Spesh to Further ???

[Zlatan]

Hey everyone

I'm currently in year 11 and I have to select my subjects for year 12 pretty soon. Right now, I'm doing spesh 1/2, but I'm thinking about dropping it and doing further next year, 'cause I've heard a lot of friends tell me it's pretty easy to get a good score in (provided you don't make any careless mistakes).

I'm enjoying Spesh right now but I'm afraid it'll be hard for me to get a good SS for it (40+) next year ...

Is this a good idea ??

[LiquidPaperz]

im doing further this year in year 11 for the same reason you want to do it next year (easy if you dont drop marks). Trust me its easier said then done. Some questions can pop up on your sacs and your just like wtf, not because its hard (sometimes...) its tricky, the wording can get you and you can easily fall into those lose half mark traps.

Its so competitive that basically 1 mark lost on the exam is a study score, provided you are rank 1, something along those lines anyways. Do what you enjoy, i regret picking further this year!

[keltingmeith]

Let's assume you can't get over 40 in specialist - in fact, let's assume the highest you can get is a 30 (which is the average mark for any subject).

After scaling kicks in, this becomes a 43. To match this scaled score in Further, you must get 45 (as this will go down to 44, and 44 goes down to 42.- this is where we run into our issue.

As much as I always say, "ignore scaling", you need to think about this - it's the scaled scores that make up your ATAR, not the raw scores. This is a super tremendous difference, and getting a 45 in Further means you must be better than 98% of the cohort. Are you more confident that you can be better than 98% of Further students, or that you could do better than 50% of specialist students? (if you answer the former, rethink your answer )

[Zlatan]

well, from the numbers you've just shown me, it makes more sense to do spesh than further ....

But seeing as you got 38 raw in spesh, could you tell me how hard or how much effort was involved in obtaining that score ?? Do you reckon you would've gotten a 45+ in further with the amount of effort you put into spesh ??


Thanks

[Zlatan]

As much as I always say, "ignore scaling", you need to think about this - it's the scaled scores that make up your ATAR, not the raw scores. This is a super tremendous difference, and getting a 45 in Further means you must be better than 98% of the cohort. Are you more confident that you can be better than 98% of Further students, or that you could do better than 50% of specialist students? (if you answer the former, rethink your answer )

and could you also explain to me where you got the "better than 98% of the cohort" figure from ??

[LiquidPaperz]

and could you also explain to me where you got the "better than 98% of the cohort" figure from ??

off the vcaa website

2% of students will get a score on or above 45
9% of students will get a score on or above 40
26% of students will get a score on or above 35
53% of students will get a score on or above 30
78% of students will get a score on or above 25
93% of students will get a score on or above 20.


http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/pages/faqs/vcecurrentstudents.aspx

[keltingmeith]

off the vcaa website

2% of students will get a score on or above 45
9% of students will get a score on or above 40
26% of students will get a score on or above 35
53% of students will get a score on or above 30
78% of students will get a score on or above 25
93% of students will get a score on or above 20.


http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/pages/faqs/vcecurrentstudents.aspx

Hahah, that's cool - I never knew that existed. I actually used a normal cdf (you'll learn about these in methods [sort of], I don't think you do for further though [which is really weird])

EDIT: upon further inspection, the numbers they've used there are slightly (or not so slightly...) wrong based on how VCAA say they calculate the study scores here. They say that study scores are normally distributed with a mean 30, so 50% MUST get above 30. The other ones, the normcdf function tells me differently to what VCAA are.

So, VCAA are lying - probably in those numbers, but they could be lying about how they actually get the study scores.

[keltingmeith]

well, from the numbers you've just shown me, it makes more sense to do spesh than further ....

But seeing as you got 38 raw in spesh, could you tell me how hard or how much effort was involved in obtaining that score ?? Do you reckon you would've gotten a 45+ in further with the amount of effort you put into spesh ??


Thanks

Sorry, didn't see this the first time:
So, the 38 was actually in methods, and that was after doing almost no work all year for it. As for spec (35 raw), I did a reasonable amount of work, I think? I'm not really the best person to ask, I work by conceptual learning, as opposed to brute force (which unfortunately is the better option for year 12, -sigh-). However, I doubt I would've gotten a 49 in Further (percentage-wise, 49 is basically a 50, btw), simply because I don't brute force, I would've gotten bored really quickly and just not put any effort into the subject, probably would've walked out with under 40.

[JackSonSmith]

Is it ''easier'' to get 46 in IT applications or 30 in Specialist?

[keltingmeith]

That is legitimately like asking, "would you rather watch The Lion King or Lord of the Rings?". It seriously depends on the person and the given situation, they're not directly comparable.

If you want to know the statistics of it, look up, not that different a situation to spec vs. further IIRC.