South Australian Matriculation (SAM)

[seeweijie]

Originally Posted by nadia.g

Hye ppl!

I got an offer to do SAM in taylor's college. I really hope seniors cud share their tips and experience about the SAM programme. It will be really helpful

Thanks!

I also got offer to study SAM at Taylor... my scholarship provider is Telekom...
I also hope seniors can share bout their experience and how they face the SAM at here...
Hope to see you there...

[jingguo]

Originally Posted by nadia.g

i wonder wats the diff betwen SAM n AUSMAT?

Does SAM haf special text books? Im so excited to start the programme.

Issit as stressful as IB?

SAM as you might know is South Australian Matriculation. and AUSMAT is Australian Matriculation. the difference between the 2 are SAM's examination board is under Senior Secondary Board of South Australia (SSABSA) while AUSMAT is under Curriculum Council of Western Australia.

However in INTEC, the AUSMAT course offered is actually SAM.

for more info between the 2 check these websites out:
Sunway's AUSMAT programme: http://www.sunway.edu.my/index.php?o...ang=iso-8859-1

INTEC's AUSMAT programme : http://www.intec.uitm.edu.my/index.p...=40&Itemid=153

and SSABSA:http://www.ssabsa.sa.edu.au/

and there are certain textbooks which you must use actually, in fact you do have a few more workbooks as supplementaries!! though i'm not sure how much the current examination has changed, but as far as i know of there are actually past years' paper for sale.. or hand-me-downs from the seniors.. very useful indeed.

in comparison to IB, i'm not sure, but what i can say is SAM is definitely laden with tonnes of assignments especially for english as second language.

Originally Posted by starlemon

What is the compulsary subjects for SAM in INTEC?
Also,is SAM harder than A level?

there are 2 compulsory subjects to be taken: esls and mathematical studies. and you woud have another 3 subjects to choose from. in INTEC, there would be "packages" where combination of subjects are already made for you and depending on your course of future studies, you would go for different packages.

besides those subjects, you actually have a few more other subjects to take as well but these are just internal assessments only ie computer, theology and philosophy, moral and ethics/agama studies and civilisation studies. for the latter 3 studies,you would take one studies each for every semester.

A levels would be harder i suppose given that the area of studies that should be covered are more vast.

Originally Posted by nadia.g

its compulsory for us to take 5 subjects. for me future medic student, we must take, english studies/english as 2nd language, maths, bio, chem, physics.

Im not sure if its harder than a-level.

Issit?

its true that you have to take 5 subjects, no more no less. and for future medic student, i think u have the other option to take specialist maths instead of biology (which is still valid in my years in INTEC which was 2006 though. not sure if its stil the same)

Originally Posted by nadia.g

tats gud.. why is my programme stretched to 1.5 years?

this applies to all JPA scholars in INTEC somehow. AUSMAT in INTEC is for 1.5 years, A levels in INTEC is for 2 years instead of 1.5. its just so. from personal experience, the first half a year is actually to prepare students in their english. and another reason would be for AUSMAT, we would only spend about 10 months or so to finish up all the syllabus for final year examination. so from june till december of the first semester, students would be exposed to the basic introduction of certain subjects and to prepare them for their IELTS examination. and from january to october the following year, the real stuff would only begin


hope these info helps!!!

[youngyew]

About the difficulty of SAM, it really depends on how you define "difficult".

Syllabus wise, SAM is indeed one of the easiest to study - it was quite easy, I felt so much more relaxed studying it compared to SPM. The syllabus is quite short, and honestly speaking I wasn't studying most of the time because there really wasn't much to study.

Scoring wise, it depends on what you want to achieve. First a brief introduction of the grading system for SAM. Basically for SAM, the final result will be in the form of TER (tertiary entrance rank). TER is actually a percentile of "how you fare compared to others". The maximum TER is 99.95. If you get TER of, say, 98.5, it basically means that you are better than 98.5% of all the candidates taking exams in Australia.

So back to scoring: it turns out that scoring 90 and above is not too hard, but scoring very high scores like 99% is relatively difficult - arguably equally, if not more difficult than scoring straight As in STPM or A levels if you judge it according to the proportion of people getting those results. And then, if you are aiming to enter popular courses like medicine or pharmacy, it will pose some difficulty for you. For melbourne university the minimum required TER for medicine is 99.75 (during my time, not sure whether they have changed now), for other medical schools you will need at least around 98 to get a place in any uni. In comparison, if you apply using A-levels, they usually require straight As or AAAB, which are relatively easier to get (again, judging from the proportion of students with those results).

But don't be taken aback by what I said - SAM is pretty kind to people who work hard because your effort is quite easily reflected by your final score. If you are in Taylors or INTEC (not sure about other colleges), the teachers are all excellent, and if you put in effort you will most probably get a wonderful result.

[seeweijie]

Originally Posted by jingguo

there are certain textbooks which you must use actually, in fact you do have a few more workbooks as supplementaries!! though i'm not sure how much the current examination has changed, but as far as i know of there are actually past years' paper for sale.. or hand-me-downs from the seniors.. very useful indeed.

So where can we buy the past year paper? from senior, lecturer o from net?

[leinad]

SAM syllabus is not much different from form 5 in my opinion, but im still about halfway through the course. so im not sure yet.

if you hate homework and assignments , you will hate SAM,but if you're someone who works hard and do homework, there wont be much of a problem for you to ace it. (it's quite easy actually)

as for me, i belong to the former category, although i'm trying to change it.

final results will be 50% internal assessed (homework, coursework, assignments, common tests, and 50% external assessed (Final SACE exam, 3 hour paper for each subject)


SAM intake in taylors is stretched to 1.5 years because you will be joining the july intake and will only take final exam end of next year.

I personally think the sponsors just want to make sure you pass/ace the pre-u course so they don't "malu" if their scholars fail to make their cut off point of TER 85 (most sponsors) to be able to go to a University in Australia

[lindley]

im doing SAM in taylors now (Jan intake)
the fact that people say that SAM is easier than A levels is not really true.
in terms of syllabus, yes, SAM is much easier, as we just cover the general things. as for A Levels they go really in depth.
but SAM students must learn time management. once the assigments *which carry abt 15-20% of internal assesment marks* come in, you'll have to learn how to juggle assigments and studying for your common tests *commonly known as CT*

and these assigments are not like just homework.
its research-based, so you have to spend a lot of time on the internet, finding out information and sources for your assignments. esp if youre planning to go to the Health Science combination, ie bio,phy,chem, be prepared cos all the sci subs require research work. after youve done your research you have to write a 1000 word report lol.
as for eng, its also similar to the sci ones, but your report has to be between 1000-2000 words.

but SAM is good, cos it teaches students how to do oral presentations, how to do academic writing, reports, how to do research, etc etc. you need that knowledge when you enter the uni.

i'm not trying to scare you away lol, but first sem of SAM is very very hectic. its practically all work and no play for sem 1. but after sem 1, when you've passed up all of your project work/assignments and all, things will be very relaxed already lol..

btw just curious, are you a JPA scholar for SAM? cos if so, you start in July, and finish in Nov next year. it wont be as hectic as a Jan intake student.

for exams, do note that SAM practices negative marking. you also have to be precise. and yea, for final exams your papers will be sent to Australia to be marked.

[seeweijie]

Originally Posted by leinad

SAM syllabus is not much different from form 5 in my opinion, but im still about halfway through the course. so im not sure yet.

if you hate homework and assignments , you will hate SAM,but if you're someone who works hard and do homework, there wont be much of a problem for you to ace it. (it's quite easy actually)

as for me, i belong to the former category, although i'm trying to change it.

final results will be 50% internal assessed (homework, coursework, assignments, common tests, and 50% external assessed (Final SACE exam, 3 hour paper for each subject)


SAM intake in taylors is stretched to 1.5 years because you will be joining the july intake and will only take final exam end of next year.

I personally think the sponsors just want to make sure you pass/ace the pre-u course so they don't "malu" if their scholars fail to make their cut off point of TER 85 (most sponsors) to be able to go to a University in Australia

I think I am the type of very hardworking when coming to exam and lazy and relax after the exam... will it be hard for me to get above TER 85%?
Actually, I am always aiming for the best... I hope I can get above 95% o sth around that... If possible 99.95%...
By the way do u know bout how many ppl get 99.95% each year? As I know Taylor got 6 students get TER 99.95% last year and 5 of them are JPA scholars.

Originally Posted by lindley

btw just curious, are you a JPA scholar for SAM? cos if so, you start in July, and finish in Nov next year. it wont be as hectic as a Jan intake student.

for exams, do note that SAM practices negative marking. you also have to be precise. and yea, for final exams your papers will be sent to Australia to be marked.

I am Telekom scholars.. so if they send me to Taylor for July intake i will be completing my SAM November next year?

What you mean by negative marking?

[youngyew]

If you did well for your SPM, there's no reason for you to get less than TER 95.

[seeweijie]

Originally Posted by youngyew

If you did well for your SPM, there's no reason for you to get less than TER 95.

Oic.. Thank you.. Then i think there is no more worry for me... Haha

[jingguo]

Originally Posted by seeweijie

So where can we buy the past year paper? from senior, lecturer o from net?

by these few years, i think seniors would have copies of those papers already.. if not there's few photocopy shops in Taylor's college.. in front of the college actually that do provide photocopies of the past year papers and text books.. though we're not supposed to do this.. which is a total "infringement of intellectual property".

Originally Posted by seeweijie

I think I am the type of very hardworking when coming to exam and lazy and relax after the exam... will it be hard for me to get above TER 85%?
Actually, I am always aiming for the best... I hope I can get above 95% o sth around that... If possible 99.95%...
By the way do u know bout how many ppl get 99.95% each year? As I know Taylor got 6 students get TER 99.95% last year and 5 of them are JPA scholars.



I am Telekom scholars.. so if they send me to Taylor for July intake i will be completing my SAM November next year?

What you mean by negative marking?

negative marking means, your marks would be deducted if you do answer wrongly. for eg, for one correct answer u get 1 mark, and for one wrong answer u get a deduction of 0.5 marks.