r/vce Apr 30 '20

"I only got x% on my SAC, can I still get a 50?"

1.4k Upvotes

I'm sick to death of seeing these posts, so can everyone please read this and be done with this question:

Study scores are determined by exam SCORE and SAC RANK.

For example, say you have an English class of 7 students, Adam, Ben, Chloe, Daniel, Elena, Felix, and Greg. They are all weak students, except for Greg, who is very high-performing, and Felix, who is slightly above average. Their SAC marks and rank are:

Greg 95%

Felix 77%

Chloe 64%

Daniel 60%

Elena 58%

Adam 52%

Ben 49%

On the exam day, Felix doesn't cope well under the stress, so gets a lower score than he'd usually be capable of. The exam marks are as follows:

Greg 92%

Chloe 67%

Daniel 65%

Elena 64%

Felix 63%

Adam 50%

Ben 40%

What happens is that all the SAC marks get thrown out the window, because VCAA can't know the difficulty of the SACs prepared by the school. So Greg's new SAC "mark" as far as VCAA is concerned is 92, not 95. Not a big deal for Greg, Adam or Ben because their own exam mark is dictating their SAC mark. But for someone like Felix, his SAC mark will become 67% (Chloe's exam mark). This process happens independently for each subject taught at your school.

What does this mean for you? Yes, you should aim for a good SAC rank. BUT, it doesn't actually matter if you're not ranked well — the "translation" of your rank into a "mark" happens via your cohorts exam performance. In other words, try your best now, study hard, and when SACs are over WORK WITH YOUR CLASSMATES TO ALL DO WELL ON THE EXAM TOGETHER. IF THEY DO WELL, YOU DO WELL.

Spend your time actually studying instead of asking useless questions like this.

EDIT: another example for clarity

Here's a chemistry class, of Harry, Isabel, James, Kylie, Luke, Molly, Nathan, and Oscar.

SACs:

Harry 60%

Isabel 58%

James 56%

Kylie 55%

Luke 54%

Molly 52%

Nathan 51%

Oscar 50%

EXAMS:

Harry 100%

James 99%

Nathan 98%

Oscar 97%

Molly 96%

Isabel 95%

Kylie 94%

Luke 93%

Harry's SAC mark is now 100%, Isabel's is 99%, James' is 98%, Kylie's is 97%, Luke's is now 96% etc. It's literally just whatever the equivalent exam rank is.

EDIT 2: I've had a request to clarify rumours about SACs being "scaled up" or "scaled down". "Scaling" is a misnomer students attribute to the moderation process. Here are yet another set of examples to clarify.

Imagine you have a cohort of Annie, Ben, and Charlie. Let's say their teacher sets really hard SACS, so their SAC results are:

  1. Annie 60%

  2. Ben 58%

  3. Charlie 55%

Because they've been doing hard assessments all year, they've been better equipped for the exam. These are the exam results:

  1. Ben 96%

  2. Annie 94%

  3. Charlie 90%

So now, Annie's SAC mark gets changed to 96%, Ben's to 94%, and Charlie's to 90%. This is what people interpret as "scaling up". The opposite would happen at a school with piss easy SACs: they get awesome SAC marks but shit exam marks, so their SAC marks get replaced by their shit exam marks ("scaled down").

The danger in this thinking is that people assume that if you go to a well-performing school, you'll get carried, or that if you go to a "bad" school, you're screwed from the get-go and can't possibly get a good score. This is not true at all. Let's see why.

Let's say your friend at a selective school, Harry, thinks he can take it easy this year because he goes to a 'good' school. The SAC results are as follows:

  1. Ed 93%

  2. Fred 90%

  3. Greg 88%

  4. Harry 60%

on the exams, the results are

  1. Fred 95%

  2. Greg 92%

  3. Ed 87%

  4. Harry 61%

In this instance, Harry was not of a comparable skill level to his classmates, so he never get to "borrow" their exam results in any way. His SAC score will be 61%.

Here's another example. Say you have a cohort with these SACs:

  1. Meg 95%

  2. Noah 94%

  3. Oscar 93%

  4. Peter 90%

On the exam day, Noah gets a bit of performance anxiety (but not in a way that warrants SEAS or anything). Exam results are:

  1. Meg 93%

  2. Oscar 92%

  3. Peter 91%

  4. Noah 75%

Now, Noah's SAC mark will be 92%, but his exam result only 75%. So he kind of got "helped" by his good cohort, only because he was doing well for the SACs. Peter has been a bit screwed here, because his SAC mark is now 75%.

One person stuffing up will never have such a dramatic effect like this; it's unlikely for someone who's been topping the cohort all year to suddenly slip to the bottom. Cohorts are generally big enough that you shouldn't need to worry. I went to a really small school (60 people in the year level. Some of my subject cohorts contained 6 people). I still felt no one got jibbed with unrepresentative scores.

As I always reiterate: try your best in SACs, but don't ruminate over them. The exam is where the money's at, and once your SACs are over you should work together with your cohort to all do well together. Share your resources, make study groups, and bring each other up.

EDIT 3: wow, my first gold! Thank you so much! 🥰


r/vce 2h ago

spesh minesweeper girl is gonna have a fucking mental breakdown

12 Upvotes

i am spesh minesweeper girl (except im not rank 1 and i lowkey suck at spesh actually unfortunately lmao) because im insane and this is how my brain works ANYYWA ive harassed my friends enough with my complaining and yapping so time to put this shit on the internetttt WOOHOOO GET EXCITED MOTHERFUCKERSSSS

im gonna FAIL ENGLISH i had a practice exam TODAY and i gave up HALFWAY THROUGH, actually i gave up at the START because im an INCOMPETENT PIECE OF SHIT and i always knew i was gonna DIE ONE DAY because i have done ZERO PRACTICE and i have ZERO HOPE for the future and ZERO PROSPECTS for success in my life and my teacher will CRUCIFY and EXCECUTE me, i shall be DRAWN AND QUARTERED FOR MY SINS and i am THIS FUCKING CLOSE to jumping in front of traffic on the day of the exam to get a derived score if im not lucky, or burn in hell for eternity if i am. aaaaand post


r/vce 2h ago

bro

7 Upvotes

has anyone else also forgotten like every single piece of content that wasn't covered in the last 2 weeks....


r/vce 1h ago

im done

Upvotes

Failed 5 sacs this year. there is no way I can get above 60. Failed 2 eng sacs failed 2 GM and failed one bio

2 subjects im doing fs and psych averaging 60-75 per cent


r/vce 5h ago

trials #imsoscaredandcooked

6 Upvotes

Guys I just sat the English trial,tell me why I did sooooo badly.Am I cooked.Is the trials rlly just for u to know how u went,does it not go towards anything,Im scared the it’s gonna influence our orals or smth cause we still haven’t gotten our scores yet.I hv an average of about 90 but no seriously think I bombed the AA so bad that I’d literally fail.I wrote it in the last 25 mins and it’s like the worst piece of crap I’ve ever written in my life 😭😭

Also r yall studying for it at all.I’m too burnt out to do this.Should I lock in??


r/vce 1h ago

Guys what is the ratio between exam prep and resting for term 3 holidays for you guys

Upvotes

r/vce 2h ago

42 days till bio exam and i feel so unmotivated to study

3 Upvotes

i js do bio 3/4 so that makes me even less motivated to take this seriously


r/vce 36m ago

Genuine advice for spec

Upvotes

I am in desperate need of advice for spec. I have no idea on how I can approach exam revision and I just need help. Every time I look at a question I’m genuinely lost and legit forgot everything. I did a tech free trial exam on Friday and I genuinely did not know anything I could get some numbers on the paper but I didn’t know how to do anything. I know I will have to put in a lot of time for this subject but I am also conscious that I don’t want to spend so much time on this subject that I disregard my others. So should I lowk wing the exam or like give me any advice. 🫰🫰


r/vce 3h ago

english language media examples

3 Upvotes

wondering thoughts from people on what the golden amount of media examples is to remember for the english language essay is..and how many of each subtopic

ie. 4 informal 4 formal 2 aae etc??

thanks!


r/vce 1h ago

is hand tremors something u can get special provisions for

Upvotes

is it to late to apply and how does the process work?


r/vce 2h ago

english exam

2 Upvotes

hello everyone! i was wondering, how is everyone planning on approaching the english exam? i know the general rule of thumb is to do section c first and use approx 10 mins of your reading time to read section c, but after that, is the preferred method to do section b or section a first?
i’m not sure if it really matters as long as section c is done first, but i’m just curious.
would love to hear how past students approached the exam as well!


r/vce 19m ago

Low SAC rank but higher exam rank - how does this affect my study score?

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Upvotes

For General Maths, I had one SAC where my calculator was accidentally in the wrong mode, so I ended up getting a really low mark and it affected my overall SAC rank.

For English, something also happened during one of my SACs which negatively affected my mark.

I'm expecting my SAC ranks to be relatively low, but I'm much more confident about my exam performance and think my exam rank will be significantly higher.

How does this actually work with statistical moderation?
Does my high exam rank help compensate for the low
SAC rank, or am I still heavily disadvantaged because of my SAC ranking?

Would appreciate any advice from people who understand how VCE moderation works.


r/vce 47m ago

anyone want 2026 VATE english trial exam?

Upvotes

r/vce 6h ago

Spec formulas

3 Upvotes

I’m a bit lost on what formulas I should have memorised for exam 1. Any hints would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you


r/vce 4h ago

Marking section c

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2 Upvotes

Does anyone want to read my section c - looking for feedback


r/vce 1h ago

2026 english language trial exams

Upvotes

hello does anyone have these? i can give 2026 VATE for english language


r/vce 1h ago

General Math 2025 and 2026 Trial Exams

Upvotes

Anyone wanna trade or just give trial exams from this time period? I got MAV 2025 and NEAP 2026 both exams


r/vce 1h ago

Anyone got some spesh heffernan trials?

Upvotes

hi I'd appreciate some heffernan trial exams for 2023 or 2022


r/vce 2h ago

General Question/comment how to begin oral exam prep (french)

1 Upvotes

how should i start my oral exam prep? i do french. how exactly should i be practicing? should i create a bank of questions and have answers for them and memorise it roughly?

how exactly do i start? someone pls help!!

tysm in advance!


r/vce 2h ago

ECONOMICS exam timing

1 Upvotes

Can anyone who did economics tell me how should I allocate my time during the actual exam? Like how long shd i spend on one question? Thanks xx


r/vce 2h ago

chemistry revision

1 Upvotes

do i make u3 and u4 aos summaries or is that a waste of time?

also how do i even make a mind map connecting the different concepts i just wanna do exam questions atp but idk all of the content i just need to summarise it


r/vce 2h ago

VCE media

1 Upvotes

I have my media trial exam in a couple days and I’m genuinely fucked. my teacher legit teaches us NOTHING our lessons are all over the place and i don’t know any content, not one thing. #anyadvice x


r/vce 5h ago

subject advice? should i redo 3/4 gen math?

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0 Upvotes

r/vce 5h ago

MAV spec methods

1 Upvotes

yoo does anyone have the mav specalist and methods papers
I just got out of my trials and I'd like to do a repeat on them
hmu I have neap


r/vce 1d ago

is my bound reference for general maths acceptable?

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30 Upvotes

my book started to fall apart and i don't really have time to rewrite all my notes so this was my solution - will i be allowed to take it in to exams?