• Congratulations to the Class of 2024 on your results!
    Let us know how you went here
    Got a question about your uni preferences? Ask us here

equal first. (1 Viewer)

Joined
Sep 20, 2010
Messages
2,225
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
2012
Um it was... (raw-average)/(standard deviation) * weighting

I don't know if they round.
 

Carrotsticks

Retired
Joined
Jun 29, 2009
Messages
9,494
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
N/A
Why can't we all just do our best, get the highest we can, and let the system do whatever it does?
 

Riproot

Addiction Psychiatrist
Joined
Nov 10, 2009
Messages
8,228
Location
I don’t see how that’s any of your business…
Gender
Male
HSC
2011
Uni Grad
2017
I know this sounds really petty, and pedantic, yet I was told a while ago that for equal first place moderation, they average the 2 best marks for internal marks.

In a hypothetical situation, if say the top marks were 97 and 91, wouldn't it be better for one student to come slightly second by a very small margin 1% or so, and instead of both getting internals of 94, one would get 97 and one 96~ advantaging them both.

So is this method of averaging the 2 top marks true in this case, because it seems like it could be flawed in a way.
Yeah, this is correct. All of this.

Chemistry at my school had two people equal first. The top external was 91 and second was 86 so the top mark ended up being 87. That shit cray. (also, yeah, neither of the people equal first got those externals. It was 4th/10 and 7th/10.)

Whereas for biology the top was first by 3% and then 2nd and 3rd were separated by a *tiny* margin and since first place got 96 and someone 5th got 93 both 2nd and third place got 93 which was great considering they did shit.

So like, equal first is shit.

Everywhere else it's fine.

Yay.
 

someth1ng

Retired Nov '14
Joined
Sep 18, 2010
Messages
5,558
Location
Adelaide, Australia
Gender
Male
HSC
2012
Uni Grad
2021
Yeah, this is correct. All of this.

Chemistry at my school had two people equal first. The top external was 91 and second was 86 so the top mark ended up being 87. That shit cray. (also, yeah, neither of the people equal first got those externals. It was 4th/10 and 7th/10.)

Whereas for biology the top was first by 3% and then 2nd and 3rd were separated by a *tiny* margin and since first place got 96 and someone 5th got 93 both 2nd and third place got 93 which was great considering they did shit.

So like, equal first is shit.

Everywhere else it's fine.

Yay.
That would also depend on the school. If you were at say, Ruse, I wouldn't mind being equal first...
 

someth1ng

Retired Nov '14
Joined
Sep 18, 2010
Messages
5,558
Location
Adelaide, Australia
Gender
Male
HSC
2012
Uni Grad
2021
you couldn't physically get first in the state unless the person equal with you came second (or equal first with you).
That depends, in some cases, the top two could be rank 1 and 2 in the state. Their internals would probably be the average and maybe a raw mark difference or so in the externals.
 

brent012

Webmaster
Webmaster
Joined
Feb 26, 2008
Messages
5,291
Gender
Male
HSC
2011
Um it was... (raw-average)/(standard deviation) * weighting

I don't know if they round.
So in other words the z-score * weighting? From my little understanding of stats that is ridiculous and wouldn't work properly.
 

Riproot

Addiction Psychiatrist
Joined
Nov 10, 2009
Messages
8,228
Location
I don’t see how that’s any of your business…
Gender
Male
HSC
2011
Uni Grad
2017
That depends, in some cases, the top two could be rank 1 and 2 in the state. Their internals would probably be the average and maybe a raw mark difference or so in the externals.
I said unless that was the case.

If the person coming equal first with you fucked up and no one else picked up the slack it would disadvantage you majorly.
 

cem

Premium Member
Joined
Nov 12, 2005
Messages
2,438
Location
Sydney
Gender
Female
HSC
N/A
Depends on how your school submits marks. The school pretty much has freedom with the marks they send- they could send it off as 90.18 or just as 90.00 if they wanted which is like effective rounding.
Schools submit whole marks only - at least in my 20+ years of teaching the HSC. There has never been a provision for the submission of anything but whole marks so the 90.18 can go in as 91 or 90. If there is another student who would round to 90 but is below 90 the school could send the top student in as 91 and the second as 90 - which is what my school tries to do.
 

EvansOne

Member
Joined
Jan 10, 2012
Messages
36
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
N/A
Excuse my stupidity here, but how excactly do schools decide what assessment score you get? One of my teachers always says "your mark doesn't matter, only the rank" when referring to assessment tasks (eg I was bummed about getting 17/20 but it ranked 1st so apparently that was as good as 20/20). It doesn't make sense to me if that is the case, but then again none of it really does...feels like the whole system is way behind to me.
 

D94

New Member
Joined
Oct 5, 2011
Messages
4,423
Gender
Male
HSC
N/A
Excuse my stupidity here, but how excactly do schools decide what assessment score you get? One of my teachers always says "your mark doesn't matter, only the rank" when referring to assessment tasks (eg I was bummed about getting 17/20 but it ranked 1st so apparently that was as good as 20/20). It doesn't make sense to me if that is the case, but then again none of it really does...feels like the whole system is way behind to me.
Your teacher is ill-informed or is misleading you. Marks determine ranks - how the hell does a rank determine an assessment mark? You need raw assessment marks, like that 17/20, to determine your raw school assessment mark. You sit the HSC then BOS knows the highest/lowest exam marks. All assessment marks are now moderated so the average of school marks is the same as the average of exam marks, and that all assessment marks are within the highest/lowest exam marks. So, if the highest exam mark is 95, and the lowest is 80, then all your assessment marks will be altered so they are within these two marks. Then, let's say you're 'n' raw marks behind first place, then you will receive an assessment mark which is proportionally the same as the raw marks.

So, gaining as many marks is very important. The exact magnitude of each mark separately isn't important - it's how much you differ from first, and from the average on a collective scale which matters.
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 0, Guests: 1)

Top