Re: How Does The Sc Marking Process Work?
I have never marked the SC but I have many friends who do it every year.
They tell me the process is similar to the HSC (most having done that as well) except that it is single marked meaning that only one marker reads your response and the Senior Marker check marks some work from each marker in their group each session.
As for moderating the process is exactly the same as the HSC - how I know that is that I have done the moderating for Modern History for a few years and the SC moderators (called judges) have done their training day the same day we did. We all did the same things.
The group of judges will simply look at the question, the marking guideline and the performance descriptor bands and say what they believe the cut-off mark should be on that question for each of the bands. e.g. if a question is marked out of 10 and they think that the question is easy against the marking guideline and performance descriptor band. As a result they might recommend the cut-off as follows: Band 6 = 9/10, Band 5 = 8/10, Band 4 = 6/10, Band 3 = 5/10 and Band 2 = 4/10 with anyone less than that being Band 1. They repeat that for every written response.
For Multiple Choice question they use a % of students in each band who should get the answer correct.
There are 6 of them and they do this independently. Once they have finished the process (and they do it three times) their final recommendations are added up and averaged. This will result in the final cut-off such as 80/100 raw =90/100, 64/100 = 80/100, 52/100 = 70/100, 39/100 = 60/100 and 16/100 = 50/100.
PLEASE NOTE: These numbers are purely fictional and are not to be taken as an indication of any raw marks aligned with any subject to my knowledge. Any subject to which they do apply is purely accidental.
It is very hard to get Band 1 at either SC or HSC level but it is possible and about 1% - 2% of the state in each subject will do so.
Remember that the exam is set out of 100 (except History and Geography which are actually set out of 50 each) but that 50/100 is deemed the bare minimum of achievement. When you see what gets marks at that level you will understand why they say that you virtually get 50% for writing your name on the paper (by the way don't - write your student number).
Allow me to add to this a bit.
If any of you are wondering how aligning is done then let me tell you. Imagine drawing a graph where 'x' represents your raw marks and 'y' represents your aligned marks.
Suppose the Band 6 cut off for Mathematics was 85/100. Then that means that the 85/100 would have out be aligned to 90/100. You can use the this formula to evaluate the aligned mark:
/(x-x1) = (y2-y1)/(x2-x1) )
So the two points would be (x1,y1) and (x2,y2), which in this example would be (85,90) and (100,100).
The equation works out to be;
/15 )
This is the line equation for Band 6. Suppose you scored 88/100 raw, then your aligned exam would be 92/100. That's what you'll be seeing in your Record of Achievemnet.
There's a separate line equation for each Band.
