you can only be scaled up not down. If everybody did shit they'll scale everybody up because it's the fault of the faculty/exam rather than the students.
You can definitely be scaled down. If the course results in a considerable number of HD and D grades, and that this does not adhere to the grade distribution of the UNSW gum leaf curve, then you can be scaled down. This is also dependent on how previous years went and how their grades were distributed. However, you can't be scaled down to fail.
If everyone did shit, they do not have to scale everyone up. The marking committee will revisit the marking criteria and attempt to redistribute marks or allocate more or less marks such that more people would pass, but only so the number of those who pass is consistent with previous years. However, if that is done and there is still a considerable number of fails, then that cohort is just shit. It is not necessarily the fault of the exam or faculty. If the students are shit, then they are shit.
do our marka get scaled or moderated like for the hsc? or do we just receive the marks we got?
because l probably got like 20 raw in my physics exam which seems to be not very far from the average mark.
Generally, it's just the raw mark. The exam may be scaled or the final mark may be scaled depending on the grade distribution. It will depend on the course. Some courses might allocate a certain percentage of HD, D etc., or, other courses might just leave it as is. Generally, they want to keep it consistent with previous years.
For PHYS1A, I assume, it's about a 40-60% fail rate over the higher and normal streams, then after the supplementary, about half of the students will pass. So about 20-30% will fail. Also, when I did it, the lecturer said there would be no scaling involved.
You will only be given a supplementary exam if the average of 50%+your final exam percentage, would give you a final pass mark of 50+. If it won't, you've unfortunately failed the course.