A bit confused with ENTER/study score calculation...

[jess3254]

Hi,
I’m just starting the VCE this year, as last year I studied the IB (International Baccalaureate), but this year I changed over to VCE because it was too stressful.

I’m extremely confused with how the ENTER is calculated though… 

My teacher said that you get scaled up if you go to a good school, but get scaled up if you do a subject which people do badly in (ahhh wtf?), and that the marks in your SACs contribute to your study score. And I was told recently that if you get a 50 in your final exam, they will only award it to you if you’re the best in the class??!
I’m confused and it makes my brain hurt.
 
Can someone explain some aspects of it to me roughly?

Thanks so much!

[Eriny]

Well, everyone usually does 5 or 6 subjects in the VCE. Of these, your score for an English (which is one of English, Lit, ESL or English Language) and your 3 best subjects is added up, plus 10% of the score of each of your lower scoring subject/s. Each score is out of 50, the mean being at 30. You probably know this already.

Scaling is something many people have issues with. Basically, if a subject is very competitive and is therefore harder to get a high score in, the score for that subject is scaled up. Examples of such subjects are methods, spesh, chem, and lotes (although lotes are scaled up even higher than what they would be as determined by competitiveness in order to encourage students to do lotes). Subjects where there is little competition and it's somewhat 'easier' to get a high score are accordingly scaled down. What happens is that VTAC compares what kind of scores students, on average get in a subject relative to their other subjects. For example, if  people doing Chem get a 35 but are scoring say, 40 in English then VTAC reasons that chem may have been more difficult to score well in and therefore a 35 in Chem may be worth more than 35 and will accordingly scale chem upwards. This is a really crude example, but that's basically how it works.

Your school has nothing to do with what study score you get or how much your score scales up or down. It is somewhat easier to get a high study score if you go to a 'good' school, because the SAC moderation process will be less harsh on you. SACs are basically moderated by the exam scores of your cohort. The person who has the highest SAC score will be awarded the highest exam score (roughly) as their SAC score and will then have their own exam score. The person ranking second in SACs will get the second highest exam score as their SAC score and their own exam score, and so on. I should note that if the person ranked second does better on the exam, the person who is first in SACs isn't 'stealing' the other persons exam score, rather, their SAC score is adjusted to be the same distance from the mean as the top exam score (if that doesn't make sense, just ignore that sentence). So, if you're in a very smart cohort and everyone does well on the exam, then ranking highly in your class will mean that your SAC score will also be very good. However, if you are in a poor class, you will need to both rank high in SACs and do very well on the exam in order to get a high moderated SAC score and therefore study score. It just means that those in poorer classes have to make sure that they are ranked first, whereas those in strong classes don't have to worry about ranking as much (but should still try their best anyway!). This has absolutely nothing to do with scaling though.

It is possible to get a 50 without being ranked first in your class, however, your class will probably have to be very smart for this to happen. So, if you rank second in SACS, and the person who is ranked first gets a very high exam score and you get a perfect or near perfect exam score, then it is very possible to get a 50. This isn't really the norm though.

I hope that's not too confusing, it's sometimes quite difficult to explain these things, so if you have any other questions please do ask them.

[jess3254]

Thanks so much! That makes a lot more sense now... The scaling is very confusing though! I'm doing Biology, Psychology, Lit, English, National politics and Further maths... I think most of my subjects I'm doing are scaled down :S

With the study scores, do they have any markbands available which inform you on what mark range (percentage wise) you’d need to get a 50 (or other study scores) on your exams/SACs for each subject? Or does it even work that way? If that makes sense...
Like in IB, to get a 7 (the highest mark), you need between 79-100% on your exams and internal assessments....

Thanks again,
Jess.

[Nick]

Thanks so much! That makes a lot more sense now... The scaling is very confusing though! I'm doing Biology, Psychology, Lit, English, National politics and Further maths... I think most of my subjects I'm doing are scaled down :S

With the study scores, do they have any markbands available which inform you on what mark range (percentage wise) you’d need to get a 50 (or other study scores) on your exams/SACs for each subject? Or does it even work that way? If that makes sense...
Like in IB, to get a 7 (the highest mark), you need between 79-100% on your exams and internal assessments....

Thanks again,
Jess.

I wouldn't really be too concerned about how your subjects are scaled. There's nothing you can really do about it other than do subjects that you feel comfortable with, you enjoy and satisfy the prerequisites for further study. If you enjoy a subject and do well in it, scaling will have less impact if you score in the 40's (roughly the top 9% of students in the subject).

Biology, Literature and National Politics all actually scale up anyway. I have a feeling that Politics scales pretty generously. Psychology hardly scales- it scales by about 1-2 points if you score in the 30's and even less if you score 40+

There isn't any markbands available to determine study scores, as it depends on the competition within that particular subject each year, how difficult the exam was and the capabilities of the students. You can download grade distributions for VCAA exams on the VCAA website. Just do a search under, "2006 VCE statistical information" and they should appear for each subject. These sheets provide the scores which equate to particular gradings. From these, you can determine how well you will need to perform to achieve a 40+ study scores. In most cases you will find that you need a high A-> A+ average to achieve a 40. Hope this helps.

[cara.mel]

VCE doesn't work on percentages corresponding to certain study scores, the whole thing is a ranking game.

http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/vce/statistics/2007/statssect3.html lists for each subject the raw score ranges that correlate to each letter grade. For bio and psych, GA1 = mid year exam, GA2 = sacs, GA3 = end of year exam. For further, GA1 = sacs, GA2 = exam 1, GA3 = exam 2, for everything else GA1= unit 3 sacs GA2 = unit 4 sacs GA3 = exam
For most subjects, A+ is top 10% of the cohort, whereas 40 study score needs to you to be in top 9%. As you can see it varies between subjects a fair bit.
If you know probability, the study scores are distributed with a mean of 30 and standard deviation of 7-ish (if you don't, they look like a bell curve shape)

Something I stole off VCAA's site:
For studies with large enrolments (1,000 or more):

    * 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.

Hope some of that makes sense ^_^

[abcat]

It is possible to get a 50 without being ranked first in your class, however, your class will probably have to be very smart for this to happen. So, if you rank second in SACS, and the person who is ranked first gets a very high exam score and you get a perfect or near perfect exam score, then it is very possible to get a 50. This isn't really the norm though.

can second this, did actually happen. obviously, first or even second ranked student (you being third) would also have to get high/similar scores. if you do better on the exam however, and are ranked high in the class (with similar sac marks), you will get a higher study score

[bec]

so what happens if you have a teacher who marks everyone very highly? one of my teachers told us that the average mark for our last sac was ~90%. with such a high average, you'd assume that a lot of people "share" a rank - so what does that mean for the class's final scores at the end of the year?

[Mao]

depends on your exam score

MHS, for example, has a very high average, but it doesnt get moderated down as the entire cohort gets good exam marks.

my school's bio last year, which had a B~A average last year, got a cohort with crappy scores, and those Bs and As wend down to Ds and Cs

SACs basically place you in a ranking, what you SAC scores really are are the ranking exam scores

if that made sense

[elaine]

What happens if you do well in SACS and OK on the exam, but other people in your class do really crap on the exam- does that mean you get pulled down as well?

[Ahmad]

so what happens if you have a teacher who marks everyone very highly? one of my teachers told us that the average mark for our last sac was ~90%. with such a high average, you'd assume that a lot of people "share" a rank - so what does that mean for the class's final scores at the end of the year?

I think if two people are given the same ranking they each get the lower moderated SAC mark. This is why my chemistry teacher refused to give two people the same ranking.

[iamdan08]

What happens if you do well in SACS and OK on the exam, but other people in your class do really crap on the exam- does that mean you get pulled down as well?

From what i have gathered, Yes. If the class as a whole does bad and your not ranked 1, then your school based mark will get dragged down.