WEAK COHORT? DOES IT MATTER? help

[The Usual Student]

Hello there,
I just wanted clarification on how the VCE calculates study scores, from my understanding, you could go to a weal school with a weak cohort and still, for instance, 50 a subject, as long as you are rank 1? My accounting cohort is weak and sacs are worth 50% in accounting, however, if i am rank 1? does the cohorts weakness, or the fact that our sacs may scale down matter?

[C.A.T]

Don't quote me on this but my friend did accounting 3/4 2 years ago and she was rank 1 in a weak (and very small) cohort of about 4 people. She worked really hard and got a really good study score. So it is possible if you do well in the exam

[zsteve]

Hello there,
I just wanted clarification on how the VCE calculates study scores, from my understanding, you could go to a weal school with a weak cohort and still, for instance, 50 a subject, as long as you are rank 1? My accounting cohort is weak and sacs are worth 50% in accounting, however, if i am rank 1? does the cohorts weakness, or the fact that our sacs may scale down matter?

Yes, maintain rank 1 and smash the exam, so you can get 50. As long as you are rank 1, you shouldn't be affected.

[catn]

I think a weak cohort does matter, personally.
I was super confident in this year's exam and was sure I would get 45+ but ended up getting a 43. Methinks it's because my school's cohort (of about 14 people) did absolutely atrocious in the exam as except for me and two other people, no one else did anything or remotely tried the whole year. My cohort was so bad me and two of my friends would get 90+s in accounting but our class average would be around 40-50%.

[zsteve]

Update: I got 48 raw in Physics and Methods, and 47 raw in Specialist (large but weak cohort) I was the only 40+ in my cohort for each. Of course, I held rank 1.
Only 2 students in my cohort got 40+ for Chemistry, but I got 50.
Conclusion: weak cohort doesn't affect you if you know your stuff at a high 40's level.

[Splash-Tackle-Flail]

Just going to add that if you aren't rank one though, you may still be affected. From the perspective of a weak cohort, if and only if you are rank one, you won't be affected by cohort performance.

Then again, if you're ranking is below a classmate's they should perform similarly come exam time, unless SACs were performed under shady circumstances (e.g. when teachers recycle SACs from previous years, and some students who bought notes from past year 12s get an unfair advantage :/ )

if you want more examples/proof/reassurance chuck me a pm. I know cohort strength can be really concerning, especially in a weak cohort, but from a objective perspective (i.e. less motivated cohort, less resources etc), if you are rank 1 and get an exam score indicative of a 50, you will get a 50.

(unrelatedish- this is why HSC in QLD is dodgy)

[96n_n]

I think it'll matter if you're an average student. However, if you're rank one, it shouldn't matter that much but only if you are a strong outlier. If you're just above the average cohort and still at rank one then I would assume your study score may be affected.

[Alter]

^You don't need to be a strong outlier to avoid getting your SACs moderated poorly.

This is because of the way sac moderation works--if you are ranked #1 you will get GAs that reflect the strength of exam performance of the person that performed #1 in the exam, basically.

[zsteve]

Just going to add that if you aren't rank one though, you may still be affected. From the perspective of a weak cohort, if and only if you are rank one, you won't be affected by cohort performance.

Then again, if you're ranking is below a classmate's they should perform similarly come exam time, unless SACs were performed under shady circumstances (e.g. when teachers recycle SACs from previous years, and some students who bought notes from past year 12s get an unfair advantage :/ )

if you want more examples/proof/reassurance chuck me a pm. I know cohort strength can be really concerning, especially in a weak cohort, but from a objective perspective (i.e. less motivated cohort, less resources etc), if you are rank 1 and get an exam score indicative of a 50, you will get a 50.

(unrelatedish- this is why HSC in QLD is dodgy)

I thought I'd also mention this. I was not rank 1 in English Language. However, rank 1 got 43, and I got 46, thanks to unknown exam performance spike (idk). So yeah, you *can* outperform rank 1 but I'd suppose my lower SACs could've pulled me down from 47 to 46 (again, idk)