

Does ranking in the exam affect your SS?

Do you receive your own exam mark regardless,  but only your  SAC's get moderated?

Yep, that's correct. Only your SAC marks get altered, your exam mark stays the same regardless of what happens.

[Ram007]

If let's say I'm ranked 12th out of 60 students for Business Management and I get an A on the exam. For GA1 &2 do I receive the 12th highest sac scores for my GA1&2 and for GA3: A ?

[mishamigo]

From what I understand, your sac mark will be the 12th highest exam result from your cohort.

[lArcdeTriomphe]

GA 3 is your exam score, which does not change, so you would get an A for that.
GA 1 and GA 2 are dependent on your rankings in SACs (i.e. SAC scores), so, as aj713 said, you would receive the 12th highest exam result in your cohort as your result for GA 1&2. Essentially the SAC scores are only rankings (the actual mark you get is arbitrary and is not taken into account). The rankings, in conjunction with the exam marks in your cohort, are then used to determine your GA grades, and, in turn, your SS.

[thepikanation]

From what I understand, your sac mark will be the 12th highest exam result from your cohort.

Whilst as a general rule of thumb it works great, this isn't technically what happens. What really ends up happening is that the top student, Q1, Q2 and Q3 are indeed a transferral of the mark from the exam placed onto GA1 and GA2, the rest are spread in accordance to the spread of SAC rankngs.

In your Business Management example that means that the SAC ranks of 1st, 15th, 30th and 45th are the 1st, 15th, 30th and 45th highest exam scores. All the other scores however are made to match the natural spread of the original SAC marks. Your rank of 12th will then make a GA1 and GA2 mark that is reflective of performing 3 students SAC ranks higher than the exact result of the 15th highest score. If that makes sense...

The GAT can also moderate slightly from this, as well as outliers and derived exam scores calculated separately.

Hope that helps!

[Ram007]

How is GA1&2 given via the exam if the exam itself is one score. So in this scenario if the 12th highest exam mark was A, does that mean that GA1&2 become A and I get A for all GA's?

[thepikanation]

How is GA1&2 given via the exam if the exam itself is one score. So in this scenario if the 12th highest exam mark was A, does that mean that GA1&2 become A and I get A for all GA's?

The problem is the example of being ranked 12th in the cohort doesn't really make sense haha. Each GA has a different rank, so in the case of Business Management you could be 10th in Unit 3 and 14th in Unit 4, then you've averaged it and said you're 12th overall. That's what I'm guessing you've done.

The thing is you have to keep the two marks /100 separate for each unit, as the position of students' SAC rankings may be different in Unit 3 as in Unit 4. It matters how close people's SAC marks are to each other.

Because of this, even if you ranked exactly 12th in both Unit 3 and Unit 4 by mere chance, the Quartiles would mean the mark for the SACs can differ from Unit to Unit. It depends on the placement of the whole cohort relative to each other's marks.

[Ram007]

Do most people usally get their sac marks they got at school as the final result, or does the raw marks you got usally go up a grade or go down or stay the same ?

[Anchy]

From what I understand, your sac mark will be the 12th highest exam result from your cohort.

Does this mean that if you average say... 80% for a subject in terms of sacs HOWEVER you're rank 1 and get full marks in the exam, does this mean you'll get close to a 50?

[thepikanation]

Do most people usally get their sac marks they got at school as the final result, or does the raw marks you got usally go up a grade or go down or stay the same ?

As a general trend, it's difficult to say. The scores distribution by VCAA is designed to be a mid-ground, as a means to level the playing field for all students. Depending on your school and more specifically the markers of your subject, you could go up or down depending on how difficult the SACs are set by your school.

I guess the best way to think about it is tracking back from how well you did on the exam. Within 5-10% most people do roughly the same percentile-wise across SACs and exams. If you thought the exam was difficult say 60%, but you have a high SAC mark say 90%, chances are that you had easy SACs set for you, and your cohort's marks will go down accordingly. Of course the opposite is also a possibility, that you feel you aced the exam, say 90%, but your cohort's SACs were pretty average, say 60%, chances are your teacher set hard SACs, and hence the SAC marks will scale up accordingly to counteract this difference as best as possible.

As a general trend however, I cannot say. It really depends school to school and subject to subject. Some go up, and equally many go down.

Also, as a general rule, if you look at the data published on the VCAA website, people tend to have a much higher scaled SAC percentage than exam percentage. Just as a general rule of thumb.

Does this mean that if you average say... 80% for a subject in terms of sacs HOWEVER you're rank 1 and get full marks in the exam, does this mean you'll get close to a 50?

If you're first in the cohort, I believe yes this is possible. This is because 1st as well as the Quartiles are used to re-calibrate the class SAC marks. If you were second however, possibly not, at least it's much harder, as you don't have that advantage of setting the scaled mark. There is a chance under such exceptional differences between SACs and the exam mark that you would be deemed an outlier and calculated separately.

But theoretically, yes I believe that is possible

[mad_maxine]

Does this mean that if you average say... 80% for a subject in terms of sacs HOWEVER you're rank 1 and get full marks in the exam, does this mean you'll get close to a 50?

They will not even look at your sac scores, only your ranking. Therefore, if you get the highest exam mark, because you are tank 1, that will also become your sac mark and you maintain your own exam mark.

[thepikanation]

They will not even look at your sac scores, only your ranking. Therefore, if you get the highest exam mark, because you are tank 1, that will also become your sac mark and you maintain your own exam mark.

Yes, but only in the case of being 1st, or on a quartile. If you're not, contrary to popular belief, your SAC marks do actually matter! They position your SACs in a way that is reflective of the differences in SAC marks between members of the cohort. It basically makes the difference between coming second in the cohort by 1% or by 20%. If they didn't factor in SAC marks, and only used rankings, they would be considered synonymous, which wouldn't be fair. VTAC isn't completely soul-less haha.

[mad_maxine]

Yes, but only in the case of being 1st, or on a quartile. If you're not, contrary to popular belief, your SAC marks do actually matter! They position your SACs in a way that is reflective of the differences in SAC marks between members of the cohort. It basically makes the difference between coming second in the cohort by 1% or by 20%. If they didn't factor in SAC marks, and only used rankings, they would be considered synonymous, which wouldn't be fair. VTAC isn't completely soul-less haha.

Yes, but the question was in the case of being rank 1. That was all I was answering.