Scaling (1 Viewer)

[~ ReNcH ~]

i totally agree...
i do 4u math, phy, chem and english. now if i get 99.6 (not that im saying i will) i could go do law in syd, with no bases in legal studies or anything. legal studies and similar subjects dont "scale" as well as my subjects making it easyer to get that uai (ie if we got the same marks, phy would be a better uai contributor than legal). So i think if there was a umat type test 4 subjects like law,
ps no i wouldn do law neway id fail... n wot would be the point of that

It always gets me stumped when students do MX2, Physics, Chemisty and Advanced English (no Legal Studies) and enter Law @ USyd.

So JamiL, I condemn you from doing Law (unless you do Ext 1/2 English)

 

[JamiL]

pfff ext 1 or ext 2 english if 4 ppl who can spell... not me

 

[silvermoon]

It always gets me stumped when students do MX2, Physics, Chemisty and Advanced English (no Legal Studies) and enter Law @ USyd.

So JamiL, I condemn you from doing Law (unless you do Ext 1/2 English)

but legal studies has nothing to do with law at uni, so what difference does it make really?

 

[Captain pi]

You have a point there.
One negative aspect of the UAI is that it encourages people with high UAIs to enter courses merely for prestige. Of course, there are lots of students who wish to do Law or Med, get high UAIs and succeed. However, when students receive 99.6+ and choose Law simply to flaunt their achievements in the HSC, that's rather selfish imo.

Again, I raise my point that some sort of entrance exams into uni should be introduced. Hopefully, it would deter high-achieving students from selecting uni courses with high cut-offs merely for the sake of prestige.

I think a way to combat this would be to not release UAIs. Just tell people whether they got into a course or not.

 

[~ ReNcH ~]

but legal studies has nothing to do with law at uni, so what difference does it make really?

Generally the subjects students choose for the HSC reflect their interests. Whilst a Law student may not necessarily have done Legal Studies in the HSC, selecting subjects such as MX2, Physics and Chemistry is usually indicative of an interest in a science-based career, not humanities. Of course, there may be exceptions, but you get my point...

 

[JamiL]

Generally the subjects students choose for the HSC reflect their interests. Whilst a Law student may not necessarily have done Legal Studies in the HSC, selecting subjects such as MX2, Physics and Chemistry is usually indicative of an interest in a science-based career, not humanities. Of course, there may be exceptions, but you get my point...

yesh i no... my sis does law, but as rench said, u get my point... lets not get picky

 

[jpr333]

They do the subjects they'll get the best marks in, simple. Good luck to you guys this year (I really wouldn't want to be put in your postion again ). Oh and scaling is a necessity.

 

[pinto]

what annoys me is that students can do lower scaling courses such as general maths, absolutely ace them, get a good uai, and then choose a course such as engineering which they arent prepared for becoz they havent done the harder courses. this means that people doin the easier subjects get the good uai's. for example, im doin ext 2 maths and usually get a mark of around 70%, i could drop to general and get 99%, if not 100%, which would boost my uai more according to a program we have at school, however i want to do vet. sci. which requires me to do the harder subjects such as chem and physics (which i like by the way!) but it annoys me that people can do easier subjects and get a better uai. the dux of our school last year was a girl doing the easier subjects such as general maths and english, senior science etc, she beat a girl (uai wise) who was doing ext 1 and 2 english, physics, chem etc. i think it shows that the "higher scaling subjects" arent really scaling as high as we think they are.

 

[A l]

what annoys me is that students can do lower scaling courses such as general maths, absolutely ace them, get a good uai, and then choose a course such as engineering which they arent prepared for becoz they havent done the harder courses. this means that people doin the easier subjects get the good uai's. for example, im doin ext 2 maths and usually get a mark of around 70%, i could drop to general and get 99%, if not 100%, which would boost my uai more according to a program we have at school, however i want to do vet. sci. which requires me to do the harder subjects such as chem and physics (which i like by the way!) but it annoys me that people can do easier subjects and get a better uai. the dux of our school last year was a girl doing the easier subjects such as general maths and english, senior science etc, she beat a girl (uai wise) who was doing ext 1 and 2 english, physics, chem etc. i think it shows that the "higher scaling subjects" arent really scaling as high as we think they are.

Everyone has a different perspective on what is difficult and what is easy.
People have different capabilites in subjects. The Board of Studies and the UAC recommend that people should do courses that are MOST SUITED to them. In other words courses that suit their interests and/or abilities as well as courses needed as prerequisites of some university courses. People should NOT schoose subjects on the basis of scaling and the example you've provided is a good representation of that.
Just because someone has high scaled subjects does not mean that person would be guaranteed a high UAI. There is a chance that the person who picked the higher scaled subjects was not really capable in them in regards to overall rankings. The dux of your school was probably wise enough to pick subjects suited to her and NOT for the purpose of scaling, while the other person chose subjects on the basis of good scaling.

There is a process called CAPPING that students should be aware of. In the past, the old HSC (before 2001) allowed able students to exploit the system by picking easier subjects and practically excelling in them to get a good UAI. The new HSC (2001 onwards) and scaling system prevents this scenario. Courses such as General Mathematics are often capped. This means that no matter how high the top student gets, the scaled mark would NEVER be 100, if it is capped. So it would be unwise for a talented Mathematics student to choose General Mathematics.

The exception to this rule is English (Standard) because it scaled with English (Advanced) as a common course, but I won't explain this in anymore detail.

 

[Captain pi]

what annoys me is that students can do lower scaling courses such as general maths, absolutely ace them, get a good uai, and then choose a course such as engineering which they arent prepared for becoz they havent done the harder courses. this means that people doin the easier subjects get the good uai's. for example, im doin ext 2 maths and usually get a mark of around 70%, i could drop to general and get 99%, if not 100%, which would boost my uai more according to a program we have at school, however i want to do vet. sci. which requires me to do the harder subjects such as chem and physics (which i like by the way!) but it annoys me that people can do easier subjects and get a better uai. the dux of our school last year was a girl doing the easier subjects such as general maths and english, senior science etc, she beat a girl (uai wise) who was doing ext 1 and 2 english, physics, chem etc. i think it shows that the "higher scaling subjects" arent really scaling as high as we think they are.

Firstly, I think that many courses to which you allude require a certain level of maths as pre-requisites.

Secondly, an mark of 82 in Extension 2 Maths corresponded (approximately) to a mark of 100 in General Maths. And, that was a rather poor year for Extension 2 scaling.

The point of scaling is that your position in a course, together with the strength of that course, implies a certain position in English. (And that 'certain position' has a fixed scaled mark.) I have no problems with the scaling system (except that it should not be based on English, but that's a little complicated; and that there should be no limit (presently 50 per unit) for scaled mark).

 

[Meldrum]

If only I'd known about UAI when I started year 12.

Me last year:

OMG11!11!111!!! I wantz 2 du law @ USYD!111!! I shuld du law-like subjacts!!!11!!!

Me now:

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Why didn't I do Maths Ext prelim and all those sciences that are completly unrelated to law?

 

[Sweets]

It always gets me stumped when students do MX2, Physics, Chemisty and Advanced English (no Legal Studies) and enter Law @ USyd.

It's all about the prestige but also very often the people who do law do it with Science. The girl who got Dux at my school who was a MX2 and EE1 + plus physics and chemistry person is doing Law/Adv Science and she really likes it. Her sister who was just doing some sciency degree (i love my technical terms) also switched to law/Adv Science.

Plus law is one of the more rigorous humanities so I think people often find it a good combination with Science.

What annoys me more then people who didn't go humanities doing law is people who do legal studies and are moderately good at and then watch law and order and decide they want to do law.

 

[KFunk]

Generally the subjects students choose for the HSC reflect their interests. Whilst a Law student may not necessarily have done Legal Studies in the HSC, selecting subjects such as MX2, Physics and Chemistry is usually indicative of an interest in a science-based career, not humanities. Of course, there may be exceptions, but you get my point...

I don't know what happened, but somehow I ended up doing 4U math, phys and chemistry. In the end they were relatively interesting and pretty easy to get the marks in. I almost took french and modern history and music was one of my subjects until the start of year 12 and it wasn't until the first day of year 12 that I applied for 4U mathematics. While subject choices are indicative of certain interests, I feel that people make a mistake in using subject choices to define a person or categorise who they are. I know that you recognise your generalisations but sometimes people just end up in their subjects and the last things to lead me into my university course will be my HSC subjects . Keep in mind that a lot of people get pressured into certain subjects by their parents. I know people who have been pushed down the science road only to decide that they didn't want to do that at all and changed things completely.

I feel that entrance UAI's for courses are the worst part of the system we have. They misrepresent the level of the course. I know it's largely a matter of popularity and demand but it makes little sense to me that courses requiring difficult levels of abstract thinking should be a great deal easier to get into that something like law.

 

[Slidey]

Personally I think the universities should have their own entrance exams.