What the? (1 Viewer)

[rottendodo]

Hi guys, first post here. I was having a go at SAM, trying to work out what subject I should drop out fo Chemistry or IT. Im ranked second in both subjects. whats annoyign me is that an 87 in Chem isnt as good as a 91 in IT... i'l say it again.. what the? Chemistry is a proper science, hard as hell, and IT is easy as. I dont exactly want to drop chemistry because it seems like so muhc more of a 'proper' subject, but it seems its easier o do better in IT. Any suggestions?

 

[crazedmo2003]

Surely those marks are pre-aligned

 

[rottendodo]

What do you mean by pre-aligned? does that mean that each subject goes through some kind of scaling before this happens?

 

[rottendodo]

Is that 15% of chemistry students or 15% of teh general student population? top 15% in Chemistry is probably actually harder than top 8% in IT becasue of the general quality of the students in either.
To get an 'aligned mark' I know you have to adjust for what school and rank your in, but will a chemistry mark 'align' better than an IT mark? eg If i got 85 in Chem and a 95 in IT could that align to an 87 and a 91 in IT? If thats the case then Chems the go I think.

 

[rottendodo]

does anyone know If some raw marks align better before scaling?

 

[Lazarus]

Aligned marks are never scaled.

Aligning and scaling are two independent processes that run in parallel.

Raw marks -> aligned marks -> HSC record of achievement

Raw marks -> scaled marks -> UAI

SAM estimates scaled marks from aligned marks (because they're the only statistics we have), but in reality no such transformation occurs.