How hard is it to maintain a WAM of 80 in medicine? (1 Viewer)

[dp624]

Hi, if everyone can help @ thread title it'd be awesome.
I hear you need to maintain top 20?

What kind of tests are there for assessments? Also, since it's a WAM that means you can sort of get <80 in a certain test and get over it in another right?
If you could, say, refer specifically to UNSW it'd be great.

I have to make an important decision by today midnight. Thanks =D

 

[lionking1191]

is this scholarship related?

80WAM would be low D average? more than that i have no clue.

 

[dp624]

yea it's scholarship related, needs 80+ (mid D-HD range i think)

 

[doink]

In between very difficult and extraordinarily difficult, its hard enough to pass but for WAM of 80 you are looking at studying about 4x as much as you did for hsc.

 

[rcr4fags]

and in medicine for that matter. they dont give you marks for just throwing in key words in exams.

but i assume if you made it to medicine you are smarter than the average joe

 

[dp624]

is the WAM derived from written exams only? or are there pracs etc?
and how do they weight it? is the 80% RAW or does it undergo scaling like HSC

 

[lionking1191]

is the WAM derived from written exams only? or are there pracs etc?
and how do they weight it? is the 80% RAW or does it undergo scaling like HSC

i remember coming across a thread in the transfers or law section of the forums where there was a detailed breakdown of how WAM is calculated. have a look around?

 

[partelephant]

Hi, if everyone can help @ thread title it'd be awesome.
I hear you need to maintain top 20?

What kind of tests are there for assessments? Also, since it's a WAM that means you can sort of get <80 in a certain test and get over it in another right?
If you could, say, refer specifically to UNSW it'd be great.

I have to make an important decision by today midnight. Thanks =D

Top 20 sounds about right. The tests at UNSW consist of 2 sections of multiple choice questions (30 or so) and occasionally some labelling of diagrams (e.g. anatomy) and 4 sections of short answer questions usually in 3 or 4 parts i.e. part a, b, c, etc (although short answer = up to 2 pages of writing per part). Yes, since it's an average then you wouldn't necessarily have to get 80+ in each test.

is the WAM derived from written exams only? or are there pracs etc?
and how do they weight it? is the 80% RAW or does it undergo scaling like HSC

The WAM is derived ONLY from a single written exam every 8 weeks - you have to do assignments and projects but these only work on a different type of basis and its all rather complicated to explain (but what determines whether you pass/fail each 8 week course is only your mark from that single test). I'm certain the 80 undergoes some sort of scaling before it reaches us (but the mark you receive in the emails does not change further).

 

[doink]

WAM = weighted average mark, weighted based on credit point of subject. It only counts your final mark for the subject as well.

So (Mark x Credit point) + ... / Total credit points = WAM

 

[partelephant]

It doesn't work that way in UNSW Med seeing as we only have one all-encompassing subject with a single exam every 8 weeks and which are worth the same amount of units of credit.

 

[dp624]

ok, thanks everyone

 

[Deltan]

yea it's scholarship related, needs 80+ (mid D-HD range i think)

if you fail to achieve 80+, do you get kicked out of the med program or just lose your scholarship?

I know that for optom, if you fail to make the grades, you get booted out and finish with a vision science degree even though its not scholarship related

 

[dp624]

it's just the 10k$ per year i lose... sore blow really.
lols
but i think if you pass, then you're still in the course

 

[KFunk]

What follows is a set of mean marks (out of 100) and standard deviations for some of the recent phase 1 exams in UNSW medicine:

Mean ... SD

67........ 9.4
65.6 ... 10.5
67.3 .... 8.1
64.2 .....11.7
65.1 .... 10.9
63.4 .... 9.8

Assuming normal distribution that means that the top 5% scored, respectively, 85.8, 86.6, 83.5, 87.6, 86.9, 83, or more. (Note, this is 5% of ~= 540 or so students which ~= 27 students or less)

Anecdotally it would appear that these upper ranges are often populated with conscientious hard workers (who put in study each night) who often did very well in the HSC (rankings, 99.9+, etc). You also get the occaisional person who is simply brilliant. No surprises really.

If you can score a $10k medical scholarship then presumably you can manage a WAM of 80 with enough work.

 

[KFunk]

Also, from eyeing the data set, it would seem that in the majority of cases a score 1.645 SD above the mean is > 80, such that the top 10% (~54 students) are receiving 80 or more.

 

[dp624]

All right, thanks a lot, I hope i can maintain it =D