Explanation of HSC Marks (Moderating) (2 Viewers)

[Drdusk]

so how do schools do the dux and top achievers stuff based on atar

Yeah what vishnay said.

Same thing at my school we had a post Hsc afternoon tea session in which they gave everyone a sheet where you had the choice to write down your atar and hand it in.

 

[specificagent1]

Yeah what vishnay said.

Same thing at my school we had a post Hsc afternoon tea session in which they gave everyone a sheet where you had the choice to write down your atar and hand it in.

all schools do this?

 

[Drdusk]

all schools do this?

Idk about the afternoon tea thing but definitely all schools who publish atars at some point have asked their students.

 

[specificagent1]

Idk about the afternoon tea thing but definitely all schools who publish atars at some point have asked their students.

what if people lie

 

[vishnay]

what if people lie

yeah i never thought about that wtf

but u know people are generally honest at my school

 

[sab13562]

A teacher told me that the principal gets your atar as well because some people lie? Idk it sounds wrong

 

[icycledough]

Idk about the afternoon tea thing but definitely all schools who publish atars at some point have asked their students.

That's interesting, because at our atar brunch/tea last year, none of the teachers asked or cared pretty much about our atars. I don't know if they get our ATARs or if they only get everyone's exam marks for their respective subjects. It was just a day to chill and meet up with everyone after a stressful year.

 

[jimmysmith560]

The school I went to would hold an award ceremony where students who have achieved at least 2 band 6's/E4's are invited to attend and are given an award. With the invitation comes a form containing the subjects they achieved top bands in (for confirmation) and they are asked to provide their ATAR in addition to other details such as what they intend to study beyond year 12 (if applicable) and the institution they will attend.

 

[jimmysmith560]

I'm trying to understand at least some what the way they get moderated/aligned etc...
From what I can tell, ar your HSC external marks that you get in your HSC results (as in when you open up your results and ATAR in december) actually YOUR marks from your own HSC exam you sat. Because I've heard people say you get someone else's marks based on your internal rank. Which concerns me because say, for example, I do Extension 2 English and I have been doing a major work for the whole year, since I did average in the internals, if my major work gets the best mark in the class, my classmate who is 1st in the internals will just get all of the marks from MY major work?
Or is it your internal marks that get changed and chopped up before they're given to you on that fateful day in December? If anyone can explain it or atleast provide some clarity that'd be appreciated.

The moderation process applies to your Assessment Mark (the mark that reflects your internal performance). It uses your internal rank as well as Examination Marks (i.e. HSC exam marks, or your major work mark in the case of English Extension 2) achieved by you and your cohort in determining your Assessment Mark. Essentially, the highest Assessment Mark is adjusted to equal the highest Examination Mark of any student in the cohort. Suppose that the highest major work mark achieved by a student in your cohort was 45. This means that the Assessment Mark of the student ranked first internally will also be 45. Assessment Marks of students with ranks other than first and last will not necessarily be equal to their equivalent Examination Mark, although they will be similar.

Your Examination Mark (your external mark) will be determined according to your own performance in your HSC exam for a particular subject (or equivalent in the case of English Extension 2). For instance, if after alignment, you have received an Examination Mark of 45, that will be the mark that will be recorded in the HSC results that you receive. This mark is not affected by factors such as your rank relative to your cohort or your school rank.

I hope this helps!

 

[jimmysmith560]

im rlly confused abt what the difference is ngl. also what effects do ur internals have on ur externals (saw someone else post abt this but I'm still a bit confused).
if u stuff up ur internals with a couple of subjects, can u still get 99+ atar?

Moderation is a process that is done by NESA to determine students' Assessment Marks. The Assessment Mark is the mark that reflects a student's internal performance in a particular subject and contributes 50% of their overall HSC mark for that subject, the other 50% coming from the Examination Mark (i.e. HSC exam mark). Moderation uses two elements in determining a student's Assessment Mark in a particular subject:

• The student's internal rank.
• Examination Marks achieved in that student's cohort (including their own).

Essentially, the highest Assessment Mark (i.e. that of the student ranked first) is adjusted to equal the highest Examination Mark of any student in the cohort. Similarly, the lowest Assessment Mark (i.e. that of the student ranked last) is adjusted to equal the lowest Examination Mark of any student in the cohort. Assessment Marks of students who rank in between may not necessarily equal their equivalent Examination Marks, although they will be similar. For example, suppose that you are ranked first in a subject, and that the highest HSC exam mark achieved by a student in your cohort was 95. This mark will also become your Assessment Mark.

On the other hand, an Assessment Mark is not used to determine an Examination Mark. An Examination Mark in a particular subject depends solely on the student's own performance in their HSC exam for a particular subject. It is not affected by factors such as their rank relative to their cohort or their school rank.

Scaling is a process that is done by UAC in determining students' ATARs. It is different from moderation and uses raw HSC marks (i.e. they are not aligned, as opposed to the marks that you receive in your HSC results), which are not reported to students.

Whether unfavourable performance in your internal tasks in a couple of subjects limits your ability to achieve a 99+ ATAR can depend on the effect this had on your rank, as well as the subject's unit value (for instance, unfavourable performance in a 2-unit subject can have a worse effect on your ATAR than unfavourable performance in a 1-unit subject). However, with HSC exams contributing the remaining 50%, not to mention the fact that many students were able to make a comeback under similar circumstances, you should hopefully still have a chance of achieving an ATAR that high.

I hope this helps!

 

[jimmysmith560]

thank you so much jimmy! suppose most people bomb out in the trials and the person ranked first gets an 85, does this mean that the highest examination mark will be an 85? what if people pull themselves up by the time the hsc starts?

No worries!

No, the specific mark achieved in a trial (or any other internal assessment task/exam for that matter) does not matter. What matters is the rank that it reflects. Using your example, the 85 itself does not matter, what matters is that it indicates that the student who achieved it is ranked first.

If a student effectively prepares for their HSC exams, then they are likely to perform well in them, resulting in favourable Examination Marks. They are determined based on the student's own performance, i.e. separately from internal ranks.

 

[scaryshark09]

in your school cohort, all your ranks are recorded and the size of the gaps between ranks are also recorded and they are sent to nesa. the actual marks themselves have no effect, only the rank and the size of the gaps.

ALIGNMENT: you will then all sit the hsc and get a raw mark for the exam, this mark will not be reported (you have to pay for it). after this, your raw exam mark is aligned to get your reported Exam mark.

MODERATION: your moderated assessment mark (the reported internal mark) are then based on your school cohorts' Exam marks (the aligned ones that are reported). rank 1 gets the highest exam mark that someone in your school got as their moderated Assesment mark, and rank last gets the bottom mark (where possible). all other ranks get moderated assessment marks (reported internal mark) based on the marks people in your school cohort got in the HSC. These assessment marks reported are based on your own rank and the gap between ranks. The total of the aligned exam marks for your school has to equal to the total of the moderated assessment marks.

these two marks for each individual are averaged (and rounded up if needed), to get your final HSC mark.

SCALING: these hsc marks are sent to UAC who scale each of your marks and the best 10 units are put towards an aggregate out of 500 (50 per unit). this aggregate determines your atar!

 

[raspberriesandpears]

sorry wait one more q: can someone in the hsc surpass the person ranked first? say I'm ranked 4th after trials, is there any way i can beat the person in rank 1 in the hsc considering all the moderation stuff?

yes it is totally possible. my friend state ranked last year and she wasn't ranked internally first for that course. the person who was internally first did not state rank (although im sure she did well). so you could totally perform better both in the hsc and overall

 

[jimmysmith560]

sorry wait one more q: can someone in the hsc surpass the person ranked first? say I'm ranked 4th after trials, is there any way i can beat the person in rank 1 in the hsc considering all the moderation stuff?

If the other student's final internal rank is higher than yours, they will most likely receive an Assessment Mark higher than yours. However, you can definitely outperform them in the HSC exam. While they will receive an Assessment Mark higher than yours, you still have a chance to receive a higher overall HSC mark than them, provided that the difference between your Examination Mark and theirs is big enough.

For example, if the other student's Assessment Mark ends up being 90, and your ends up being 85, but their Examination Mark ends up being 85 and yours ends up being 95, you will receive a higher overall HSC mark than them, as follows:

 

[9995jhp]

Explanation of HSC Marks

(NB: We've developed a prototype which simulates the moderation of assessment marks -


Explanatory document from the Board of Studies:

This answers a LOT of questions to do with moderation of assessment marks. refer to the link for the more indepth answer

Below is some information describing what happens to the School Assessment marks that are sent in to the Office of the Board of Studies.


For every HSC course you are studying, an Assessment mark, along with an Exam mark and an HSC mark will appear on a course report. This assessment mark is not the raw assessment mark that your school has sent to the Board of Studies, but first goes through a process of change, called moderation. The marks are moderated because, some teachers set harder assessment tasks or are more strict with marking than other teachers.

Below is the working for two small-sized hypothetical schools:

<table border=1><tr><td colspan=4>School A:
<tr><td colspan=2>Raw School Assessment marks<td colspan=2>Exam marks
<tr><td colspan=2>(sent in to Board of Studies)<td colspan=2>(on the external exam)
<tr><td>Tim<td>94<td>Fred<td>86
<tr><td>Fred<td>90<td>Tim<td>82
<tr><td>Joe<td>60<td>Joe<td>70
<tr>
<tr><td colspan=2>(average: 81.3)<td colspan=2>(average: 79.3)</table>

Now, we moderate the raw School Assessment marks (while students keep their own Exam marks). We need to retain the rank order of students according to the School Assessment, but need to make sure the marks are high enough (or low enough) to be in line with the group performance on the Exam. Tim gets the highest Exam mark as his moderated Assessment mark, Joe gets the lowest Exam mark as his moderated Assessment mark, and Fred receives a mark that ensures that the average of the two groups of marks are the same, and so in this case receives the middle Exam mark as his moderated Assessment mark.

<table border=1><tr><td colspan=2>Assessment marks<td colspan=2>Exam marks
<tr><td colspan=2>(moderated)<td colspan=2>(no change)
<tr><td>Tim<td>86<td>Fred<td>86
<tr><td>Fred<td>82<td>Tim<td>82
<tr><td>Joe<td>70<td>Joe<td>70
<tr>
<tr><td colspan=2>(average: 79.3)<td colspan=2>(average: 79.3)</table>

Then the third mark reported on the course report, the HSC mark, is calculated by averaging the Assessment mark and the Exam mark:

<table border=1><tr><td colspan=2>HSC mark
<tr><td colspan=2>(average of Assessment and Exam)
<tr><td>Tim<td>84
<tr><td>Fred<td>84
<tr><td>Joe<td>70</table>

Now here is a different example, in which the student who comes first only receives a mark of 60/100, as in your example:

<table border=1><tr><td colspan=4>School B:
<tr><td colspan=2>Raw School Assessment marks<td colspan=2>Exam marks
<tr><td colspan=2>(sent in to Board of Studies)<td colspan=2>(on the external exam)
<tr><td>Anne<td>60<td>Ben<td>86
<tr><td>Ben<td>56<td>Anne<td>82
<tr><td>Chris<td>26<td>Chris<td>70
<tr>
<tr><td colspan=2>(average: 47.3)<td colspan=2>(average: 79.3)</table>

In School B the raw school assessments are much lower than School A, but the Exam marks are consistent between schools. The raw School Assessment marks are moderated in the same fashion:

<table border=1><tr><td colspan=2>Assessment marks<td colspan=2>Exam marks
<tr><td colspan=2>(moderated)<td colspan=2>(no change)
<tr><td>Anne<td>86<td>Ben<td>86
<tr><td>Ben<td>82<td>Anne<td>82
<tr><td>Chris<td>70<td>Chris<td>70
<tr>
<tr><td colspan=2>(average: 79.3)<td colspan=2>(average: 79.3)</table>

<table border=1><tr><td colspan=2>HSC mark
<tr><td colspan=2>(average of Assessment and Exam)
<tr><td>Anne<td>84
<tr><td>Ben<td>84
<tr><td>Chris<td>70</table>

The School Assessment marks were originally much harsher (lower) for students in School B than School A, but the performance in the Exam suggests that both groups are similar in ability. While School A's School Assessment average was slightly higher than expected given their exam performance, School B's School Assessment average was much lower than expected (it was 47.3, rather than 79.3). Therefore moderation for School A brought the assessment marks downward slightly, while moderation for School B brought the assessment marks upwards a large amount. The end result is School A and School B students receiving consistent HSC marks.

We want students to work equally hard both during the year for assessments and for the HSC exams itself, so they are worth equal amounts. Because Fred (and Ben) ended up with the best performance on the exam in their respective school groups, they should be rewarded for that by retaining their own high Exam mark, but because Tim (and Anne) had the best assessment performances in their school groups, they should be rewarded by having the highest Assessment mark in the school group (which is made equal to the highest Exam mark for the school). Therefore, in this simple case Tim and Fred end up with exactly the same HSC mark, as did Anne and Ben.

In School A, Joe, although always coming last ends up with 70, rather than 60, because this is how he performed in the external Exam - his School Assessment mark seems to be a little harsh, so is brought up in line with the lowest Exam performance (which happens to be his own). Likewise in School B, Chris always comes last, but ends up with 70, rather than the 26 suggested by the teacher, given his exam performance.

These examples I have given are of pretty simple cases, and when more students are in a class and/or when a student performs very poorly in comparison with their Assessment ranking, other rules can come in to play, so students are not disadvantaged by the process. However, the examples should give you a good understanding of how moderation generally works and why it is used.

In summary, both the School Assessment rankings for a group of students and how these marks are distributed are important. So if you want to have the highest Assessment mark in the class you need to be ranked first in the group in the School Assessment. However, if you come second in the School Assessment but someone beats you by only one mark and the next student is a lot lower, you and the student who just beat you will end up with similarly high marks, and the next student will receive a mark that is quite a bit lower. If you do receive a low ranking in your class for a particular course, but end up beating most of your classmates in the exam, you will end up with a rather higher reported Exam mark than Assessment mark, and your HSC mark for the course will be half way between the two.

Therefore, work as hard as you can both during the school year and in preparation for the external exam itself. In addition, if you think your teacher is giving very hard tasks and marking them harshly in comparison to another school, this will not have an effect on the reported HSC marks, because the process of moderation is used; only the relative rankings and distributions
within each group is important.


Flowchart - Basic Process of the HSC System
While procrastinating i've made a little flowchart for the basic process of the HSC system. Let me know if anything is wrong...

What does this mean for someone who gets, say an 85 internal mark for some subjects because they had complications in internal assessment rankings and their school ranking is like 70 in NSW so the cohort support isn't well--BUT for the actual HSC receives 96+ for those subjects?
Does it still get calculated like (95+85)/2= 90 which is scaled to, what 95 ATAR, or would NESA take a look and do something about it? Because that person is hoping to get 99+ ATAR but really, school rankings aren't looking well, averaging at top10 (but since the school is top 70-80, only 5-6 people get band 6s for most subjects)...

 

[jimmysmith560]

What does this mean for someone who gets, say an 85 internal mark for some subjects because they had complications in internal assessment rankings and their school ranking is like 70 in NSW so the cohort support isn't well--BUT for the actual HSC receives 96+ for those subjects?
Does it still get calculated like (95+85)/2= 90 which is scaled to, what 95 ATAR, or would NESA take a look and do something about it? Because that person is hoping to get 99+ ATAR but really, school rankings aren't looking well, averaging at top10 (but since the school is top 70-80, only 5-6 people get band 6s for most subjects)...

A student's Assessment Mark in a particular subject will be determined according to their rank relative to their cohort and an equivalent Examination Mark in that subject. If a student experiences difficulties with school-based assessment tasks/exams, it is their responsibility to seek clarification and/or assistance as soon as possible. If a student does not do anything to address such difficulties, then it is likely that their rank will be negatively impacted as a result, resulting in a lower Assessment Mark. This means that the outcome of the example that you have provided is definitely possible.

 

[C_master]

its been 20 years

 

[AsuTeksu]

Do HSC exam marks get aligned? Still so confused with that concept, I thought your exam marks were just as is

 

[jimmysmith560]

Do HSC exam marks get aligned? Still so confused with that concept, I thought your exam marks were just as is

Rattlehead15 essentially explained the purpose of alignment briefly and quite well.

Raw HSC exam marks are first determined (i.e. the actual marks that students received for their HSC exams with no changes of any kind) and then aligned, resulting in aligned HSC exam marks, which contribute 50% of HSC marks. As part of your HSC results, NESA informs you of your aligned HSC exam marks (the name for which being Examination Mark).

With that being said, keep in mind that alignment has no effect on a student's ATAR.

 

[AsuTeksu]

Rattlehead15 essentially explained the purpose of alignment briefly and quite well.

Raw HSC exam marks are first determined (i.e. the actual marks that students received for their HSC exams with no changes of any kind) and then aligned, resulting in aligned HSC exam marks, which contribute 50% of HSC marks. As part of your HSC results, NESA informs you of your aligned HSC exam marks (the name for which being Examination Mark).

With that being said, keep in mind that alignment has no effect on a student's ATAR.

Thank you!!