don't even need to read that to know I am right. Tell me where I am wrong.
OK.
You're confusing everyone. Students should know that their assessment marks mean nothing, except the rank. ALL MARKS are determined IN the hsc exams in oct/nov.
1. You get 2 marks
2. You always get the mark you get in the exam (as the HSC mark) and your assessment mark will be based on your rank (e.g you're 3rd, you will get 3rd highest mark). These 2 marks will be averaged for your final hsc mark for the subject. Simple as that.
The marks you receive in the HSC exams determine 2 things. Your HSC exam mark and how your school marks are
moderated. The HSC exam mark is self explanatory, it's the mark you achieve based on your HSC exam performance on the day of the exam.
The second determination is the process of moderation. The marks that you achieve during school will add up to a total school mark. Your school submits to BOSTES two key things - your name/ID and your school mark. They do not submit a rank. At no point does BOSTES receive a rank of the student from the school. Now, if the rank was so important, why doesn't BOSTES just ask for a rank and forgo the mark? This is because the mark you achieve in school is very important in determining your assessment mark.
Going back to moderation, certainly each school has different assessments and assignments etc. In order to fairly compare the assessments at one school to another, BOSTES moderates your school marks. Moderation is performed on the school mark, not on the rank. Each student has a school mark associated with their name. They are ordered and hence a ranking is formed. This ranking is only important for determining one thing - who is first, and who is last. For all other ranks, it's unimportant. Your school mark is what dictates how your assessment mark is calculated. The reason why rank first and last are important is because in the process of moderation, the assessment mark of the student who came first is equal to the highest HSC exam mark of any student in the cohort, and the assessment mark of the student who came last is roughly equal to the lowest HSC exam mark of any student in the cohort. Thus an upper and lower bound are formed in order for the other school marks to be moderated.
Now for all other 'ranks', we now introduce the concept of 'relative gaps' (i.e. the marks gap between 1st and 2nd, between 2nd and 3rd etc.). Whilst the school mark itself has little meaning, how close or far you are from your peers is extremely important. Say there are two scenarios - you are ranked 3rd and you're 5% away from first; and you are ranked 3rd and you're 20% away from first. Being 5% away from first puts you in a better scenario than being 20% away from first. The way that moderation works is that how you performed in school throughout the year, is reflected in the final assessment marks. If your school mark was close to first, regardless of your rank, your assessment mark will be moderated to a mark that is also close to first. If your school mark is far away from first, even if you're 2nd, your assessment mark will be moderated far away from first.
A very common misconception is the notion that 3rd ranked in school gets the 3rd highest HSC exam mark for their assessment mark, 4th gets 4th highest etc. This notion is completely incorrect. This completely defeats the purpose of the assessment mark and the purpose of moderation. We can see this is not the case by what BOSTES has provided:
Here, you can see the 2nd highest HSC exam mark is 80, but the moderated assessment mark of 2nd is 77. By your logic, 2nd should have gotten 80, but this is clearly not the case.
But a better reflection of this scenario is show here:
You can see that the school mark of B and C are close to each other, and so the moderated assessment mark of B and C are close to each other. The school mark of C and D are far away from each other, and so the moderated assessment mark of C and D are far away from each other. This is the concept of relative gaps.
At no point does your rank get factored into any calculations. It is your school mark which is moderated. Hence it is extremely important for students to gain as many marks as possible in school. Even if you're ranked 20th, if you're only 5% away from first, you can be certain that by the process of moderation, that 5% away from first will be reflected. You won't just receive the 20th exam mark. You will receive a mark that reflects your school performance.
After your assessment mark and HSC exam marks are determined, the average becomes your final HSC mark.
Don't say 50% this and that, it confuses hsc student thinking theyll get the marks in the school assessments throughout the year.
You're the one who is confused.