What factors influence scaling? (1 Viewer)

[Sparcod]

What factors influence scaling?
theres difficulty of subject where the harder subjects like physics scales higher

what else?

what about how well your school does?
what about how well you compare against the state and the school?

 

[A l]

What factors influence scaling?
theres difficulty of subject where the harder subjects like physics scales higher

The difficulty of the subject has nothing to do with scaling. This is very misleading since courses such as Extension English and Mathematics scale higher and are supposedly hard. You must not forget that what is hard or easy to you may be the opposite for another. There is a good chance that one can find high scaled courses easier than low scaled courses. Anyway, it is the UAC that does the scaling process, not the Board of Studies, and they do not see the HSC paper and standards and thus do not know how difficult each exam is; they only receive the marks and statistics of each course.

In related terms, it is the performance of the candidature that affects scaling. If the performance of the state is high in one particular course, then it would scale better. That could be the reason why courses that more able students take scale higher since they do often so well in them overall. Also, don't assume one course scales high or low ALL the time. The scaling process is carried out for each successive year of the HSC so there is always that chance that a high scaled course would become a low scaled course.

what about how well you compare against the state and the school?

What you are stating is the SCALED MARK of an individual candidate which affects their own UAI, not the scaling process in general.

what about how well your school does?

The performance of an individual school has no direct effect on the scaling process. The factors that affect scaling are at a much larger scale than that.

Basically, the MAIN contributing factor to the scaling process is simply the performance of the entire candidature in each course. If the performance of the candidiature is high, then usually the course would scale well. However, each year this can change since the scaling process is carried out afresh each year.

 

[Sparcod]

and what about scaling down of subjects if you do really bad? i heard that extension english can scale you down if you're not good at it

 

[wrong_turn]

there are different things that can affect scaling:
cohert at school
cohert doing your subjects
ranking in your school assessments
how well you actually do in you external exams

 

[A l]

When someone refers to "scaling" on its own, it should be the process of scaling in terms of the state's overall performance in a particular course. Apparently, many are referring it to as the scaling of an individual's raw mark for a UAI. The term to describe that, should be SCALED MARKS not scaling, but many simply call it "scaling" for some reason. To people who often use jargonal terms to describe scaling, that can be misleading sometimes.

 

[Sparcod]

ok right
if someone gets 99 in maths, physics, english, ......
and they get a uai of 100, is it because of their scaling (99 scaled to 100) or is it because they are better than the whole state.

 

[wrong_turn]

the uai is a ranking. this is derived from our aggregate out of 500. therefore for each unit it is worth 50 marks. the ranking is determined by our ranking determined on percentage out of 500.kapish?

 

[Captain pi]

ok right
if someone gets 99 in maths, physics, english, ......
and they get a uai of 100, is it because of their scaling (99 scaled to 100) or is it because they are better than the whole state.

No.

A UAI of 100.00 is awarded to the top 0.025% of the Year 10 SC candidature. The ranking is determined by an aggregate of scaled marks. Last year, to achieve a UAI of 100.00, the required scaled aggregate was only 480 / 500. No student, as far as I know, has achieved an aggregate 500.0 / 500.0; and, yet, approximately twenty students each year achieve a UAI of 100.00.

If your student existed, and achieved a UAI of 100.00, it is because his aggregate was in the top twenty of the state.

 

[eViLnUt]

so say ur in a selective school...are chances that ur marks will get scaled up?

 

[wrong_turn]

most likely if you are above average for most of your subjects.

 

[eViLnUt]

most likely if you are above average for most of your subjects.

so the HSC marks are scaled separately to the scaling of the UAI?

 

[Sparcod]

if you do below average, do you get scaled down badly?
my principal stresses out "scaling rewards the best only"

 

[A l]

so say ur in a selective school...are chances that ur marks will get scaled up?

No, the school that one goes to has no direct effect whatsoever on scaling. The most likely reason that selective schools tend to do better than most other schools is simply because their students are usually high achievers and often perform well in any given exam.

so the HSC marks are scaled separately to the scaling of the UAI?

The HSC marks you recieve from the Board of Studies are "aligned" not scaled. The Board of Studies conducts this aligning process through a standards setting procedure. The raw HSC marks, which are the marks obtained before the standards setting prcoedure, are used for scaling and the UAI and this is done by the University Admissions Centre, not the Board of Studies.

if you do below average, do you get scaled down badly?
my principal stresses out "scaling rewards the best only"

Scaling is there to encourage HSC students to select subjects which best suit them, whether it be in terms of personal interests, tertiary prerequisites or strong academic performances. If someone achieves a below average mark, scaling would not be helpful in terms of a getting a high UAI. I'm not entirely sure about whether below average marks are "scaled down", although I believe that whether an under average mark is scaled down or not, solely depends on the statistics of the course. Obviously the scaled mark would be fairly low regardless of whether it gets scaled up or down, since the ranking of each candidate never changes after scaling.

 

[Sparcod]

I'll use made up results here...

Physics- 90
Chemistry- 90
Economics- 90
Maths- 95
English Advanced-85

Can someone explain how the scaling works in relation to these marks

 

[A l]

You did not specify whether they were aligned or raw marks. I assume that they are aligned marks. Use the Student Assesment Modeller (SAM), it should help.

If those were raw marks then scaling would change these marks to scaled marks in accordance to the state statistics of EACH COURSE. In most cases the scaled mark, let alone your raw marks would be lower than the aligned marks you would receive. After the highest 10 units worth of scaled marks are obtained, they are added together to obtain a total out of 500 with each unit being a mark out of 50. Your rank in that aggregate determines your UAI. The top aggregated mark would get 100.00 and second would get 99.95 and so on.

Refer to the following:
http://www.uac.edu.au/pubs/pdf/uaibook-2004-web.pdf

It explains scaling in a simple and fundamental manner.

 

[Sparcod]

ok then
whats the difference between getting 45/50 in Studies of Religion and 45/50 in maths extension 2. How different are they to each other

 

[A l]

Just about everything is different. You cannot compare marks across courses. In terms of scaling they are different every year.
Anyway, when distributing HSC marks every one unit course is marked out of 50, except for those who take Mathematics Extension 2. A mark out of 100 is taken from the Mathematics Extension 1 exam and assessments and another mark out 100 is taken from the Mathematics Extension 2 exam and assessments.

 

[Sparcod]

well how is 90/100 in general maths different to 90/100 in chemistry. how differently are they scaled?

 

[A l]

Very differently. It's hard to say what the equivalent scaled mark would be because there is not enough information released by the UAC and scaling is different every year.

 

[Lwaxana]

one could guess university intake/admissions would effect them as well as the standard of the candidates/ difficulty of exam