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- Almost all tertiary courses have a prerequisite of a raw study score in an English. A study score below 25 in this subject will impact the tertiary choices that a student has available to them, and a study score below 20 will significantly impact the tertiary choices available.
- These tertiary cut-offs are raw scores, rather than the scaled scores that contribute to ATARs.
- In any study, 22% of the cohort will receive a raw study score below 25, and 7% will receive a raw study score below 20 (VCAA)
- English, English Language and Literature have very different cohorts. In 2020, approximately 40,000 students enrolled in English, while less than 4,000 students enrolled in each of English Language and Literature.
- As an essentially compulsory subject, the English cohort is made up of a wide variety of students of mixed ability; while English Language and Literature each have a significantly smaller, generally more academically capable niche cohort.
- The result of these demographics means that is more likely that a student enrolled in English Language or Literature will score in the bottom 22% of the state wide cohort and receive a study score below 25 as a result. This may mean the student does not meet the English prerequisite for their preferred tertiary course.
- Also as a result of these demographics, English Language and Literature study scores generally scale up, while English scores scale down. In 20202019, a student who received a 35 in English and a student who received a 30 in English Language would have both received a scaled score of 33 in their ATAR.
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