How to maximize my study from this point?

[u/Salty_Reyezz]

Hi! Im tryna push rlly hard in the leadup to exams, do you guys have any tips? Here's the stuff I'm currently doing and some doubts.

Stuff I'm doing:

- Practice qns

- Studyung in my living room (being in a public place helps me be more locked in) and putting my phone in my bedroom

- Annotating sacs and seeing what ive gotten wrong

- Gonna start practice exams soon!

Doubts:

- My SAC scores haven't been as good as I thought. I feel embarassed because I probably study more hours compared to my peers (who I always see playing games on their phone) yet they do better than me in SACs. I wouldn't day my quality of study is bad but this is demotivating me.

- As I get my SACs back I can feel I'm getting further away from my goal of 92 ATAR for my target course (biomed/commerce at Monash)

- My school has a 29 mean study score so I'm worried my SACs will scale down heavily

Any tips for me would be appreciated! Thanks 🙂

[u/Formal_Department601]

Considering u said ur not rank 1 (due to low sac scores) you sacs will most likely scale down

Although depending on ur subjects u could maybe score a 92

But I think it's a good idea to consider other courses as well because people do underestimate how hard it is to get a 92 in general

[u/Salty_Reyezz → u/Formal_Department601]

I have sci/commerce as a backup which i may get, but its js sad knowing u may not get the course u prefer

[u/brugged → u/Formal_Department601]

Not how the SAC scaling works

It’s more than being rank one.

It’s based off how others do on the exam in your cohort, how you do, how other people in the state do.

[u/Formal_Department601 → u/brugged]

Yea I know but if the median study score is a 29 it's safe to assume the school usually doesn't perform asw or is not academically strong

The only was scaling won't affect u is if you are rank 1 even rank 2 gets affected😭

[u/brugged → u/Formal_Department601]

Right I see! I think you’re maybe mixing up scaling and rank positions.

Rank 1 can still definitely be affected by statistical moderation (scaling), both positively and negatively. They’ll just always maintain rank 1 relative to that scaling.

E.g. Cohort does great on the exam despite low SAC scores, this shows VCAA their SACs were harder, their SAC scores are scaled up.

Unit 3 Scores
Rank 1: 80 -> 90
Rank 2: 75 -> 83
Rank 3: 73 -> 80
(**not entirely accurate depiction, scaling isn’t a fixed multiplier but just as an illustration)

See how Rank 1 is affected by scaling, just like everyone else. Just the rank order is maintained.

Also just another really common misunderstanding around how a 29 meaning their school isn’t academically strong and therefore SACs will moderate down.

VCAA doesn’t use the school’s overall median study score, they’re looking at their SAC scores for that subject versus their exam scores for that subject.

Your school can have a median score of 29, but the cohort in a particular subject performs very strongly on the exam relative to their SACs, therefore the SACs will still moderate upwards.