Lower ATAR than examination mark? (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Becca24
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Thats not scaling thats aligning. I dont think any subject aligns down, some may align evenly (i.e. a raw mark of 90 in an exam will equal an aligned exam mark of 90). This thread http://community.boredofstudies.org/showthread.php?t=275486 shows how several subjects have historically aligned.
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Adding onto this 'scaling' is done by UAC to calculate your ATAR from the HSC marks that have been calculated by Board of Studies (HSC marks are determined by aligning your raw marks)
The BOS aligns from raw exam marks into final exam marks. Scaling is performed by the UAC, although I think this is what you are trying to say?
Yeah lol my way just sounds confusing because I started with the end product and worked backwards
someth1ng
Retired Nov '14
From what I've heard, the Accounting one aligned down but I could be wrong.
someth1ng
Retired Nov '14
It's possible to have a lower aligned mark if what I heard is true. Accounting does not scale up either so it would be generally lower than the raw exam mark.
Carrotsticks
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I finally remembered your username. I don't quite know why, but that stream of digits just... flows.
someth1ng
Retired Nov '14
Yeah, I think I know what you mean...
This whole thing is subjective. if the exam is really easy or your cohort does well regardless of the subject, then it will align downwards. If its really hard than it will align up.
Theres only like 1 or 2 subjects that generally scale up. Accounting scales quite well. They make the tests rather easy and align down rather than subjects like mx2 which have super hard tests and align up.
someth1ng
Retired Nov '14
Usually MX2 is the only subject that scales up. The languages like Latin are realistically lower scaling than MX2, only in extreme cases do they scale higher.
Also, if they made the test easy, doesn't necessarily mean it aligns down but it is compared to how they do in their other subjects (English) and make a comparison with that.
Also, if they made the test easy, doesn't necessarily mean it aligns down but it is compared to how they do in their other subjects (English) and make a comparison with that.
Three things happen to your marks:
1. Moderation - this is the process of adjusting your school sent in marks to the range, mean, median etc of the exam marks.
2. Aligning - this is the process of adjusting the raw exam marks to the Bands - this is done by a team of markers determining what mark for a question would be the mark achieved by a student at the cut-off of each band - it has nothing to do with the quality of the cohort although it does bring in the difficulty of the paper. I have been on the aligning panel a couple of times and know a number of other people who have done this as well. Now I don't know about all subjects but I know of none that align down rather than up - that doesn't mean that there aren't subjects that do that just that I have never heard on one.
3. Scaling - this is the process of adjusting the marks to compare the performance of the cohorts in the different subjects and is done by UAC to determine the ATARs.
1. Moderation - this is the process of adjusting your school sent in marks to the range, mean, median etc of the exam marks.
2. Aligning - this is the process of adjusting the raw exam marks to the Bands - this is done by a team of markers determining what mark for a question would be the mark achieved by a student at the cut-off of each band - it has nothing to do with the quality of the cohort although it does bring in the difficulty of the paper. I have been on the aligning panel a couple of times and know a number of other people who have done this as well. Now I don't know about all subjects but I know of none that align down rather than up - that doesn't mean that there aren't subjects that do that just that I have never heard on one.
3. Scaling - this is the process of adjusting the marks to compare the performance of the cohorts in the different subjects and is done by UAC to determine the ATARs.
I think you have confused aligning with scaling. When marks are aligned they have nothing to do with other subjects. Board of studies looks at the performance of the cohort and the learning outcomes to determine the raw mark for each band.
Scaling on the other hand is used by the UAC in a process to make all the subjects equal to a common scale of 50 for each unit for calculating ATARs. To determine how to equally measure all the subjects, they compare HSC performance overall in the cohort and decide what the subject should be scaled to.
Its pretty confusing stuff. I wish the process was more transparent and clearly explained
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This, especially whats in bold - there needs to be a better explaination of this process, especially by teachers who seem to know little about it. Aligning and scaling are two very different processes and are conducted by different bodies.
Performance of the cohort has nothing to do with the cut-offs for the bands. Theoretically if every student met the standard for a Band 6 they would get a Band 6.
Cut-offs at the bands are determined by looking at the questions, the marking criteria and the performance bands and those three documents only (I have been on the panel that takes the time to actually go through this process).