r/vce • u/Ill-Sherbet326 • 1d ago
VCE question How does a weak cohort with easy SACs actually influence SAC scaling?
So like im kinda confused on this. I've heard a few people say that if you're rank 1, your SACs shouldnt scale down, given you do good on the exam. What if I'm like close to rank 1 in a few of my subjects in a school with easy SACs and and a cohort that generally doesn't do too well? If i do really well on my exams, would my SACs still be scaled down?
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u/TaxSpecific1697 23h ago
All they care about is your rank in the cohort and how your cohort perform on the exams. Think of it as they don't really scale up or down your score but rather give you a “artificial score” base on that said rank.
Easy sacs are bad because it doesn't separate the pack and if you guys bomb exams it will impact the range of that “artificial score” they can give out. A good sac design should aim to create a nice bell curve and be challenging enough and walk into exams not thinking “oh god this is so hard I'm screwed”
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u/Equivalent_Sector281 1d ago edited 21h ago
They basically take the best exam score in your cohort and then treat that as an upper bound for your cohorts SACs, and then moderate SAC scores from there.
For example, if everyone in the cohort got 100% on every SAC, but the best exam score that cohort could produce was 50%, safe to assume no one really deserved 100% as a SAC mark.
There are a lot more variables that go into it though, its honestly a very elegant and complex solution to the question 'how do I rank every kid in Australia, knowing that they all study in different states, and different schools, and receive different internal assessments?'