What is scaling?? (1 Viewer)

[workhardplayfre]

Hi People,

I see all this talk about scaling and hear a lot about it as well. Honestly i am confused about what it is. what i think i know is that it has something to do with other peoples marks, and how that can make your mark go up or down, and how the test also reflects this. Plz help thx

 

[madharris]

Scaling has nothing to do with other peoples marks, what happens is that after you get your mark UAC will apply a different weighting to certain subjects in order to calculate your atar.

e.g. - pretend you only do 2 subjects in the HSC
say person A does Chemistry (subjectively difficult subject - scales well) and physics (subjectively difficult subject - scales well)
and person B does Visual arts (subjectively easier subject - scales worse) and Music 1 (subjectively easier subject - scales worse)

So say both got an HSC mark of 90 in each subject

Although they both got the same marks of 90, person A will have a better atar because his subjects were 'harder' and scaled better than person B who did 'easier' subjects that didn't scale as well


However, don't take scaling into consideration at all when choosing your subjects! If you do shit in a high scaling subject, then the scaling won't work in your favour, and you might as well have done really well in a lower scaling subject.

Sorry if i haven't explained it too well, however it's a pretty difficult concept to grasp

 

[workhardplayfre]

AHhhhhhh i see. thank you so much i get it now but why not take scaling into consideration if i can study for the subject and it scales well? but thank you so much for the explaination