Sam's curiosities (1 Viewer)

[Schoey93]

Hi all,

I have just been having a play with SAM. I put in 13 units:

English Advanced, English Extension 1, English Extension 2, Mathematics (General), Chemistry, Italian Continuers, Society and Culture, Studies of Religion 1.


Now, even when I put 100 for General Math it doesn't count. Why??? Surely if you got first in the state it would count.

Note, I also put Drama in instead of Society and Culture.

E.g.

Chemistry - 96
Drama - 96

Drama was the subject that would be included in your UAI! How weird is that when Drama has shit scaling and Chem has awesome scaling!!!


Please explain?

James

 

[lou071]

i don't know what you did, so i really can't explain why it worked like that,
but it is for sure that chemistry scales way better than drama.

 

[Schoey93]

I put in the exact same marks for Chemistry and Drama, and Drama was included in the UAI caluculation, Chemistry was not (Advanced SAM, 2008 stats).

I had ridiculously high marks for all of the other subjects, i.e.:

English Advanced - 99
English Extension 1 - 48
English Extension 2 - 50
Mathematics - 100
Chemistry - 96
Drama - 96
Italian Continuers - 100

Studies of Religion 1 - 47


Yes, that's right. May have put 49 instead of 48 for English Extension 1.

 

[Timothy.Siu]

i have no idea what u did because i just did the same thing(i.e. i put 8 units on 100/100 and chem and drama on 96), and chemistry counted, not drama

 

[x.Exhaust.x]

Chemistry's scaling > Drama's scaling.

 

[Schoey93]

According to SAM, Chemistry and Drama scale exactly the same for aligned marks of 95+.

E.g.
Chem = 96
Drama = 96

Both will count and be scaled to the same mark (94.6, I think)!

 

[Bacchus]

SAM is only an estimator. It is quite an accurate tool however, it can never get perfectly accurate as we do not fully understand the aligned mark -> scaled mark relationship. And another thing to note is that scaled mark is actually derived from RAW MARK.

According to 2008 Scaling Report, Chemistry has a much better scaling than Drama in general.

If you wish to know how the scaling is for the subject, you might want to check some scaling reports are. I am aware of the fact that they change every year however, the difference that you see every year for those subjects are quite small - that's why it is a good indicator.

 

[Sarah182]

I put in the exact same marks for Chemistry and Drama, and Drama was included in the UAI caluculation, Chemistry was not (Advanced SAM, 2008 stats).

I had ridiculously high marks for all of the other subjects, i.e.:

English Advanced - 99
English Extension 1 - 48
English Extension 2 - 50
Mathematics - 100
Chemistry - 96
Drama - 96
Italian Continuers - 100

Studies of Religion 1 - 47


Yes, that's right. May have put 49 instead of 48 for English Extension 1.

..... You are planning to get those marks?? That's almost a state ranking in every subject, is that even possible?

But as it has been said it is odd that SAM would do that however some odd things happen with subject scaling once you get into the higher marks, it sort of smooths out in that scaling doesn't affect the marks as greatly as if you got say 80 in each.

 

[Lazarus]

Now, even when I put 100 for General Math it doesn't count. Why??? Surely if you got first in the state it would count.

Courses with low scaled means typically have maximum scaled marks less than 50.

General Mathematics is an example of a course which is nearly always capped on this basis. In 2008, the maximum scaled mark for this course was 45.5/50.

So, scaled marks greater than 45.5 (i.e. > 91%) are counted instead of this mark.

Capping is done to prevent students from obtaining an advantage by 'dumbing down' and taking 'easy' courses.

This anomalous advantage derives from the transformation which is used to scale the raw marks. The scaling transformation has the greatest impact on students in the middle of the distribution. Students at the very top are affected least of all, except where the course is capped.

Before capping, the maximum scaled mark was always 50, and a raw mark that was close to 100% always became a scaled mark close to 50. This meant that a student could take an easy course, obtain a raw mark close to 100%, and be guaranteed a scaled mark close to 50 irrespective of what the scaling for the rest of the course was like.

Nowadays, since capping was introduced in 2001, a student with a raw mark close to 100% can only expect to receive a scaled mark close to the maximum scaled mark, which may be less than 50.

Drama was the subject that would be included in your UAI! How weird is that when Drama has shit scaling and Chem has awesome scaling!!!

According to SAM, Chemistry and Drama scale exactly the same for aligned marks of 95+.

E.g.
Chem = 96
Drama = 96

Both will count and be scaled to the same mark (94.6, I think)!

A single course will scale in different ways at different points in the distribution - always upwards or downwards, but you might move more up or more down depending on where you are positioned.

Many courses scale very similarly at the far upper end, beyond the 99th percentile.

You can see from Table A3 that 96 in Chemistry was similar to 95 in Drama, and that both marks were at the 99th percentile.

Below the 99th percentile, Drama goes downhill quickly.

 

[Miss Sunshine]

^ that's interesting