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Difficulty of HSC exams (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Epicman69
- Start date
Let's say NSB, Ruse, Baulko, those type of schools
icycledough
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Aug 5, 2021
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- 784
- Gender
- Male
- HSC
- 2020
This might not apply directly to you but may help you if needed. I graduated from a top 10 selective high school last year and found the externals for X1 to be much easier than our internals. This is granted that our school generally has quite tough internal exams, which helps in the long run with moderation of our internal results.
One of the major tasks of the trials is to rank the school's cohort from first to last.
One of the major tasks of the HSC exam is to rank the entire candidature of the subject from first to last.
The greater the extent to which the cohort is an UNrepresentative sample of the candidature, the more it is likely that the trial should differ in standard from the HSC. Consequently, schools that perform more strongly than average need a trial that is commensurately more challenging than the external HSC exam, and schools that significantly underperform the entire state-wide candidature need a trial that is less challenging.
Bear in mind that this is not simply making a trial where every question is x% harder, it is about a trajectory of questions to separate comparable groups within the cohort. A school with (say) a dozen mid-high 99.5+ ATARs needs to rank those and will do so with appropriately challenging questions right at the end, so the end of the paper could be much more than x% harder than the end of an HSC paper.
One of the major tasks of the HSC exam is to rank the entire candidature of the subject from first to last.
The greater the extent to which the cohort is an UNrepresentative sample of the candidature, the more it is likely that the trial should differ in standard from the HSC. Consequently, schools that perform more strongly than average need a trial that is commensurately more challenging than the external HSC exam, and schools that significantly underperform the entire state-wide candidature need a trial that is less challenging.
Bear in mind that this is not simply making a trial where every question is x% harder, it is about a trajectory of questions to separate comparable groups within the cohort. A school with (say) a dozen mid-high 99.5+ ATARs needs to rank those and will do so with appropriately challenging questions right at the end, so the end of the paper could be much more than x% harder than the end of an HSC paper.
Note also that school culture has a role. I believe, for example, that the papers from North Sydney Girls are much more interesting / challenging / creative than those from North Sydney Boys. Papers can also vary with examiners. At Sydney Grammar, for example, David Sadler historically set harder papers than did Bill Pender, but Dr Pender was more likely to get creative in the contexts he used for questions.
It has been a while since they taught as SGS. When I was there, the last question was typically pretty whack with only a handful feeling confident they got it all, but that's about it.
They told us when I was doing the HSC that they wanted to make trials more representative of the HSC and hence made them less difficult.
I'm aware that they have both left SGS. I had two years with Dr Pender as my teacher and one with Mr Sadler, and both were excellent teachers. I have noticed recent papers being easier, but maintain that the need to rank a very strong cohort (by state candidature standards) calls for a challenging paper.
out of the subjects you do mx1 will be the most similar.
Er, the North Sydney Girls 4u trial 2020 was certainly easier than the boys one lol.
the boys one was wack some of the qs. I really didnt like it. Also, they shared questions with Ruse or grammar i forgot which one
ruse probs
are you going to nsb?
no
Depends on Maths. I found the old HSC's (1990s to early 2000s) to be way harder than most past trials I've come across. Newer papers it depends on the school. For Physics I reckon the HSC is always harder than trials, even than those top ranking schools.
