Ep 96 - How Do SACs Work in VCE?
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What we’re talking about:
Let’s talk about how SACs work in VCE so that you know what they are, how they’re used, and to bust some of the misconceptions around them that often come up throughout the year so that you can feel really confident as you move through VCE.
1:32 What is a SAC?
Throughout your time at school from prep through to Year 12, you do different types of assessment. SAC stands for School Assessed Coursework and it’s called that because it is one of the assessment types that is used to calculate your study score for your VCE subjects, but it is written by your teachers and completed through your school (as opposed to the external exams at the end of Unit 3&4 subjects written by VCAA). You can find out how many SACs you’ll do for each subject and how each SAC will look by looking at the study design for the subject on the VCAA website.
4:35 How do you find out your SAC results?
Different schools will report back differently. Some schools will give you an actual percentage mark for each SAC. Others might use a grade or a descriptor to give you an idea of how well you’ve done. These marks are not what is submitted to VCAA - your teachers will rank all the students for a subject based on their results in their SACs, and then these will be scaled up or down depending on how your cohort of students do on the external exam at the end of the year. The most important part of your SAC if you’re aiming to do really well in VCE is to make sure you understand where you didn’t get some of the marks and what you needed to do differently to get full marks on those questions. That will help you prepare for the next SAC and also for your end of year exams.
7:47 How are SAC results used?
When you get your study scores at the end of the year, you’ll be able to see the grades you got for your overall SAC results (which might be split into Unit 3 and Unit 4, or might be put together as one SAC result) and then a grade or grades for your end of year exam(s) for that subject. Your SAC result may be higher or lower than you expected based on the feedback you got from your school throughout the year. This is because of the scaling that happens, and it has to happen to make sure that the SACs at one school are treated as being equivalent in difficulty to the SACs at another school. This is why you shouldn’t get too focused on your SAC results throughout the year other than learning from them - see the podcast episode “What is Your VCE Subject Ranking?” linked below for more information.
Links mentioned:
Work with me: https://www.roadmapeducation.com/services
Free Download - The Parents’ Guide to VCE: https://www.roadmapeducation.com/parents-guide
How are ATARs Calculated? https://www.roadmapeducation.com/podcast/58
What is Your VCE Subject Ranking? https://www.roadmapeducation.com/podcast/79