Alignment & scaling (1 Viewer)

Nikolerak

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I understand many factors influence how you end of year 12 results change. Obviously harder subjects will go up, easier ones stay the same or even possibly go down. I am interested in ex graduates' experiences especially with English Standard and Biology. How has your HSC mark changed when compared to your end of year 12 mark?
 

quickoats

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This is not really how it works - look up the moderation process which matches the school 'end of year' marks to the HSC standard. Simply put, NESA take the cohort's HSC marks and shoves them onto the school's 'end of year' marks. This is to make things fair between schools. Some people think that their marks being worse in the HSC than at school is "being scaled down" - this is a function of their school teachers marking too easy/exams too easy and them not being as well prepared for the HSC.

School 1School 2
HSC Exam mark'end of year mark'HSC 'internal'HSC Exam mark'end of year mark'HSC 'internal'
Student 1724272729372
Student 2764876769576
Student 3805480809780
Student 4846084849984

As you can see, the exact marks your teachers give you in school have no bearing on your HSC internal mark - rather it is your rank and relative spaces between students. School 1 marked really harsh or had really hard exams and School 2 marked more leniently but they all ended up with the same HSC marks.

A little bit of shuffling happens if your ranks don't perfectly line up which is why people emphasise the importance of ranking.

Generally with my experience of English (standard in particular), the marking is quite subjective but within a school there should be some sort of consistency so nobody is really unfairly dis/advantaged. However, when it gets to the HSC, regarding standard vs advanced, the alignment process (turning the raw mark you scored in the HSC to a mark in one of the 6 bands) makes it a lot rarer for a student to get a band 6 in standard.
 

Nikolerak

Active Member
Joined
Aug 4, 2019
Messages
203
Gender
Male
HSC
2020
This is not really how it works - look up the moderation process which matches the school 'end of year' marks to the HSC standard. Simply put, NESA take the cohort's HSC marks and shoves them onto the school's 'end of year' marks. This is to make things fair between schools. Some people think that their marks being worse in the HSC than at school is "being scaled down" - this is a function of their school teachers marking too easy/exams too easy and them not being as well prepared for the HSC.

School 1School 2
HSC Exam mark'end of year mark'HSC 'internal'HSC Exam mark'end of year mark'HSC 'internal'
Student 1724272729372
Student 2764876769576
Student 3805480809780
Student 4846084849984
As you can see, the exact marks your teachers give you in school have no bearing on your HSC internal mark - rather it is your rank and relative spaces between students. School 1 marked really harsh or had really hard exams and School 2 marked more leniently but they all ended up with the same HSC marks.


A little bit of shuffling happens if your ranks don't perfectly line up which is why people emphasise the importance of ranking.

Generally with my experience of English (standard in particular), the marking is quite subjective but within a school there should be some sort of consistency so nobody is really unfairly dis/advantaged. However, when it gets to the HSC, regarding standard vs advanced, the alignment process (turning the raw mark you scored in the HSC to a mark in one of the 6 bands) makes it a lot rarer for a student to get a band 6 in standard.
I know that re Standard English and band 6, however I am wondering if band 4 or 5 is more likely for me (I really hope I won't scaled down to band 3). Earlier in the year my assessment average was 78% and rank 10th, my trials so far are in the high 80s. However, the school is around rank 300th
;(
 

quickoats

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I know that re Standard English and band 6, however I am wondering if band 4 or 5 is more likely for me (I really hope I won't scaled down to band 3). Earlier in the year my assessment average was 78% and rank 10th, my trials so far are in the high 80s. However, the school is around rank 300th
;(
This really depends on your school's history. If the person ranked 7-10th (if your trials lift up your rank a bit) generally gets a high band 4s or low band 5s, then generally you could expect around that mark. Maybe ask your English teacher as that would be the closest guess.
Sadly with standard it's hard for us on BoS to use school history as band 6s are so rare.
 

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