Your final mark is made up of your HSC Exam Mark for 50% of it, and your AGGREGATE assessment mark for the other 50%.
The aggregate mark is:
If you come 2nd in biology, and the highest mark out of everyone at your school is 98, then 93 is the next mark - you came 2nd, so you get the 2nd highest mark overall and take it as your assessment mark. So you'd get 93.
So if you got 99 in the final exam, and ranked 2nd at your school, you get an average of your own mark and the scaled aggregate mark.
If you came last and the lowest mark in the exam was 49% out of all the people at your school, but you got a tutor and aced the HSC exam, and got 98%, then you would average 98 & 49 and that would be your final mark.
THATS why higher ranked schools are scaled better. Because if you come 40th at James Ruse, your aggregate mark would probably still be 90+, whereas 40th at another school might mean your aggregate mark is in the 60's.
NO, that's incorrect. If the second highest mark is 93, and you come second, you
do not get 93. BOS lines up your internal raw marks and HSC exam marks, and pins the top mark with the first ranked person, and pins the lowest mark with the lowest ranked person. Then, they find the mean and align that with the mean in the HSC. Then, by using standard deviation, they determine your assessment mark based on how much you deviate from the mean in your raw marks.
This means, you may more than 93 or less. It depends on the whole cohort and if they are close or apart, high up towards 100 or low down towards 0.
Your point about the last ranked person is correct. BUT, you are mistaken between aligning and scaling. BOS uses aligning, UAC uses scaling.
Higher ranked schools have no impact on the cohort. Just because James Ruse came first in 2011, it doesn't mean the 2012 cohort will do as well. It doesn't give them an advantage at all. What it would infer, is the level of quality of competitiveness, teachers, the cohort itself, the mindset and so on. However, just because you came 40th in a lower ranked school, that does not mean you will get a mark of 60. That cohort can be as good as Ruse, so that's why everything starts afresh each year. It's just the mindset that a lower ranked school (for the
previous year) will get a low mark, which is stupid and self-defeating.