the impossible (1 Viewer)

[thebigticket]

hey as some of u guys know i skipped the creative writing section of my english hsc
i got the results today and without my creative i scored 86/100 in the exam

jst want to wonder how it was possible for me to score 86 when i automatically lost 15 marks from the creative
do they use an estimate or average of what i should have scored

LOL btw with the creative in my trial i only scored 81/100

 

[Rafy]

The exam mark you received is not your raw mark. The mark has been moderated and aligned.

Also note that the English exam is marked out of 105.

 

[cem]

It is called aligning - so the 15 marks you didn't attempt is actually less than that with aligning.

Your raw mark was probably somewhere in the mid-70s which then was aligned up to 86 - even without the creative.

That 81 from the trial may have aligned close to a Band 6 if not actually have made it to Band 6 which then allows marks in the 60s and 70s to align into the 80s.

I don't know what the cut-offs were for English at all but do know the process, which is why I am saying I think your raw mark was in the mid-70s and that aligned to 86.

I do know that the lower the raw mark the more it aligns up. Remember that the exam is marked using the full range of marks while the final reported marks are largely between 50 - 100.

 

[cutemouse]

I think it's really stupid for your moderated/aligned mark to be that different from your raw mark... It's inevitable that moderation/aligning would be required for an entire state, but I think the differences at the moment are way too much. If the aligned marks and raw marks differ by at least 10 marks then the exam was too difficult and exam writers should set more doable exams...

 

[brent012]

I think it's really stupid for your moderated/aligned mark to be that different from your raw mark... It's inevitable that moderation/aligning would be required for an entire state, but I think the differences at the moment are way too much. If the aligned marks and raw marks differ by at least 10 marks then the exam was too difficult and exam writers should set more doable exams...

HSC markers are very harsh compared to the average school. Students would end up being very dissapointed if the aligning was as little as you propose it should be. They can't just make the tests more "doable" as it needs to be able to distinguish between a large range of students.

 

[cem]

Markers are teachers remember and we tend to mark more easily at the HSC than we do at school as we are told 'at school you are trying to get the kids to do better and so are much pickier than you are here because this is the last one they have to do - so think up not down'.

The point of aligning is to report a series of marks across a range of marks from 0 - 100 into 6 bands with about 97%+ of the state being reported from 50 - 100.

The lower the mark you get the greater the aligning will be to get to that mark e.g. a reported mark of 50 could be a raw mark of anything from single figures to mid-20s (depending on the subject).

When the idea of reporting in bands was first mooted the idea was not to report any marks at all but the public needs marks and they also associate 50 with the concept of pass and fail so the idea of 'minimum standard' had to equate to 50 so the aligning which was just supposed to report bands was then needed to move the marks as well. UAC takes no notice of the aligning and uses the raw marks, which is why students who had all their marks in the 70s ended up with ATAR's in the 50s and 60s. I tell my students to average their marks and take off 10 if their average is in the 70s or below and that will give them a better idea of their ATAR then the average of their marks.

Moderation is essential as otherwise all schools would send in all students with an assessment mark of 100 making the entire process worthless.