The VCE is biased

[xXNovaxX]

think tis science

[minilunchbox]

I personally disagree with the topic creator. I think the VCE is biased towards the humanities subjects.
If a person is really good at English, they would be really good at other subjects that require essay writing. Hence as a result their raw study scores will be higher meaning it will be easier for them to get the top scores.

However for Maths/Science students, no matter how good they may be at those subjects, thing is they still have to complete an English subject, which a number of them (myself included) are not any good at it. So in the end, it will be harder for them to achieve the top scores no matter how much their other scores scale.

Now think about this, what if English didn't have to be included in the top four. Then maybe the Maths/Sciences will have the upper hand, but until then it's really the humanities students with the advantage

a lotta humanities subjects do not involve "essay writing"

Yeah, like Psychology, thats a humanities subject isn't it?

It's considered a Science subject in High School and can be both Arts/Science in Uni.

[mypurpleundercracka]

I personally disagree with the topic creator. I think the VCE is biased towards the humanities subjects.
If a person is really good at English, they would be really good at other subjects that require essay writing. Hence as a result their raw study scores will be higher meaning it will be easier for them to get the top scores.

However for Maths/Science students, no matter how good they may be at those subjects, thing is they still have to complete an English subject, which a number of them (myself included) are not any good at it. So in the end, it will be harder for them to achieve the top scores no matter how much their other scores scale.

Now think about this, what if English didn't have to be included in the top four. Then maybe the Maths/Sciences will have the upper hand, but until then it's really the humanities students with the advantage

a lotta humanities subjects do not involve "essay writing"

Technically speaking you could do the combination of English, Literature, Latin, Philosophy, Classics and English Language to get a full series of similarish subjects (all six have some sort of English-style essay component", although I don't think any school offers all six of those subjects in tandem.  :p

yeah but it all depends what constitutes a humanities subject, at my school accounting and business are bother considered part of the humanities faculty

[xXNovaxX]

of course they are. Economics @ my school is dubbed humanities. If you think about it in year 7-10, with the subject "Humanities" or Integrated Studies or SOSE, it involves history, geography, civics and citizenship, and economics (thats what the textbook had it in)

[shinny]

of course they are. Economics @ my school is dubbed humanities. If you think about it in year 7-10, with the subject "Humanities" or Integrated Studies or SOSE, it involves history, geography, civics and citizenship, and economics (thats what the textbook had it in)

MHS had a dedicated commerce department, so of course they fell under that instead. The definition of humanities is pretty vague really, which is why the whole thing with people saying VCE is biased against humanities doesn't really work. I mean, languages tend to fall under humanities, and languages have a pretty obvious undisguised bias towards them with the +5 scaling made by the government to encourage students to take up languages.

[mypurpleundercracka]

of course they are. Economics @ my school is dubbed humanities. If you think about it in year 7-10, with the subject "Humanities" or Integrated Studies or SOSE, it involves history, geography, civics and citizenship, and economics (thats what the textbook had it in)

MHS had a dedicated commerce department, so of course they fell under that instead. The definition of humanities is pretty vague really, which is why the whole thing with people saying VCE is biased against humanities doesn't really work. I mean, languages tend to fall under humanities, and languages have a pretty obvious undisguised bias towards them with the +5 scaling made by the government to encourage students to take up languages.

i dont understand how that lote scaling "+5" works, does that apply to all of them?, from my understanding the 37 i got in my lote last year would be around 36.5 after scaling

[Glockmeister]

of course they are. Economics @ my school is dubbed humanities. If you think about it in year 7-10, with the subject "Humanities" or Integrated Studies or SOSE, it involves history, geography, civics and citizenship, and economics (thats what the textbook had it in)

MHS had a dedicated commerce department, so of course they fell under that instead. The definition of humanities is pretty vague really, which is why the whole thing with people saying VCE is biased against humanities doesn't really work. I mean, languages tend to fall under humanities, and languages have a pretty obvious undisguised bias towards them with the +5 scaling made by the government to encourage students to take up languages.

i dont understand how that lote scaling "+5" works, does that apply to all of them?, from my understanding the 37 i got in my lote last year would be around 36.5 after scaling

All LOTE subjects hve the +5 scaling. This does not mean though that you get an extra 5 points though,

[mypurpleundercracka]

of course they are. Economics @ my school is dubbed humanities. If you think about it in year 7-10, with the subject "Humanities" or Integrated Studies or SOSE, it involves history, geography, civics and citizenship, and economics (thats what the textbook had it in)

MHS had a dedicated commerce department, so of course they fell under that instead. The definition of humanities is pretty vague really, which is why the whole thing with people saying VCE is biased against humanities doesn't really work. I mean, languages tend to fall under humanities, and languages have a pretty obvious undisguised bias towards them with the +5 scaling made by the government to encourage students to take up languages.

i dont understand how that lote scaling "+5" works, does that apply to all of them?, from my understanding the 37 i got in my lote last year would be around 36.5 after scaling

All LOTE subjects hve the +5 scaling. This does not mean though that you get an extra 5 points though,

yeah i kinda get that, but then what would a 37 in Croatian get you? according to the entercalc it gets scaled down (based on 08 data)

[chem-nerd]

all LOTE subjects automatically have an extra 5 points added to the Study Score (raw score). THEN they are scaled to produce the ENTER subject score.

[xXNovaxX]

what do you mean, some languages like Greek, and arabic goes down TWO
Filipino +1
Persian gets scaled DOWN 2, WTH

I think thats unfair. For one, German goes up from 20 to 28, yet Australia doesn't really have much trade etc with Germany thus not much demand for pplz who speak german, so why does it go up so much?

And if its based on difficulty, not demand for a language, why does arabic go down 2, have you SEEN their alphabet, its one of the hardest languages up their with Jap, and Chinese, especially coz they don't use letters, but characters.

[chem-nerd]

It's not to do with how HARD the subject is, but what the STRENGTH of competition is in the cohort.  Students doing German must have generally performed better in their other subjects whilst those doing Persian generally performed lower.

[Glockmeister]

It's not to do with how HARD the subject is, but what the STRENGTH of competition is in the cohort.  Students doing German must have generally performed better in their other subjects whilst those doing Persian generally performed lower.

You'd often find that this is the case where the majority of people taking that particular language are native speakers (or at least speak the language at home).

[xXNovaxX]

hmm, that's strange. I would have thought it makes more sense to either

*base scaling on the demand for a language (higher scaling=more demand for it due to shortage of speakers in Aus.)
OR
*the difficulty of a language, learning Spanish, Italian, German, is definitely a lot easier than learning Chinese, for those language are from the same roots as well as their sounds are pronounced much the same as reading English.

But then again,if I was doing Persian or some otehr language which isn't widely spoken, I wouldn't want to be scaled down/or not scaled up much because no demand for it, or because its easier than others.

*sigh* so difficult

[IntoTheNewWorld]

It's not to do with how HARD the subject is, but what the STRENGTH of competition is in the cohort.  Students doing German must have generally performed better in their other subjects whilst those doing Persian generally performed lower.

You'd often find that this is the case where the majority of people taking that particular language are native speakers (or at least speak the language at home).

But 99% (don't quote me) of Chinese SL students speak Chinese at home...?
EDIT: Glockmeister did you mean languages where students speak the language at home scale higher or lower?

hmm, that's strange. I would have thought it makes more sense to either

*base scaling on the demand for a language (higher scaling=more demand for it due to shortage of speakers in Aus.)
OR
*the difficulty of a language, learning Spanish, Italian, German, is definitely a lot easier than learning Chinese, for those language are from the same roots as well as their sounds are pronounced much the same as reading English.

But then again,if I was doing Persian or some otehr language which isn't widely spoken, I wouldn't want to be scaled down/or not scaled up much because no demand for it, or because its easier than others.

*sigh* so difficult

Difficulty is subjective. Statistical moderation is more appropriate.

[xXNovaxX]

It's not to do with how HARD the subject is, but what the STRENGTH of competition is in the cohort.  Students doing German must have generally performed better in their other subjects whilst those doing Persian generally performed lower.

You'd often find that this is the case where the majority of people taking that particular language are native speakers (or at least speak the language at home).

But 99% (don't quote me) of Chinese SL students speak Chinese at home...?

hmm, that's strange. I would have thought it makes more sense to either

*base scaling on the demand for a language (higher scaling=more demand for it due to shortage of speakers in Aus.)
OR
*the difficulty of a language, learning Spanish, Italian, German, is definitely a lot easier than learning Chinese, for those language are from the same roots as well as their sounds are pronounced much the same as reading English.

But then again,if I was doing Persian or some otehr language which isn't widely spoken, I wouldn't want to be scaled down/or not scaled up much because no demand for it, or because its easier than others.

*sigh* so difficult

Difficulty is subjective. Statistical moderation is more appropriate.

hahahah! I to have heard the rumour that many people who do SL, especially in Chinese speak it at home.

And ur 2nd point, it's a good answer . As I was explaining my post, I begun to see that it is very subjective.