I stuffed up my sacs, what can i do from here in order to improve?

[The Usual Student]

Yo, so I messed up my first two EL sacs.
I don't think my ranking is great but I want to try for a 45+, I UNDERSTAND THAT THESE QUESTIONS ARE REALLY COMMON ON ATARNOTES but I want to change my focus from -- " Can i got a 45+?" tooo " What do i need to do to get a 45+?"

I pose this questions as I don't think I can lift my ranking into the top 3 since I started out so badly My school is horrible at EL as well so I don't think I can technically get a 45 as it is.

Even if i smash my exam.... my sacs are still 50%.......
If I smash the GAT and the Exam, will that improve my ranking or my scaled sac score??

[HasibA]

i have a feeling you still can. I know this is anecdotal, but a friend of mine graduated from my school couple years back, did further (i think) and in one of the weakest cohorts ever (even for our school..) and had his sacs scaled up to like 98/100 from 88/100, even though he was rank 3 or so, and rank 1 and 2 didn't even get 38+. i still think there's a chance bro! - but you never know. Best not to worry, i know it's hard (i worry a lot too) but VCAA is weird and scaling is random sometimes, so idk! (i believe in you but! )

[grannysmith]

To be the bearer of bad news, sadly, SACs play a crucial role in EL. My SACs screwed me up bad at the end (low As for SACs, high A+ for exam), although I wouldn't say that my cohort was weak in anyway. Rank-wise, I was definitely at least top 4. You just don't know what'll happen and choking in exams does indeed happen.

That being said, there's still hope man. It's only Unit 3 and you've still got Unit 4 to smash next semester. I'm not gonna say whether 45 is possible or not (because I don't know); all you need to do is obliterate next semester. Remember that Unit 3 and 4 are treated separately (GA1 and GA2) and you receive different ranks for each unit (if I'm not mistaken).

Tl;dr start improving from now and annihilate Unit 4.

[Joseph41]

G’day TUS,

EngLang is a difficult subject. Without much substance, I personally think that predicting study scores and the like is harder in EngLang than, say, English. It was certainly the subject about which I was least confident about my score range (not least confident in general, though).

My broad advice to start off: don’t give up. I don’t think you will, anyway, because it sounds as though you are passionate about doing well (which is fantastic – well done). I also like the emphasis of the opening post.

What’s to stop you improving your rank into the top 3? You have suggested that your cohort isn’t necessarily the strongest. That makes me think that if you do really well, you’re perhaps more likely than students in other cohorts to rise up the rankings. So that’s a plus!

Could you be more specific about where you think you might have done poorly on the first two SACs? Was there anything in particular that let you down? Expression? Examples? Time management? Metalanguage? Perhaps that will give us a better chance of helping.

But generally, here are some things you can do:

1.   Practise. Yep, that simple. Analyse anything – analyse everything. Run out of sample texts to analyse? That’s no issue – there are things to analyse all over the place. Linguistically analyse websites, newspaper articles, spoken conversations. Whatever is there. When you do so, try using your metalanguage to become more comfortable with it. There’s a great resource on the EngLang study design that specifies the metalanguage of which you should be aware (pages 17-19).

2.   Record examples. If you find a particularly salient newspaper article or whatever, keep it. Keep a journal with interesting texts, and things that you can analyse again as it gets closer to the exam. Try to find a variety of modes, functions and registers. Dmitri consistently posts good stuff with nifty examples on these forums. Why not interact with his posts?

3.   Keep quotes. Relevant (and recent) quotes can separate the good papers from the great ones, so keep an eye out. Perhaps you might like to follow some linguistics blogs, or read articles any of these very recent articles by Kate Burridge (two of which are with Howie Manns).

All the best,
Nick.

[Adequace]

To be the bearer of bad news, sadly, SACs play a crucial role in EL. My SACs screwed me up bad at the end (low As for SACs, high A+ for exam), although I wouldn't say that my cohort was weak in anyway. Rank-wise, I was definitely at least top 4. You just don't know what'll happen and choking in exams does indeed happen.

That being said, there's still hope man. It's only Unit 3 and you've still got Unit 4 to smash next semester. I'm not gonna say whether 45 is possible or not (because I don't know); all you need to do is obliterate next semester. Remember that Unit 3 and 4 are treated separately (GA1 and GA2) and you receive different ranks for each unit (if I'm not mistaken).

Tl;dr start improving from now and annihilate Unit 4.

You were top 4 in sac rankings, how would that screw you in the exam unless your cohort was really small?

[grannysmith]

You were top 4 in sac rankings, how would that screw you in the exam unless your cohort was really small?

To simplify it a bit, if I was rank 4, then I would have gotten the 4th highest exam mark as my SAC score. And yeah, EL cohorts are pretty small in almost all schools.

[HasibA]

To simplify it a bit, if I was rank 4, then I would have gotten the 4th highest exam mark as my SAC score. And yeah, EL cohorts are pretty small in almost all schools.

so were your sacs scaled down or did they not go up as much as they should have based on exam score- i'd hope you could at least 40+ something with a very high A+ on the exam, and with pretty good sacs like yours, but if not- meh! Good job on the scores but!!!!

[JellyBeanz]

To simplify it a bit, if I was rank 4, then I would have gotten the 4th highest exam mark as my SAC score. And yeah, EL cohorts are pretty small in almost all schools.

Yeah, i'm curious, what did you get for EL with that rank, and SAC + exam score? I hope you don't mind me asking lol.

[The Usual Student]

G’day TUS,

EngLang is a difficult subject. Without much substance, I personally think that predicting study scores and the like is harder in EngLang than, say, English. It was certainly the subject about which I was least confident about my score range (not least confident in general, though).

My broad advice to start off: don’t give up. I don’t think you will, anyway, because it sounds as though you are passionate about doing well (which is fantastic – well done). I also like the emphasis of the opening post.

What’s to stop you improving your rank into the top 3? You have suggested that your cohort isn’t necessarily the strongest. That makes me think that if you do really well, you’re perhaps more likely than students in other cohorts to rise up the rankings. So that’s a plus!

Could you be more specific about where you think you might have done poorly on the first two SACs? Was there anything in particular that let you down? Expression? Examples? Time management? Metalanguage? Perhaps that will give us a better chance of helping.

But generally, here are some things you can do:

1.   Practise. Yep, that simple. Analyse anything – analyse everything. Run out of sample texts to analyse? That’s no issue – there are things to analyse all over the place. Linguistically analyse websites, newspaper articles, spoken conversations. Whatever is there. When you do so, try using your metalanguage to become more comfortable with it. There’s a great resource on the EngLang study design that specifies the metalanguage of which you should be aware (pages 17-19).

2.   Record examples. If you find a particularly salient newspaper article or whatever, keep it. Keep a journal with interesting texts, and things that you can analyse again as it gets closer to the exam. Try to find a variety of modes, functions and registers. Dmitri consistently posts good stuff with nifty examples on these forums. Why not interact with his posts?

3.   Keep quotes. Relevant (and recent) quotes can separate the good papers from the great ones, so keep an eye out. Perhaps you might like to follow some linguistics blogs, or read articles any of these very recent articles by Kate Burridge (two of which are with Howie Manns).

All the best,
Nick.

Thanks Nick!
I actually know what my weaknesses are for EL ( timing and short answer questions ) but I just wanted to see how I could increase my rank or fix my problem! Thanks for giving me the pep talk though, I will try really hard to jump up to top 3.
Also, thanks to grannysmith and HasibA! Appreciate the advice guys!

[Swagadaktal]

Nick.

His name is Nick.

Not sure why that provide me with so much satisfaction.

Btw Usual, if it's of any consolation, you might think that you're doing worse than you actually are. If you keep working at it and trying your best, by the end of the year when they finalise the rankings, your ranking could be much higher than anticipated.
Try not to focus on increasing your rank, but rather you exploit the flaws of your competition and see them crumble before you you increase your skills. The exam is 50% but from what i've read and from what Ive experienced, it's worth far more than that.
Ace the exam, in your journey of acing the exam you'll also do better in sacs as a result - belieb

[Joseph41]

Thanks Nick!
I actually know what my weaknesses are for EL ( timing and short answer questions ) but I just wanted to see how I could increase my rank or fix my problem!

Awesome! Well that's half way there, then. What is it about the short answer questions that you find tricky? Have you tried doing timed practice SACs? The short answer questions were probably my main weakness throughout the year, too (and timing, actually - sounds similar!). But in the exam, I smashed them out and was pretty confident with my responses. You'll get there.

[The Usual Student]

Awesome! Well that's half way there, then. What is it about the short answer questions that you find tricky? Have you tried doing timed practice SACs? The short answer questions were probably my main weakness throughout the year, too (and timing, actually - sounds similar!). But in the exam, I smashed them out and was pretty confident with my responses. You'll get there.

with ACs , even if i didn't know eveything, i could kinda BS my way through with what I knew. For SA, the marking scheme is really weird with some being like 5 marks for really open ended questions.
I guess the ambiguous nature of the questions and its vagueness is what really throws me off.

[ekay]

Yeah, i'm curious, what did you get for EL with that rank, and SAC + exam score? I hope you don't mind me asking lol.

Just thought I'd mention that SACs are definitely important and do contribute to your final study score, but the exam is the major factor. I was around rank 5 for EL SACs and my school isn't particularly strong at EL, but my exam score dragged my SACs up.

[dmitridr]

Posted this answer on a similar thread...

I had a private student last year who didn't do too well in his unit 3/4 SACs because he didn't work hard enough and honestly art was his passion (which I told him to pursue!!), however, he actually surprised me and did really well in the exam (A+), and ended up getting a 38, so yes the exam can make a massive difference.

I tell all students this, however: DO NOT WORRY ABOUT HOW YOU'RE GOING. Just do, learn and focus on excelling. If you get caught up in what's gone wrong it consumes your thoughts to the point where you actually forget how to excel in the first place. Be an independent thinker and THINK WHY certain linguistic features occur - when I was in year 12, my teacher was very lazy and so I'd go home at night and research myself. I would think and 'ponder' (sorry for the lame word) why certain processes occur in language. So many students get caught up in just memorising what they have to know for a SAC that they forget that to excel in a subject you must have conceptual understanding of it. I was shocked when I asked students, what is the difference between informal and formal language and how would you define it. Most students can't, but I have found this also stems from the teachers not making it that simple for students in their classes.

I hope that helps - it's not a rant, just my viewpoint and how I believe you can succeed in not just E.Lang but any other subject!

Thanks!
Dmitri.