Explanation of HSC Marks (Moderating) (2 Viewers)

[matt_f64]

haha ok i wasnt saying u made it all up, obviously u have some knowledge (far more than most of us here) of the procedures taken when moderating, scaling, aligning etc etc....
but i just dont understand how u say that ur moderated assessment mark equals the hsc mark corrosponding to ur rank from assessments.... when the uac people said that they take into consideration general trends among candidates of similar abilities (or hsc exam marks).

 

[stardom]

hey guys, im really sorry to ask another question as it seems that uve talked about this topic to death but im just worried about something. i go to a selective school and i came first in pe but i think i stuffed up the exam, not heaps but just not band six material.........does that mean that its going to bring my assessment mark down heaps and my overall mark?
sorry to have to make u guys keep repeating yourselves

 

[Zarathustra]

hey guys, im really sorry to ask another question as it seems that uve talked about this topic to death but im just worried about something. i go to a selective school and i came first in pe but i think i stuffed up the exam, not heaps but just not band six material.........does that mean that its going to bring my assessment mark down heaps and my overall mark?
sorry to have to make u guys keep repeating yourselves

Pray that someone from your school did get in the '90s for their HSC exam, then you've got a good chance of achieving a band 6. If you are ranked first though and you definitely didn't perform at a band 6 level in the maybe no one at your school did, or you might just be a tad hard on yourself...

 

[Lazarus]

but i just dont understand how u say that ur moderated assessment mark equals the hsc mark corrosponding to ur rank from assessments.... when the uac people said that they take into consideration general trends among candidates of similar abilities (or hsc exam marks).

You're thinking of scaling, not moderating. The scaling for a course is determined by how well the students taking that course did in all the courses they took.

Moderating is completely different (and is handled by the Board, not the UAC).

 

[matt_f64]

oh ok! of course! thanks, that clears it up. plus i just asked my frend who did physics last year and he thort his raw assessment mark was 80% , then he got an aligned exam mark of 89%, so when he got his hsc it said aligned exam of 89% and moderated assessment mark of 89%, so that fits in perfectly with wat ur saying, cheers

 

[Raz_star]

I know you guys are probably sick of answering questions on UAI/HSC stuff but i just finished my Biology exam and am a bit worried.

How much does results in each test count towards a UAI. I did ok in the bio exam but stuffed the 7 mark in the option section and will probable only get 1-2 marks for it. I am ranked 2nd in my year at school with a mark of 80/100 (the top was 88/100).
In english advanced i did good (in year im ranked 4) , senior science excellent i think (ranked 2nd in yr), maths bad (wont count probably as i do 12 units and its my worse subject). I expect to do well in legal studies and information technology (im coming 1st in both).
I am from a regional school - not a selective one.
I am worried because to do the course I want at Uni (Combined Law Degree -Newcastle Uni [UAI=92.15 in 2004]) i need a 90+.

Please help if you can - i am getting really stressed about it (its one of the features of being a perfectionist!)

 

[Lazarus]

Your mark for each course consists of an exam mark (50%) and an assessment mark (50%).

You'll have five courses counting towards your UAI.

Any one of your exams will account for 1/2 * 1/5 = 1/10 of your UAI.

You can still do well.

 

[Lazarus]

(a) If I'm first in my school assessment rankings (whether thats equal first or not I dont think it says on the studentsonline site), am I 100% guaranteed (probability of 1, certain) to get, for my moderated assessment mark, the highest external exam mark from my school, even if they were equal first rankings? Or is there a small chance they'd fiddle with the top marks and change them, on a whim?

If you are absolutely first, it is certain that your moderated assessment mark will be equal to or greater than the top examination mark from your school. (The latter may occur in cases of illness/misadventure.)

If there are n students ranked equal first, the top moderated assessment mark will be the average of the top n examination marks.

Fiddling is sometimes done with the bottom mark, but not with any other marks.

(b) Does moderation of assessment marks take place before or after alignment for the BOS HSC marks that are reported to us?

(c) Does moderation of assessment marks take place before or after scaling, for the UAC's scaled marks that count towards the UAI?

Before and before. See <a href="/other/flowchart.pdf">this flowchart</a>.

(d) If the answer to both (b) and (c) is "before", are the two moderating processes of (b) and (c) all done together at the same time, or separately by the BOS and by UAC?

The moderating process is only performed once, and the Technical Committee on Scaling receives the moderated marks (along with raw examination marks etc) from the Board.

 

[Xayma]

They send them off with decimal accuracy (from what Ive read of Laz at least 1 dp). This means that while the students may recieve 89 and 89 which might be raw marks of 60 and 61 (assuming both were first for easier) UAC would recieve them as 88.6 and 89.3 or some such. Which means an equivalent raw mark could be worked out, or in any case it being unecessary (although for scaling purposes I could see them working it back out to be quicker).

 

[Lazarus]

Now since alignment of marks is not a linear function, being composed of discrete linear chunks for each band, doesn't it follow that there could be several different combinations of raw marks for a given aligned HSC mark, and moreover that these different raw marks would have different raw (averaged) HSC marks (because aligning is nonlinear) and hence different scaling?

If I understand you correctly... yes.

If I understand correctly, that means a tool like SAM has an inherent error in it, because the aligned HSC mark alone is not sufficient to determine uniquely the raw HSC mark for scaling. Wouldn't it then be better to give the option in SAM of providing exam and assessment marks separately, for greater accuracy?

SAM makes no attempt to 'reverse engineer' aligned HSC marks into the corresponding raw HSC marks. It skips this step and approximates scaled marks directly from the aligned marks. This is because almost no information is published regarding raw marks.

Any increase in accuracy from allowing students to enter their assessment and examination components individually would be negligible if not unnoticeable (due to the way SAM is programmed).

There are too many other confounding factors to make a perfect calculator at this point in time.

One more question. A lot of rounding goes on in the Board's process of reporting aligned marks - even the aligned HSC mark is rounded up if would end in .5. Is it then true, as I would hope, that this rounding error is not carried over into the scaling - in other words, that two people both with aligned marks of say 95 in Maths ext 2, but with slightly different raw marks, would receive correspondingly different scaled marks?

As Xayma said, at every stage of the calculations, marks are kept to one decimal place. Both raw marks and scaled marks properly discriminate between students.

The rounding only occurs when marks are reported to students.

 

[glycerine]

Hey, a quick question

Let's just say I open my results on Friday. For extension two English, my raw internal mark was 50/50 and (obviously) I ranked 1st, alongside two other people, one who got nominated for showcase (and therefore, must've gotten 50 externally as well). What would be the reason that my internal mark got pulled down to 49 (externally I got 47) when I was first?

 

[Lazarus]

If there are n students ranked equal first, your moderated assessment mark will be set equal to the average of the top n major work/examination marks.

So if you're ranked equal first with two other students, you won't recieve 50/50 for your moderated assessment mark unless the top three major work marks were all 50/50.

If we assume the other two both received 50/50, and you were third with 47/50, each of you would receive a moderated assessment mark of (50 + 50 + 47)/3 = 49.

 

[glycerine]

Ah, ok, thanks. Haha, I pulled them down. Although they still would've gotten a 50 overall right? That is, if they got the 50 externally?

But yeah, was just wondering, because my impression was thanks to my ranking, my internal mark was basically immune

 

[Lazarus]

Yes, they would overall - technically 49.5, which would round to 50.

Unfortunately, the immunity is only guaranteed if you're the only one ranked first. Sorry about that.

 

[hello99999]

In english advanced i did good

now kiddies, what's wrong with this sentence??
lol

 

[acmilan]

now kiddies, what's wrong with this sentence??
lol

Its supposed to be "me do good in English Advanced"

 

[Slidey]

T thnk the scale marking is a preety good processs of finding our Hsc marks. So we cant afford to screw up in the Internal and the Hsc. Go and on the tip of the iceberg
Centiflat

Centiflat iceberg? Eh?

 

[line_backer]

if i am the only person in german beginners and i come first and last at the same time, will i get dragged down by my own mark?

btw my internal marks are in the 70's

 

[Lazarus]

if i am the only person in german beginners and i come first and last at the same time, will i get dragged down by my own mark?

btw my internal marks are in the 70's

Uhm. That's an interesting way of phrasing your question.

The short answer is... yes and no. Read this thread.

 

[Meldrum]

Sammyb said

Sammyb went to my school last year and was ranked top 1/3 in all her classes. Then she topped all her HSC exams and jumped to rank 1.

Is this the case or is she fibbing?