How accurate is SAM? (1 Viewer)

[hazaar]

just wondering how accurate SAM is?
Whenever i enter marks i get between 95 and 98.
That would be absoolutely awesome as i'm only hoping for nineties.
Going on past years, how accurate is the program?
What's the best way to maximise its usefulness.
i.e what marks should i enter.

thanx

 

[DeathB4Life]

id guess the most accurate way determine your HSC marks is to use your marks for the trials if theyre written externally e.g CSSA, and maybe add a few marks extra since theyre supposedly a little harder than the HSC and youll have plenty of extra study time afterwards.

as for rankings, well im not too sure if theres an accurate way to exstimate your assessment mark...but something along the lines of: if your top 10% of class assume an assessment mark of around band 6, if your in top 20% assume around band 5, top 50% assume around band 4.

^ this is dependant on alot of factors, but i think that should give you a rough idea.

 

[Ragerunner]

What not to do is enter in your trial marks or your overall assessment mark so far. That is a big no no.

SAM is extremely accurate for it's purpose; that is to estimate what UAI you would of received if you attained the HSC marks you inputted for that particular year.

Every year the scaling system is done afresh, meaning it's impossible to be sure that a particular subject will scale the same this year in comparison to last year. Generally speaking though, the scaled means do tend to be quite stable with only a few subjects having a significant variation to the previous years scaled mean.

The marks you enter into SAM is the HSC mark which is the average of your HSC exam mark and HSC assessment mark. The most ideal way to use SAM is to look at the results of your trials and compare it to the standard packages the school offers and use it to estimate your aligned mark. (Assuming your trial follows similar format to the HSC exam, i.e. same question layout).

 

[JMcDog]

My brother did his HSC in 2004 and if I put his actual marks into SAM it shows a UAI of nearly 93.... however, his UAI was a little under 89... We thought this was a little strange at the time - relative to the marks of his friends etc. But given that SAM is based on 2004 now, either he was dudded or SAM is not very accurate at all in some instances. His subjects were mainstream btw.

 

[boo16]

Hey,

I'm not very convinced the uai calculator is accurate either. I did the HSC in 2004 and I typed my results in for the 2004 uai calculator and it gave me a uai of 2.5 higher than what my actual uai was. So your best bet is just look at a) how you are doing relative to the other students in your grade and b) how your school is ranked in the state. At the end of the day it's all about ranks and scaling.

 

[Jameswilmot2000]

it doesn't matter how your school is ranked relative to the state ...

 

[helper]

As James has said your school doesn't come into it. Your ranking in the school do not come into scaling. That is done beforehand in the moderation process.

SAM is only an estimate as only cutoff data is published and used. SAM and other programs use this to interpolate estimates

 

[P_Dilemma]

SAM better not be accurate. After getting my estimate i thought i'd kill someone...

-P_D

 

[jemsta]

SAM was pretty accurate for some people
but for me the estimation was around 1.5 from my actual UAI

 

[xxlambchopxx]

i don;t really think that sam is all that acurate.
my friend somehow got less than 50 using sam

 

[JhK89]

lol most my friends got lower than 50 but some get like 98

 

[michaeln36]

it doesn't matter how your school is ranked relative to the state ...

he said compare your ranks to those in your school, then compare your school ranks to state rank.

In this instance, your school ranking is extremely important. If you are getting around average in a lower ranked school, you are going to get a much lower uai than someone scoring average ranks at james ruse....
So the most effective way to guage UAI would be to look at your % rank in school, the see ur schools relative strength to the state. OR, ask ur teacher what type of marks someone of ur ability/rank achieved in each of ur subjects last year, then plug those marks into SAM.
duh!

 

[allydude]

good on ya buddy..

i have no idea as to how accurate it is,, it is telling me that i could get anywhere between 75-90.. but really,, what do u want to do, just aspire for that, not a mark..

good luck,,
ally

 

[allydude]

dude ur a crack up lad!!!

yet, dont fully kill someone,, thats gross

later skater hater

 

[Affinity]

I remember James (The admin that is) saying something along the lines that it is quite accurate at the higher end (>95) and the accuracy decreases as you go down.

But again.. why bother about UAI prediction? you can change your preferences after you know your UAI.. so you should spend more time studying than worrying about your UAI

 

[blackfriday]

kids,^^^. good advice.

and the reason why its more accurate when you get 95+ is because the distribution is more bunched up and its easier to align aggregates to uais.

 

[sathdog]

so to put in a nut shell...coz my uai will be nowhere near 95 SAM is of no use to me?

 

[blackfriday]

last year when the hsc marks came out, my friends gave them to me and i gave them a number. the ones who got 98+, i guessed within 0.2 of what they actually got. the ones who got in the 80s, i was about 1.0 points off on average. it just harder to nail down the uai. SAM is not usless, just that its harder to give an exact number.

 

[deniseee]

just wondering how accurate SAM is?
Whenever i enter marks i get between 95 and 98.
That would be absoolutely awesome as i'm only hoping for nineties.
Going on past years, how accurate is the program?
What's the best way to maximise its usefulness.
i.e what marks should i enter.

thanx

im wondering the same thing mate. hope its not putting my hopes up for nothing lol

 

[thewhitecomet]

I'm pretty certain it overestimates. I was feeling a bit depressed one day and shoved in some (i consider bad) marks ie. a Band 4 for my worst subject. And the estimate was well in the 98s. So.... Something's definitely wrong there. But my school is really ass. We know that we get 40ish 99+ each year but after that, no one knows what the marks are like. Dodgy.

Best way to estimate is to get your overall rank in your school. And compare it to a student who was around your rank last year. (assuming no great discrepancy)