• Best of luck to the class of 2024 for their HSC exams. You got this!
    Let us know your thoughts on the HSC exams here
  • YOU can help the next generation of students in the community!
    Share your trial papers and notes on our Notes & Resources page
MedVision ad

Scaling FAQ (1 Viewer)

Cheap Thrills

Member
Joined
Sep 9, 2006
Messages
180
Gender
Male
HSC
2008
this question has probably been asked a million times before, but they told us at school that if say for example, i get a raw assessment mark of 94 and the rest of my class gets marks of say 60s or 70s, that my moderated assessment mark will be lowered to fit in with my class better. is that true?
 
Joined
Mar 21, 2004
Messages
2,198
Location
Northernmost Moonforests of the North
Gender
Male
HSC
2002
buchanan said:
Here's the technical scaling committee doing their thing - Shakespeare's way:

Macbeth, Act IV, Scene 1

A dark Cave. In the middle, a Caldron Boiling.

[Thunder. Enter the three Witches.]

FIRST WITCH.
Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd.

SECOND WITCH.
Thrice; and once the hedge-pig whin'd.

THIRD WITCH.
Harpier cries:--"tis time, 'tis time.

FIRST WITCH.
Round about the caldron go;
In the poison'd entrails throw.--
Toad, that under cold stone,
Days and nights has thirty-one
Swelter'd venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i' the charmed pot!

ALL.
Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire, burn; and caldron, bubble.

SECOND WITCH.
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the caldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg, and howlet's wing,--
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

ALL.
Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire, burn; and caldron, bubble.

THIRD WITCH.
Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witch's mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat, and slips of yew
Sliver'd in the moon's eclipse,
Nose of Turk, and Tartar's lips,
Finger of birth-strangl'd babe
Ditch-deliver'd by a drab,--
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a tiger's chaudron,
For the ingredients of our caldron.

ALL.
Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire, burn; and caldron, bubble.

SECOND WITCH.
Cool it with a baboon's blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.

(<a href="http://www.angelfire.com/ab7/fourunit/macbeth-witchs.mp4">Video</a>)
Hey wow it's that bald asshole again! sup man, long time no see! How's life in the kiddy-fiddling lane, if you know what I mean?!
 

johnnypaul

Member
Joined
Jul 16, 2006
Messages
120
Location
C'Town
Gender
Male
HSC
2007
I'm confused about UAI. From what I have read the UAI is based on raw marks, are these the raw marks from the actual HSC exam or from School assessments?
 

jemsta

I sit here alone
Joined
Apr 6, 2005
Messages
5,711
Location
O.P
Gender
Male
HSC
2005
have a read here...
http://www.uac.edu.au/admin/uai.html#how
basically to determine your UAI, they take the best 10 units, thus its out of an aggregate of 500.
For a subject for example, after you completed the hsc exam, you get 3 columns...moderated assessment mark, hsc exam mark and your subject mark. Those marks that you get are all aligned, and not raw.
Then BOS would use all your raw marks and scale accordingly to how you went, so basically everything hinges on the actual hsc exam.
The school assessments is merely used to determine your final rank.
 

SoulSearcher

Active Member
Joined
Oct 13, 2005
Messages
6,757
Location
Entangled in the fabric of space-time ...
Gender
Male
HSC
2007
jemsta said:
have a read here...
http://www.uac.edu.au/admin/uai.html#how
basically to determine your UAI, they take the best 10 units, thus its out of an aggregate of 500.
For a subject for example, after you completed the hsc exam, you get 3 columns...moderated assessment mark, hsc exam mark and your subject mark. Those marks that you get are all aligned, and not raw.
Then BOS would use all your raw marks and scale accordingly to how you went, so basically everything hinges on the actual hsc exam.
The school assessments is merely used to determine your final rank.
Well, best 2 units of english, then the next best 8 units out of the remaining units.
 

wow!

Member
Joined
Mar 7, 2006
Messages
33
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
N/A
"Raw marks, not aligned marks are used in the calculation of scaled marks and the UAI."

Am I correct in thinking that
1) the average of the raw exam mark and the moderated school assessment mark is calculated to produce the "raw HSC mark" that you are referring to above?
2) If so, then what are aligned marks? And what are scaled marks?
3) What do they do to your raw HSC marks to calculate your UAI?

Thanks...I'm confused:confused:
 

SoulSearcher

Active Member
Joined
Oct 13, 2005
Messages
6,757
Location
Entangled in the fabric of space-time ...
Gender
Male
HSC
2007
wow! said:
"Raw marks, not aligned marks are used in the calculation of scaled marks and the UAI."

Am I correct in thinking that
1) the average of the raw exam mark and the moderated school assessment mark is calculated to produce the "raw HSC mark" that you are referring to above?
2) If so, then what are aligned marks? And what are scaled marks?
3) What do they do to your raw HSC marks to calculate your UAI?

Thanks...I'm confused:confused:
I'll try to answer the questions as well as I can.

1) From what I've read, yes, the raw HSC mark is the average of the raw exam mark and the moderated school assessment mark that is calculated for the student.

2) The aligned mark they are referring to here is the HSC exam mark that you are given by the Board of Studies; this mark has been generated from the raw exam mark in accordance with the outcomes and standards set by the Board of Studies as to how well the student attained the outcomes and to what level they have fulfilled them. The scaled mark is the raw exam mark after it has undergone the process of scaling, and in combination with the moderated school assessment mark, this is the one which is used to calculate your scaled aggregate mark for the UAI.

3) The raw HSC exam marks undergo the process of scaling and is then combined and averaged with the moderated school assessment mark to produce a scaled mark for that subject. This scaled mark is then used to calculate your UAI; using the scaled mark of 2 units of English, then the best 8 units out of your remaining units and adding these scaled marks together to create a scaled aggregate mark out of 500. This then allows the Technical Committee on Scaling (the board that calculates the UAI) to rank the students and calculate their UAI.

If you have any queries about that explanation, post and I'll try my best to answer it :) (I'll eventually clear up this post, it can be made a lot clearer, plus the calculation of the UAI explanation is very simplified, but the gist of it is correct.)
 
Last edited:

w-tian

New Member
Joined
May 18, 2008
Messages
2
Location
Sydney.
Gender
Female
HSC
2009
is there an updated version of scaling? it would be very helpful if there were...

say if i were doing 11units - 4 2unit subjects and 3u maths, how would they choose my best 8units then?
 

Bobness

English / Law
Joined
Aug 7, 2005
Messages
1,656
Location
Sligo
Gender
Male
HSC
N/A
w-tian said:
is there an updated version of scaling? it would be very helpful if there were...

say if i were doing 11units - 4 2unit subjects and 3u maths, how would they choose my best 8units then?
To determine your UAI, it is your best 2 units of english, then the next best 8 units out of the remainder.

So if you are doing 11 units (incl. english) then the best 8 units out of the 9 remaining units would be taken.

For eg see earlier

benny.a said:
How about if your best 8 units are:
- English advanced
- Biology
- Physics
- Chemistry

and then another of your best units is extension 1 which is only one unit. If they add one more 2 unit subject that will equal 11 units, how will determine ur UAI?
See Lazarus' reply
A 'two unit' course is made up of two units... it's possible for only one of them to count. :)

Involves halving your mark.
There would be two possibilities for you:

1) All 4 of your 2-unit subjects would count or
2) 3 of your 2-unit subjects would count, 3-unit (ie extension) maths would count, and 1 out of 2 units of your last subject would count.
 

songs4thesadman

New Member
Joined
Dec 10, 2007
Messages
12
Gender
Female
HSC
2008
ok, so they use our raw marks... but what about us poor kids who didn't sit one (or all) of our exams. By filling out our illness/misadventure forms they end up doing whatever they do to get our marks... but as we have no raw mark what does that mean for our uais?
 

cem

Premium Member
Joined
Nov 12, 2005
Messages
2,438
Location
Sydney
Gender
Female
HSC
N/A
songs4thesadman said:
ok, so they use our raw marks... but what about us poor kids who didn't sit one (or all) of our exams. By filling out our illness/misadventure forms they end up doing whatever they do to get our marks... but as we have no raw mark what does that mean for our uais?

They give you an estimate based on your school assessment rank and gap between the students either side of you and UAC uses that estimate.
 

dp624

Active Member
Joined
Oct 16, 2008
Messages
2,326
Gender
Male
HSC
2008
cem said:
They give you an estimate based on your school assessment rank and gap between the students either side of you and UAC uses that estimate.
Personally I'd never trust an estimate.. it's based on subjective opinion most of the time.
 

cem

Premium Member
Joined
Nov 12, 2005
Messages
2,438
Location
Sydney
Gender
Female
HSC
N/A
dp624 said:
Personally I'd never trust an estimate.. it's based on subjective opinion most of the time.

The alternative is to say 'Bad luck' about what happened and give the student the mark they got on the exam, which would be considerably worse, or zero.

By using the school's ranks and gaps they have an idea of how the student would have gone (not perfect but better than nothing).

Remember that if a student sits the exam and then gets granted misadventure/illness they only use an estimate if the original exam mark would place them lower then the school's rank and gaps.

e.g. students sits exam, gets 85, school says they should be between the students who got 65 and 68 then the 85 stands but if they sit the exam and get 45 then the estimate would be between the 65 and 68 based on where the school has ranked them.
 

dp624

Active Member
Joined
Oct 16, 2008
Messages
2,326
Gender
Male
HSC
2008
cem said:
The alternative is to say 'Bad luck' about what happened and give the student the mark they got on the exam, which would be considerably worse, or zero.

By using the school's ranks and gaps they have an idea of how the student would have gone (not perfect but better than nothing).

Remember that if a student sits the exam and then gets granted misadventure/illness they only use an estimate if the original exam mark would place them lower then the school's rank and gaps.

e.g. students sits exam, gets 85, school says they should be between the students who got 65 and 68 then the 85 stands but if they sit the exam and get 45 then the estimate would be between the 65 and 68 based on where the school has ranked them.
REally, OK. Well, one of my friends got dragged DOWN by his estimate. He had to go overseas for Olympiad and arrived back not-in-time. So he did the test without study, did well. Then the school estimate dragged him down. lol
 

cem

Premium Member
Joined
Nov 12, 2005
Messages
2,438
Location
Sydney
Gender
Female
HSC
N/A
dp624 said:
REally, OK. Well, one of my friends got dragged DOWN by his estimate. He had to go overseas for Olympiad and arrived back not-in-time. So he did the test without study, did well. Then the school estimate dragged him down. lol

Are you saying that the BOS lowered his exam mark to fit his school ranking because he was overseas and didn't study.

That is NOT BOS policy - it is always to give the best result for the student.

Schools, on the other hand, can use a range of ways to estimate a task not done at the time by the student and that is before the results go to the BOS. e.g. I had a student miss one task this year and had to be given an estimate based on doing the task after everyone else. We ignored that mark until all the other marks for everyone had been finalised and then ranked the rest of the mark and determined her rank and the gap. We then adjusted her task mark to fit into that arrangement. Other departments at my school do things differently - some would just take the mark and ignore everything else - others don't take any notice of the task done late at all and give the average of the students either side of the one who missed the task and others automatically give the class average (which isn't good for the top students but is great for the bottom ones!!).
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 0, Guests: 1)

Top