Just how influencial are the final external exams? (1 Viewer)

[xvelenox]

Hey friends,
Lots of talk at the moment about the final external exams. Our school as really been drilling us about internal ranking, almost as if externals make no difference. A lot of people are "betting all there money" on trials and externals to pull up their ATAR, while others are melting down over average ranks.

Can someone shed some light? I'm rankimg really well in some subjects (3rd for PE, 3rd for Eco) while only being in the top 1/4 out of 150 for maths and English. School is ranked 100-120 in the state if my memory serves me correct. How much can change in these exams?

Thanks everyone.

 

[kden]

i just started a similar thread,

very important, a lot can change: internal ranks determine how the process of moderation will play out (whose internal assessment marks will be moderated with the nth ranked HSC final exam marks), however since the 'score' (before scaling processes etc.) you achieve is a combo. of your moderated assessment mark (moderated via internal ranks) and YOUR actual final HSC examination marks, your performance in the exam is a crucial component of your final ATAR (since internal assessments are weighted 50/50 with HSC finals in the calculation of your ATAR)

edit: to clarify 'ranks' this will obviously depend upon the significance of the difference between ranks, in a tightly ranked cohort it wouldn't matter so much as to where you sat, and i have read something from D94 before which clarified to me that in the end ranks are not as important in a sense as the actual marks that you accumulate throughout the completion of internal assessments

 

[D94]

The HSC exams are extremely important - they are used for 2 things: a measure of your own performance; and a measure of your school compared to the state.

The ATAR takes into account 2 marks: your raw HSC exam mark, and your moderated assessment mark. Your raw HSC exam mark is your own performance in the HSC exam, and so it is very important that you do well for yourself in this regard. Your moderated assessment mark is your school mark that is relative to the state.

Since your school assessments are different from other school assessments, BOSTES needs to adjust this mark so that it reflects your performance if all your school assessments had been the same as other school assessments. To adjust these marks, BOSTES looks at how your school performed in the HSC exams, weighs in things like the range of marks, the mean of the marks, how much you differ from your peers in terms of marks (not ranks), and then your moderated assessment mark is determined.

So your rank is actually not all that important. It is only indirectly important since someone with a higher rank will always achieve a higher assessment mark than you, but your rank does not actually tell you how much your marks will be adjust. You should aim to get as many marks as possible within school, but most importantly, do well in the HSC exams. Also, NB, a common misconception is that if you are n'th ranked, then you receive the n'th highest exam mark for your assessment mark - this does not happen.

 

[kden]

The HSC exams are extremely important - they are used for 2 things: a measure of your own performance; and a measure of your school compared to the state.

The ATAR takes into account 2 marks: your raw HSC exam mark, and your moderated assessment mark. Your raw HSC exam mark is your own performance in the HSC exam, and so it is very important that you do well for yourself in this regard. Your moderated assessment mark is your school mark that is relative to the state.

Since your school assessments are different from other school assessments, BOSTES needs to adjust this mark so that it reflects your performance if all your school assessments had been the same as other school assessments. To adjust these marks, BOSTES looks at how your school performed in the HSC exams, weighs in things like the range of marks, the mean of the marks, how much you differ from your peers in terms of marks (not ranks), and then your moderated assessment mark is determined.

So your rank is actually not all that important. It is only indirectly important since someone with a higher rank will always achieve a higher assessment mark than you, but your rank does not actually tell you how much your marks will be adjust. You should aim to get as many marks as possible within school, but most importantly, do well in the HSC exams. Also, NB, a common misconception is that if you are n'th ranked, then you receive the n'th highest exam mark for your assessment mark - this does not happen.

isn't your assessment mark moderated using the nth highest exam mark (when you are nth ranked)?

 

[xvelenox]

i just started a similar thread,

very important, a lot can change: internal ranks determine how the process of moderation will play out (whose internal assessment marks will be moderated with the nth ranked HSC final exam marks), however since the 'score' (before scaling processes etc.) you achieve is a combo. of your moderated assessment mark (moderated via internal ranks) and YOUR actual final HSC examination marks, your performance in the exam is a crucial component of your final ATAR (since internal assessments are weighted 50/50 with HSC finals in the calculation of your ATAR)

edit: to clarify 'ranks' this will obviously depend upon the significance of the difference between ranks, in a tightly ranked cohort it wouldn't matter so much as to where you sat, and i have read something from D94 before which clarified to me that in the end ranks are not as important in a sense as the actual marks that you accumulate throughout the completion of internal assessments

Awesome, that helps a bunch. I am happy with the effort I am putting in and the ranks I am achieving. But it is nice to know that continual effort from here out will be rewarded, and I have multiple opportunities to improve my final ATAR. Thanks once again.

The HSC exams are extremely important - they are used for 2 things: a measure of your own performance; and a measure of your school compared to the state.

The ATAR takes into account 2 marks: your raw HSC exam mark, and your moderated assessment mark. Your raw HSC exam mark is your own performance in the HSC exam, and so it is very important that you do well for yourself in this regard. Your moderated assessment mark is your school mark that is relative to the state.

Since your school assessments are different from other school assessments, BOSTES needs to adjust this mark so that it reflects your performance if all your school assessments had been the same as other school assessments. To adjust these marks, BOSTES looks at how your school performed in the HSC exams, weighs in things like the range of marks, the mean of the marks, how much you differ from your peers in terms of marks (not ranks), and then your moderated assessment mark is determined.

So your rank is actually not all that important. It is only indirectly important since someone with a higher rank will always achieve a higher assessment mark than you, but your rank does not actually tell you how much your marks will be adjust. You should aim to get as many marks as possible within school, but most importantly, do well in the HSC exams. Also, NB, a common misconception is that if you are n'th ranked, then you receive the n'th highest exam mark for your assessment mark - this does not happen.

That has cleared alot of things up. My marks are quite well, I have consistently beat the average in every subject by 10-15% and aim to improve this even further. The next three Assesments will definitely have a lot of work put into them. Thanks once again.

 

[xvelenox]

isn't your assessment mark moderated using the nth highest exam mark (when you are nth ranked)?

How would they take into account total school performance, average ect?
If someone could clarify that would be muchly appreciated.

 

[rumbleroar]

How would they take into account total school performance, average ect?
If someone could clarify that would be muchly appreciated.

They don't care about the % averages, but the relative % gaps in between each student.

 

[cem]

isn't your assessment mark moderated using the nth highest exam mark (when you are nth ranked)?

NO.

The assessment mark of the nth ranked person will be the nth highest assessment mark from the school but won't necessarily equate to the nth highest exam mark for the simple reason that it mightn't be a fair mark.

Imagine if the nth ranked person was 10 marks off first in the school assessments but the nth exam mark was 25 marks away from first. That wouldn't be fair to the nth ranked person whose school work was closer to the first ranked person so their assessment mark will reflect the gap between them and those around them which may or may not equate to the exam marks.


e.g. school's marks - 98, 95, 91, 88, 84, 83, 79, 77
exam marks 99, 91, 90, 81, 80, 79, 78, 75

Now the fourth ranked student was only 10 marks behind first at school but the 4th exam mark is 19 marks behind, which wouldn't be a fair reflection of the difference between first and fourth or third and fourth.

The moderation would allocate the marks to reflect the relative gaps between the school marks - which is why marks are sent in and not ranks.

If your system applied schools would only need to send in ranks as the marks and the gaps between those gaps wouldn't be important and they are extremely important.

 

[mreditor16]

then how come, just at the end of the hsc external period, Board of Studies reports to students their ranks via Students Online. Why not marks? Because they might still tell me my right rank of last in say Basketweaving, but they might have had me down as 11 marks behind 2nd last in internals, because of typo - when in fact i was only 1 mark behind the 2nd last person in internals. then what? how can i check there was no error in that? isnt the reporting of ranks to us for the purpose of checking they've got the rite numbers..... etc.

do you get what i mean? then how do you explain that??

 

[xvelenox]

NO.

The assessment mark of the nth ranked person will be the nth highest assessment mark from the school but won't necessarily equate to the nth highest exam mark for the simple reason that it mightn't be a fair mark.

Imagine if the nth ranked person was 10 marks off first in the school assessments but the nth exam mark was 25 marks away from first. That wouldn't be fair to the nth ranked person whose school work was closer to the first ranked person so their assessment mark will reflect the gap between them and those around them which may or may not equate to the exam marks.


e.g. school's marks - 98, 95, 91, 88, 84, 83, 79, 77
exam marks 99, 91, 90, 81, 80, 79, 78, 75

Now the fourth ranked student was only 10 marks behind first at school but the 4th exam mark is 19 marks behind, which wouldn't be a fair reflection of the difference between first and fourth or third and fourth.

The moderation would allocate the marks to reflect the relative gaps between the school marks - which is why marks are sent in and not ranks.

If your system applied schools would only need to send in ranks as the marks and the gaps between those gaps wouldn't be important and they are extremely important.

That makes sense
If you are ranked nth, then you will be the nth ranked Assesment mark from your school. But these do not correlate to externals. So for example if you are ranked 10Th, someone else is ranked say 1st. The final exam can still close the gap between the two in terms of final ATAR? Assuming 10th does really well and beats 1st. And their internal MARKS are close

 

[Queenroot]

then how come, just at the end of the hsc external period, Board of Studies reports to students their ranks via Students Online. Why not marks? Because they might still tell me my right rank of last in say Basketweaving, but they might have had me down as 11 marks behind 2nd last in internals, because of typo - when in fact i was only 1 mark behind the 2nd last person in internals. then what? how can i check there was no error in that? isnt the reporting of ranks to us for the purpose of checking they've got the rite numbers..... etc.

do you get what i mean? then how do you explain that??

They can't show you your mark because it has been weighted.

A similar thing happened to me last year, if your ranks don't seem right to you, just go to school and check that they've recorded your marks correctly. However if your rank does correlate with your marks, I don't think you have to worry about them being entered with a typo, in all honesty unless you have an extremely shit cohort, you won't be coming 2nd with 12 marks behind.

 

[cem]

then how come, just at the end of the hsc external period, Board of Studies reports to students their ranks via Students Online. Why not marks? Because they might still tell me my right rank of last in say Basketweaving, but they might have had me down as 11 marks behind 2nd last in internals, because of typo - when in fact i was only 1 mark behind the 2nd last person in internals. then what? how can i check there was no error in that? isnt the reporting of ranks to us for the purpose of checking they've got the rite numbers..... etc.

do you get what i mean? then how do you explain that??

Because the BOS moderates your final assessment marks so it is pointless knowing the mark the school sent in as it isn't going to be the mark you end up with anyway.