Does school performance affect your ATAR/raw mark? (1 Viewer)

[lonelystudent571]

If school performance only affects alignment (which is only used in the HSC results) and only raw marks are used for ATAR, where does school ranking come into ATAR?
If someone goes to a school where it's really hard to be rank 1 (like James Ruse or smth) and they're ranked 40/100, does that affect their ATAR when that raw mark (and rank) is submitted?

 

[Whatmathsdoineed]

School performance doesn’t affect your alignment from raw mark to exam mark? Is that what you’re saying?

 

[lonelystudent571]

I'm not sure what the exam mark is. All I know is that school assessment mark is moderated and aligned for hsc, but the raw mark is used for ATAR calculation. I don't know a lot about the ATAR, sorry. I was just confused about how the school's internal assessment mark affects your ATAR if you go to a high-performing school compared to a low-performing school.

 

[Cooking?]

I'm not sure what the exam mark is. All I know is that school assessment mark is moderated and aligned for hsc, but the raw mark is used for ATAR calculation. I don't know a lot about the ATAR, sorry. I was just confused about how the school's internal assessment mark affects your ATAR if you go to a high-performing school compared to a low-performing school.

School does affect the scaling of your mark. Based on the strength of your cohort your final aligned mark goes up or down and it is also significantly dependant on ranking. The exam mark is the mark you get in the hsc. This does not change so if you get a 95 your exam mark is a 95. So basically if your in a lower ranked school just try to remain in the top 5-10 of your cohort. If your in a top school just have a decent rank and your set. Hope this answers it.

 

[rev668]

School does affect the scaling of your mark. Based on the strength of your cohort your final aligned mark goes up or down and it is also significantly dependant on ranking. The exam mark is the mark you get in the hsc. This does not change so if you get a 95 your exam mark is a 95. So basically if your in a lower ranked school just try to remain in the top 5-10 of your cohort. If your in a top school just have a decent rank and your set. Hope this answers it.

im in one of the top 20 schools rn, how much can i expect a mark like 70% or 75% to scale

 

[Armon]

If school performance only affects alignment (which is only used in the HSC results) and only raw marks are used for ATAR, where does school ranking come into ATAR?
If someone goes to a school where it's really hard to be rank 1 (like James Ruse or smth) and they're ranked 40/100, does that affect their ATAR when that raw mark (and rank) is submitted?

I feel like you're mixing up terms.

**NESA PROCESSES**

Raw school assessment (mark submitted by your school for you) ----(moderation)---> Raw moderated school assessment
Raw moderated school assessment ----(alignment)---> Assessment Mark/Grade
Raw exam mark (mark given by marking centre for your external exams) ----(alignment)---> Examination Mark

Moderation process is done school by school based on your cohorts results and relative internal mark distribution.
Alignment process is done state wide.

HSC Mark is average of Assessment Mark/Grade and Examination Mark and appears alongside these two values on your transcript. This determines what bands you get.

**UAC PROCESSES**

Raw moderated school assessment + Raw exam mark ----(averaged)---> Raw HSC mark
Raw HSC Mark ----(scaling)---> Scaled Mark
Scaled Mark + the other 8 units of Scaled Marks = Aggregate
Aggregates are ordered and you get your relevant percentile (ATAR).

**CONCLUSION**

Yes, believe it or not that 4 terms actually went to something and the performance in school will affect your ATAR. Yes, your mark distribution in comparison to your cohort matters and its not just "your rank" that matters unless you come first or last. Yes, if your cohort flunks terribly and you do great you may be treated as an outlier and your mark will be fine.

This stuff is not that hard to find info on, and for more in-depth understanding of the processes themselves, read the OFFICIAL websites:
Moderation: https://www.nsw.gov.au/education-and-training/nesa/hsc/exams-and-marking/assessment-moderation
Alignment: https://www.nsw.gov.au/education-and-training/nesa/hsc/results-and-certificates/determining-results
Scaling: https://www.uac.edu.au/assets/documents/scaling-reports/scaling-report-2023-nsw-hsc.pdf (begins page 14 for process of scaling)

 

[Armon]

im in one of the top 20 schools rn, how much can i expect a mark like 70% or 75% to scale

this question is invalid and impossible to answer. depends what mark your talking (trial exams, overall raw internal, a hsc mark, a raw hsc mark, a raw exam mark, etc), in what subject, and what ranks your sitting on.

 

[rev668]

this question is invalid and impossible to answer. depends what mark your talking (trial exams, overall raw internal, a hsc mark, a raw hsc mark, a raw exam mark, etc), in what subject, and what ranks your sitting on.

fair enough but like what is the extent of the scaling i mean, subject scaling can be up to like 10%

 

[Armon]

fair enough but like what is the extent of the scaling i mean, subject scaling can be up to like 10%

Again this is impossible to answer and the question itself is invalid. Subjects scale differently, and scaling is completely unrelated from a school ??? This is the same as saying "if a square is 50 square meters whats my rent going to cost" - like the question makes no sense, expand on details??

 

[Cooking?]

fair enough but like what is the extent of the scaling i mean, subject scaling can be up to like 10%

Forgot about what the other dude is yapping about if you want to see true subject scaling go on rawmarks.info it should provide a decent explanation for subject scaling. For example in 2023 a 78 in PDHPE would scale to an 90, this was mostly for those who were highly ranked or in a top school. With your ranking I estimate that "if you do pdhpe" it would scale into the mid 80s

 

[spiderfan44]

im in one of the top 20 schools rn, how much can i expect a mark like 70% or 75% to scale

is that an assessment mark or a trial mark

 

[spiderfan44]

Forgot about what the other dude is yapping about if you want to see true subject scaling go on rawmarks.info it should provide a decent explanation for subject scaling. For example in 2023 a 78 in PDHPE would scale to an 90, this was mostly for those who were highly ranked or in a top school. With your ranking I estimate that "if you do pdhpe" it would scale into the mid 80s

raw marks info doesnt provide scaling, it provides alignment.

 

[spiderfan44]

raw marks info doesnt provide scaling, it provides alignment.

after marks are aligned theyre scaled by uac to get ur atar

 

[Cooking?]

raw marks info doesnt provide scaling, it provides alignment.

Its still probably what he wants to know, he wants to know if his mark moves up or down probs got terminology mixed up.

 

[rev668]

is that an assessment mark or a trial mark

was just an example but like weighted average over year 12

 

[Armon]

Forgot about what the other dude is yapping about if you want to see true subject scaling go on rawmarks.info it should provide a decent explanation for subject scaling. For example in 2023 a 78 in PDHPE would scale to an 90, this was mostly for those who were highly ranked or in a top school. With your ranking I estimate that "if you do pdhpe" it would scale into the mid 80s

You clearly have not read the relevant writings on this by NESA and UAC and thats not at all how rawmarks.info works. For one, it is to do with alignment, NOT scaling, and secondly it is only for raw exam marks to Examination marks. I don't know where you've heard the utter rubbish that rawmarks.info has anything to do with ranks or school ranks, the process its modelling by NESA is done without school marks even being entered because its alignment! Doesn't have anything to do with school or rank! a raw 70 in 4u from a kid from mt druitt or from james ruse still aligns identically, this is not the part of HSC calculations that have anything to do with schools or ranks or internals. What he is talking about are raw internal marks, which do not go through the alignment process until they are moderated and are entirely arbitrary; his 70% means nothing without the context of his cohort's performance in the hsc and your scaling guess is ridiculous. Please do not misguide people when you do not understand what you are on about. I am not "yapping", I'm literally sharing with sources the process that marks go through. I literally contributed to rawmarks.info LOL my marks are on there

 

[rev668]

Forgot about what the other dude is yapping about if you want to see true subject scaling go on rawmarks.info it should provide a decent explanation for subject scaling. For example in 2023 a 78 in PDHPE would scale to an 90, this was mostly for those who were highly ranked or in a top school. With your ranking I estimate that "if you do pdhpe" it would scale into the mid 80s

ik about subject scaling cause i can predict that but was wondering about internals scaling for ur school and that

 

[Armon]

ik about subject scaling cause i can predict that but was wondering about internals scaling for ur school and that

There is no such thing as internal scaling, there is moderation and we can give you a ballpark figure but only if you provided any amount of details; what subject! what rank! what school!

 

[funnytomato]

If school performance only affects alignment (which is only used in the HSC results) and only raw marks are used for ATAR, where does school ranking come into ATAR?
If someone goes to a school where it's really hard to be rank 1 (like James Ruse or smth) and they're ranked 40/100, does that affect their ATAR when that raw mark (and rank) is submitted?

Okay as mentioned I think you are getting mixed up between the terminology and hence the confusion.

School performance (in terms of the total and distribution of HSC marks for each subject) does affect the "moderated assessment mark" but NOT the exam mark.

In terms of what matters to you :

HSC mark = (exam mark + moderated assessment mark)/2

1. Exam mark(HSC exam raw mark to exam mark = alignment ) is independent of the school performance. It's only determined by your performance in the final HSC exam(hence the name exam mark). Your raw mark on the final HSC exam gets aligned to an exam mark e.g 66% raw mark in maths extension 2 in 2023 HSC gets aligned to 90 exam mark (https://rawmarks.info/mathematics/mathematics-extension-2/ ). It does NOT matter whether that person who scored 66% is from no 1 school or 200th school.
Also note your school trial marks may not necessarily reflect that 66% -> 90 mark mapping as it can be more difficult or easier than actual HSC.

2. Your moderated assessment mark (moderation) is dependent on your school performance in their exam marks. You can refer to the additional links for further information but in short: your moderated assessment mark is your 'share' of the pool of exam marks of your cohort based on your ranking. E.g. if you are ranked 1st at your school you'd get the top exam mark value(which may or may not be scored by you) as your moderated assessment mark.

Theoretically it shouldn't make too much difference between schools as if you go a top ranked school the pool of exam marks is higher but you might be ranked lower where as at a lower ranked school the pool of exams marks is lower but you may have a higher rank.

Practically it may differ a bit in a few scenarios such as but not limited to:
a) If you go to a top ranked school the assessment may be extremely difficult and some people may perform badly in those but better at actual HSC difficulty. Hence those people may get a lower assessment mark but higher exam mark.
b) If you go to a lower ranked school when the performance is unstable and cohort is small. Then if somehow you messed up some assessment and get ranked 2nd internally and assume you got the top exam mark in HSC say 95 but your school's 2nd exam mark is only 83. Then for your assessment mark you'd get the 2nd highest exam mark which is only 83. Then your HSC mark is (95+83)/2=89
c) When the marking criteria is quite different between school assessment and HSC exam. This happens more often in highly subjective subjects such as English extension 2. That way there could be a huge gap between HSC mark and assessment for some of the candidates and hence creating advantage for some and 'unfair' for others.

3. So far scaling was never mentioned yet. Note:

HSC mark= the average of

exam mark(alignment): raw HSC exam mark to aligned exam mark

and

assessment mark(moderation): your 'shared' of your school's pool of exam marks based on your ranking)


The process of turning HSC mark into scaled mark is called scaling. See 'uac table A3' for scaling of each subject.

The total scaled mark of your best 10 units (English must be included) is called aggregate (out of 500) and then aggregate determines the ATAR. See 'uac table A9' for the aggregate and ATAR table



There are some additional resources you can refer to for further information:

How do hsc marks work?

How does one get a specific mark in the HSC for a subject? Is it based on individual performance in the HSC or is it based on ranking and school performance?

boredofstudies.org

Part 1: How HSC Marks are Calculated

Know how HSC marks are calculated? Read this guide to learn the details of how your HSC mark is calculated.

www.matrix.edu.au

Moderation, Alignment & Scaling Explained – HSC Chemistry & Physics

Everything about raw marks, assessment marks, HSC marks and scaled marks explained!

scienceready.com.au

 

[funnytomato]

Practically you don't have to know all of those just bear in mind if your school's cohort is small and unstable you should try and maintain a high (ideally 1st) ranking to avoid negative impacts of moderation.

Also from ATAR maximisation perspective you want to improve your ranking of your worse scaling subject. E.g. say that you are at the top 20% of both chemistry and biology and your school's performance in both are similar. From an ATAR perspective you should focus on improving biology as that scales worse than chemistry.