The scenario was actually different to what I think you are imagining. We had two people rank equal first internally, so they received for their moderated school assessment mark the average of the two highest examination marks (99 and 97) - i.e. 98. I was ranked 7th internally and was given 94 (four marks less than the moderated school assessment rank for rank one) as my moderated school assessment mark, and it was my examination mark of 99, which helped me get SR, which was 97 or above that year. So tbh my moderated school assessment mark gave me very little chance of SRing - it needed a very strong performance in the HSC final examination to make up for it.