James Lu, I salute you

[iffets12345]

barely anyone gets over 40 for those languages, it is moderated you know.

[Akirus]

Latin 35 -> 50

It also remains that barely anyone does Latin to begin with (relatively speaking), rendering your point moot.

[iffets12345]

So, they're not cheaters. Blame the school system for not introducing Latin into more schools.
And Latin is a difficult subject.

[Akirus]

"Cheaters" indeed.

[slothpomba]

Secondly, certain lotes should not scale up by ridiculous amounts e.g. chinese

Agreed

[EvangelionZeta]

Latin 35 -> 50

It also remains that barely anyone does Latin to begin with (relatively speaking), rendering your point moot.

Latin is an extreme case that suffers from the same problem as a lot of "small studies" like Ancient Greek, Classics, Environmental Science and Philosophy (albeit to a more annoying degree given the insanity of its scaling).  However, I'd argue that when considering the number of schools that offer it, along with the number of schools that actually manage to do well with it (ie. only a handful of ELITE private schools), I don't think it's enough to impact significantly on the system.  For any school outside of that handful of elite private schools, getting above 30 in Latin is pretty much unheard of.

Example point: girl who got mostly high 40s/50s for her raw scores got 34 in Latin (and she was considered GOOD at Latin), which went to around 49.  The scaling is justified.

To all the people who complain about Chinese, it's probably the hardest LOTE to do well in if you're not in the "political" game of playing around with Chinese schools etc.  Again, to illustrate my point that the scaling is generally justified, people getting 50s in English etc. often get high 30s/low 40s in Chinese, and in an extreme case there's a guy I know who got three 50s and a 37 in Chinese.  Doing well in Chinese (enough to get the 50+ scaled score) is, again, so hard that the scaling is pretty much justified.

And just for clarification, I realise that there WILL be people who do get put at an advantage by this system (eg. the plethora of people who are incredibly well-versed in any given LOTE, or the elite private schools in Latin...), but the percentage of such individuals is so low that for most of the populous I really can't see it making that much of a difference. 

[Akirus]

Latin 35 -> 50

It also remains that barely anyone does Latin to begin with (relatively speaking), rendering your point moot.

Latin is an extreme case that suffers from the same problem as a lot of "small studies" like Ancient Greek, Classics, Environmental Science and Philosophy (albeit to a more annoying degree given the insanity of its scaling).  However, I'd argue that when considering the number of schools that offer it, along with the number of schools that actually manage to do well with it (ie. only a handful of ELITE private schools), I don't think it's enough to impact significantly on the system.  For any school outside of that handful of elite private schools, getting above 30 in Latin is pretty much unheard of.

Example point: girl who got mostly high 40s/50s for her raw scores got 34 in Latin (and she was considered GOOD at Latin), which went to around 49.  The scaling is justified.

To all the people who complain about Chinese, it's probably the hardest LOTE to do well in if you're not in the "political" game of playing around with Chinese schools etc.  Again, to illustrate my point that the scaling is generally justified, people getting 50s in English etc. often get high 30s/low 40s in Chinese, and in an extreme case there's a guy I know who got three 50s and a 37 in Chinese.  Doing well in Chinese (enough to get the 50+ scaled score) is, again, so hard that the scaling is pretty much justified.

And just for clarification, I realise that there WILL be people who do get put at an advantage by this system (eg. the plethora of people who are incredibly well-versed in any given LOTE, or the elite private schools in Latin...), but the percentage of such individuals is so low that for most of the populous I really can't see it making that much of a difference. 

The problem is that there are only a handful of people that'll get scores like 99.95 as well, which is where Latin makes a difference (and the domain in which I consider it "cheating"). Obviously, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter, like you said.

[EvangelionZeta]

Latin 35 -> 50

It also remains that barely anyone does Latin to begin with (relatively speaking), rendering your point moot.

Latin is an extreme case that suffers from the same problem as a lot of "small studies" like Ancient Greek, Classics, Environmental Science and Philosophy (albeit to a more annoying degree given the insanity of its scaling).  However, I'd argue that when considering the number of schools that offer it, along with the number of schools that actually manage to do well with it (ie. only a handful of ELITE private schools), I don't think it's enough to impact significantly on the system.  For any school outside of that handful of elite private schools, getting above 30 in Latin is pretty much unheard of.

Example point: girl who got mostly high 40s/50s for her raw scores got 34 in Latin (and she was considered GOOD at Latin), which went to around 49.  The scaling is justified.

To all the people who complain about Chinese, it's probably the hardest LOTE to do well in if you're not in the "political" game of playing around with Chinese schools etc.  Again, to illustrate my point that the scaling is generally justified, people getting 50s in English etc. often get high 30s/low 40s in Chinese, and in an extreme case there's a guy I know who got three 50s and a 37 in Chinese.  Doing well in Chinese (enough to get the 50+ scaled score) is, again, so hard that the scaling is pretty much justified.

And just for clarification, I realise that there WILL be people who do get put at an advantage by this system (eg. the plethora of people who are incredibly well-versed in any given LOTE, or the elite private schools in Latin...), but the percentage of such individuals is so low that for most of the populous I really can't see it making that much of a difference. 

The problem is that there are only a handful of people that'll get scores like 99.95 as well, which is where Latin makes a difference (and the domain in which I consider it "cheating"). Obviously, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter, like you said.

Most of the kids who get 99.95 who do Latin would be getting 99.95 just based on their other subjects, usually.  If they weren't doing Latin, they'd just be doing another subject they'd be getting close to 50 in after scaling.  I'll admit there are probably one or two who sneak in with Latin each year, but even at the top end it isn't enough to significantly unbalance things (to re-emphasise, getting 35 in Latin is actually quite hard, even for high achievers and EVEN for the majority of the elite private school kids...).

[Akirus]

Latin 35 -> 50

It also remains that barely anyone does Latin to begin with (relatively speaking), rendering your point moot.

Latin is an extreme case that suffers from the same problem as a lot of "small studies" like Ancient Greek, Classics, Environmental Science and Philosophy (albeit to a more annoying degree given the insanity of its scaling).  However, I'd argue that when considering the number of schools that offer it, along with the number of schools that actually manage to do well with it (ie. only a handful of ELITE private schools), I don't think it's enough to impact significantly on the system.  For any school outside of that handful of elite private schools, getting above 30 in Latin is pretty much unheard of.

Example point: girl who got mostly high 40s/50s for her raw scores got 34 in Latin (and she was considered GOOD at Latin), which went to around 49.  The scaling is justified.

To all the people who complain about Chinese, it's probably the hardest LOTE to do well in if you're not in the "political" game of playing around with Chinese schools etc.  Again, to illustrate my point that the scaling is generally justified, people getting 50s in English etc. often get high 30s/low 40s in Chinese, and in an extreme case there's a guy I know who got three 50s and a 37 in Chinese.  Doing well in Chinese (enough to get the 50+ scaled score) is, again, so hard that the scaling is pretty much justified.

And just for clarification, I realise that there WILL be people who do get put at an advantage by this system (eg. the plethora of people who are incredibly well-versed in any given LOTE, or the elite private schools in Latin...), but the percentage of such individuals is so low that for most of the populous I really can't see it making that much of a difference.  

The problem is that there are only a handful of people that'll get scores like 99.95 as well, which is where Latin makes a difference (and the domain in which I consider it "cheating"). Obviously, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter, like you said.

Most of the kids who get 99.95 who do Latin would be getting 99.95 just based on their other subjects, usually.  If they weren't doing Latin, they'd just be doing another subject they'd be getting close to 50 in after scaling.  I'll admit there are probably one or two who sneak in with Latin each year, but even at the top end it isn't enough to significantly unbalance things (to re-emphasise, getting 35 in Latin is actually quite hard, even for high achievers and EVEN for the majority of the elite private school kids...).

Be that as it may, you are suggesting that it is as hard to get 35 in Latin as it is to get 50 in, say, a 'standard' subject like chem or physics, a notion which I am rather skeptical towards. Of course, not having actually done Latin, I suppose I can only talk in terms of my perception towards the subject, returning me to my initial disclaimer that I am, more likely than not, biased in the matter.

Additionally, that's an analysis in hindsight only, but lets not go there. I'm not really passionate enough about my views to expend any considerable effort defending them.

[m@tty]

>50 scaling only exists in specialist and a select number of languages. For Spesh, I don't know the mechanics of it, but it arises from the requirement that spesh scaling > methods scaling.

With languages it is a government incentive program whereby the normal scaling is determined and then 5 points are added. Hence, when you have languages essentially exclusive to elite schools, the scaling is MASSIVE.

These are both reasonable consequences of reasonable notions.

VCE is a competition. Every subject is different. VTAC are trying in some way to make performances in different subjects comparable.

Is it perfect?
No.

Can it be manipulated?
Yes.

But in my experience I would say the majority of high-achieving students do not pursue subjects which scale high merely to this end, rather they have some interest and perhaps even passion in that subject area. And of course we are talking of high-achievers here. I have no doubt that there are a vast number of students at the lower end who care only for the scaling.



And Akirus, after taking away the 5 point bonus (which is immaterial to your comparison), you are comparing a 35 raw in Latin to a scaled 45 in any other subject(say, 40 in Chem/Physics). Now equality looks a bit bleak, and the Latin student short-changed.

[iffets12345]

Latin 35 -> 50

It also remains that barely anyone does Latin to begin with (relatively speaking), rendering your point moot.

To all the people who complain about Chinese, it's probably the hardest LOTE to do well in if you're not in the "political" game of playing around with Chinese schools etc.  Again, to illustrate my point that the scaling is generally justified, people getting 50s in English etc. often get high 30s/low 40s in Chinese, and in an extreme case there's a guy I know who got three 50s and a 37 in Chinese.  Doing well in Chinese (enough to get the 50+ scaled score) is, again, so hard that the scaling is pretty much justified.

Thank you.
This is my point exactly. There is politics in the VCE Chinese system that I would appreciate peolpe who have not dealt with it first hand to understand. So refrain from your criticism for Chinese. Despite the SL/SLA/FL changes, many ABCs speak fluent chinese as a result of upbringing regardless, leavnig caucasians at a disadvantage, and also other ABCs who are as we call them, "bananas" (yellow outside white inside). That is why there is a scaling of +12, amongst other reasons.
The person who gets a 50 for SL has such a cleear disparity against someone with a 32, and unfortunately, I will say most anglo saxons score in the 20-30s, so of course they deserve a +12 scaling as, though their chinese is good, unfortunately the local chinese speaker has more experience and oppurtunity.

I'm not even going to talk about xin jin shan or Chinese school politics.

[EvangelionZeta]

Latin 35 -> 50

It also remains that barely anyone does Latin to begin with (relatively speaking), rendering your point moot.

Latin is an extreme case that suffers from the same problem as a lot of "small studies" like Ancient Greek, Classics, Environmental Science and Philosophy (albeit to a more annoying degree given the insanity of its scaling).  However, I'd argue that when considering the number of schools that offer it, along with the number of schools that actually manage to do well with it (ie. only a handful of ELITE private schools), I don't think it's enough to impact significantly on the system.  For any school outside of that handful of elite private schools, getting above 30 in Latin is pretty much unheard of.

Example point: girl who got mostly high 40s/50s for her raw scores got 34 in Latin (and she was considered GOOD at Latin), which went to around 49.  The scaling is justified.

To all the people who complain about Chinese, it's probably the hardest LOTE to do well in if you're not in the "political" game of playing around with Chinese schools etc.  Again, to illustrate my point that the scaling is generally justified, people getting 50s in English etc. often get high 30s/low 40s in Chinese, and in an extreme case there's a guy I know who got three 50s and a 37 in Chinese.  Doing well in Chinese (enough to get the 50+ scaled score) is, again, so hard that the scaling is pretty much justified.

And just for clarification, I realise that there WILL be people who do get put at an advantage by this system (eg. the plethora of people who are incredibly well-versed in any given LOTE, or the elite private schools in Latin...), but the percentage of such individuals is so low that for most of the populous I really can't see it making that much of a difference. 

The problem is that there are only a handful of people that'll get scores like 99.95 as well, which is where Latin makes a difference (and the domain in which I consider it "cheating"). Obviously, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter, like you said.

Most of the kids who get 99.95 who do Latin would be getting 99.95 just based on their other subjects, usually.  If they weren't doing Latin, they'd just be doing another subject they'd be getting close to 50 in after scaling.  I'll admit there are probably one or two who sneak in with Latin each year, but even at the top end it isn't enough to significantly unbalance things (to re-emphasise, getting 35 in Latin is actually quite hard, even for high achievers and EVEN for the majority of the elite private school kids...).

Be that as it may, you are suggesting that it is as hard to get 35 in Latin as it is to get 50 in, say, a 'standard' subject like chem or physics, a notion which I am rather skeptical towards. Of course, not having actually done Latin, I suppose I can only talk in terms of my perception towards the subject, returning me to my initial disclaimer that I am, more likely than not, biased in the matter.

Additionally, that's an analysis in hindsight only, but lets not go there. I'm not really passionate enough about my views to expend any considerable effort defending them.

If you want another example of it actually being reasonably difficult to get 35+ in Latin, along with the aforementioned case of the girl getting 50s and then a 34 in Latin, there was a guy at MGS last year who got mid-high 40s in English, Chem, Physics, Methods and low 40s in Spesh (all scaled to high 40s/around 50), and a 33 in Latin.  As I said before, it's not exactly a walk in the park to get above 35...

I won't deny that some will find it easier to get 35+ in Latin than a 50 in Chem/Physics, but it's really not as "broken" as some seem to think on a larger scale (ie. realistically, it won't make that much of a difference for the people who actually DO get the 35+ scores in Latin...).

[tram]

Latin 35 -> 50

It also remains that barely anyone does Latin to begin with (relatively speaking), rendering your point moot.

To all the people who complain about Chinese, it's probably the hardest LOTE to do well in if you're not in the "political" game of playing around with Chinese schools etc.  Again, to illustrate my point that the scaling is generally justified, people getting 50s in English etc. often get high 30s/low 40s in Chinese, and in an extreme case there's a guy I know who got three 50s and a 37 in Chinese.  Doing well in Chinese (enough to get the 50+ scaled score) is, again, so hard that the scaling is pretty much justified.

Thank you.
This is my point exactly. There is politics in the VCE Chinese system that I would appreciate peolpe who have not dealt with it first hand to understand. So refrain from your criticism for Chinese. Despite the SL/SLA/FL changes, many ABCs speak fluent chinese as a result of upbringing regardless, leavnig caucasians at a disadvantage, and also other ABCs who are as we call them, "bananas" (yellow outside white inside). That is why there is a scaling of +12, amongst other reasons.
The person who gets a 50 for SL has such a cleear disparity against someone with a 32, and unfortunately, I will say most anglo saxons score in the 20-30s, so of course they deserve a +12 scaling as, though their chinese is good, unfortunately the local chinese speaker has more experience and oppurtunity.

I'm not even going to talk about xin jin shan or Chinese school politics.

i was going to defend chinese, but these two post pretty say eveything i was going to say, espeically the bolded bit

[appianway]

I have some pretty smart friends who scored low 20s in latin...

[Akirus]

>50 scaling only exists in specialist and a select number of languages. For Spesh, I don't know the mechanics of it, but it arises from the requirement that spesh scaling > methods scaling.

With languages it is a government incentive program whereby the normal scaling is determined and then 5 points are added. Hence, when you have languages essentially exclusive to elite schools, the scaling is MASSIVE.

These are both reasonable consequences of reasonable notions.

VCE is a competition. Every subject is different. VTAC are trying in some way to make performances in different subjects comparable.

Is it perfect?
No.

Can it be manipulated?
Yes.

But in my experience I would say the majority of high-achieving students do not pursue subjects which scale high merely to this end, rather they have some interest and perhaps even passion in that subject area. And of course we are talking of high-achievers here. I have no doubt that there are a vast number of students at the lower end who care only for the scaling.



And Akirus, after taking away the 5 point bonus (which is immaterial to your comparison), you are comparing a 35 raw in Latin to a scaled 45 in any other subject(say, 40 in Chem/Physics). Now equality looks a bit bleak, and the Latin student short-changed.

40 in chem/physics does not become a 45, it's closer to 43~. Both of those subjects will scale from 45->47~. I still dispute the implied difficulty of Latin. If anything, removing the 5 makes it much more fair.

If you want another example of it actually being reasonably difficult to get 35+ in Latin, along with the aforementioned case of the girl getting 50s and then a 34 in Latin, there was a guy at MGS last year who got mid-high 40s in English, Chem, Physics, Methods and low 40s in Spesh (all scaled to high 40s/around 50), and a 33 in Latin.  As I said before, it's not exactly a walk in the park to get above 35...

I won't deny that some will find it easier to get 35+ in Latin than a 50 in Chem/Physics, but it's really not as "broken" as some seem to think on a larger scale (ie. realistically, it won't make that much of a difference for the people who actually DO get the 35+ scores in Latin...).

I see your point, although I disagree with the logic that "I got 50 in every other subject so its fair I got 50~ in subject x". That is to say, just because I get 50 in English, MM, phys and accounting doesn't mean I should also get 50 in chemistry.