More Emphasis on GAT in 2014?

[Tyleralp1]

I was talking with a few teachers today at school, and one of them mentioned that apparently this year there is more weighting on the GAT. She mentioned that an external body from VCAA came in to talk to the teachers and said that they now take something like a 12 point scheme (in other words a higher weighting) of the GAT used to moderate SAC's and study scores. Basically, we're now being told that we should actively prepare for the GAT, as it supposedly has a higher influence.

Could anyone here confirm this, does the GAT have more of an influence? Or is this just perhaps the teacher's way of trying to get us to prepare, to get better GAT scores to make our school look better?

I know the GAT is primarily used if one is unable to attend an exam, and VCAA Exams are mainly used to moderate SAC's. However, if anyone could provide a decent summary of what the GAT is actually used for and things like that, it would be much appreciated.
 
Any input on the matter would be great!

[chasej]

No one can really tell you definitively as VCAA is fairly quiet on the formulas and stuff they use to actually scaling of SACs etc.

However it does say on their site that in a growing number of subjects the GAT is used alongside the exam score for statistical moderation of SACs for all the students going scored, I'm not sure about the weighting of the GAT though (probably isn't that much). And of course if you miss an exam for a valid reason the GAT would probably end up determining around a third of your study score (raw sac scores and indicative marks make up the rest I believe).

Also keep in mind different parts of the GAT contribute to different subjects in different ways. For example in methods the maths/science/technology section would be weighted more heavily than the writing pieces.