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Subject scaling (1 Viewer)
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Kujah
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powerdrive
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subjects that scale best are ext maths and sciences. eco scales ok, but sdd and business only scale average.
Mark576
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This might help: http://www.uac.edu.au/pubs/pdf/2007_table_A3.pdf
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Generally, of the "common" subjects, it's
Mathematics Extension Two
Mathematics Extension One
English Extension Two
English Extension One
History Extension
Chemistry
Economics, Advanced English
Mathematics
Physics
Studies of Religion II
Modern History
Studies of Religion I
Biology
Geography
Legal Studies
Ancient History
Business Studies
PE
Visual Arts
Mathematics Extension Two
Mathematics Extension One
English Extension Two
English Extension One
History Extension
Chemistry
Economics, Advanced English
Mathematics
Physics
Studies of Religion II
Modern History
Studies of Religion I
Biology
Geography
Legal Studies
Ancient History
Business Studies
PE
Visual Arts
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cs01001
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Oh, I am asking does Advance English even get scaled up at all? Reason why I am asking is because half the state does it, and doesn't that mean the quality of the candidature is not as great as let's say Economics? If the quality of candidature is not as great, doesn't that mean Adv's scaling is just average?
powerdrive
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apparently paper 1 (journeys) doesnt scale at all, but paper 2 (modules) in adv scales a bit, heard that from somewhere
Undermyskin
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Er...do you mean the subjects with less students will get scaled a bit more?
As long as it's a hard subject, the criterion on the number of candidates doesn't affect much, I think. E.g. If everyone, let's say, chooses Ext2 Maths or English Ext2 (far out! it's my dream), however, around 90% fail (band E2 or under), then the 10% will still get scaled up like... Wheeeeeeee...especially ones who get E4. The same scenario occurs to Advanced English. You do well, scaled up, do badly, scaled down still.
However, the BOS is smart enough to recognise the improvements of candidates over each years or so and thus, they have some adjustments on the levels of difficulties for a particular subjects in order to achieve the most accurate results of each student's ability. Quite obviously we can see that after each year, students get more aids, more materials, more info, tips, etc. to deal with the HSC. The BOS doesn't like it in some way. That's why they have to change the syllabus every 6 years or st like that.
To unwind this, get an example: 2006: 10% get band 6 and non get under band 3 or less (don't forget it's an example), 2007: BOS gives a harder test: 5% get band 6 and 10% get 3 or less. This shows a clear range of capabilities, right? They are trying to find out the accurate number of those with higher ability and those with lower abilities. This doesn't mean if you get band 4 this year, you are better than band 3 last year!
As long as it's a hard subject, the criterion on the number of candidates doesn't affect much, I think. E.g. If everyone, let's say, chooses Ext2 Maths or English Ext2 (far out! it's my dream), however, around 90% fail (band E2 or under), then the 10% will still get scaled up like... Wheeeeeeee...especially ones who get E4. The same scenario occurs to Advanced English. You do well, scaled up, do badly, scaled down still.
However, the BOS is smart enough to recognise the improvements of candidates over each years or so and thus, they have some adjustments on the levels of difficulties for a particular subjects in order to achieve the most accurate results of each student's ability. Quite obviously we can see that after each year, students get more aids, more materials, more info, tips, etc. to deal with the HSC. The BOS doesn't like it in some way. That's why they have to change the syllabus every 6 years or st like that.
To unwind this, get an example: 2006: 10% get band 6 and non get under band 3 or less (don't forget it's an example), 2007: BOS gives a harder test: 5% get band 6 and 10% get 3 or less. This shows a clear range of capabilities, right? They are trying to find out the accurate number of those with higher ability and those with lower abilities. This doesn't mean if you get band 4 this year, you are better than band 3 last year!
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ccc123
Member
yeah.cs01001 said:
sirfeathers
Member
The ins and outs of BOS HSC scaling are still a mystery to me, but I know more about UAC scaling (yes, UAC scales your final HSC marks on top of the BOS scaling, and that's basically more important cos it determines your UAI):
Basically, the UAC looks at the marks and percentiles that students achieve at across different subjects. Lets say that you do French Continuers and Economics.
If you get in the top 10% of people doing French Continuers, but only in the top 60% of people doing Economics, then to the UAC people it looks like Economics has a "smarter" cohort. If that pattern was repeated over a lot of students than Economics would be made to scale higher than French. Your mark per unit studied will be converted a no. out of 50, and these numbers for your 10 relevant units are added up. The total you get corresponds to your UAI.
That was a pretty simplistic example of course - it gets mkore complicated. Go to the UAC site for more info.
Basically, the UAC looks at the marks and percentiles that students achieve at across different subjects. Lets say that you do French Continuers and Economics.
If you get in the top 10% of people doing French Continuers, but only in the top 60% of people doing Economics, then to the UAC people it looks like Economics has a "smarter" cohort. If that pattern was repeated over a lot of students than Economics would be made to scale higher than French. Your mark per unit studied will be converted a no. out of 50, and these numbers for your 10 relevant units are added up. The total you get corresponds to your UAI.
That was a pretty simplistic example of course - it gets mkore complicated. Go to the UAC site for more info.
Steth0scope
Member
You are correct sirfeathers. UAC aims to simulate that every person doing the HSC sat every single exam. By doing this, they can compare everyone. They approximate the mark a French student would have got if everybody doing every other exam was instead doing French and so on.
Please get the terminology right guys. Scaling is the process UAC undertakes. This is the scaling of your final HSC marks into scaled aggregate marks (you don't see these) in order to calculate your UAI. Very few subjects get scaled up on the most part (except ext2 maths and a few others). The rest are scaled down - some obviously scaled downwards more than the others. This is a table that shows final HSC marks (the marks you get) and the scaled agreggate marks (the one's you dont even see).
http://www.uac.edu.au/pubs/pdf/2007_table_A3.pdf
Before UAC even gets your final HSC marks, the BOS has their own "scaling" process if you like, known as moderation. This turns all your raw exam marks into your final HSC marks. For example, if one gets 85% raw in the physics HSC, experienced markers (depending on the difficulty of the exam as well as the strength of the canditure) may conclude thats its the equivalent of a 94 final HSC mark. Yes, on the most part, moderation increases your raw mark.
For the most detailed report on scaling (i had the wrong link before):
EDIT: http://www.uac.edu.au/pubs/pdf/scaling_report_2006-web.pdf
To sum up - no one is really gonna know exactly what UAC or BOS does. The most important thing is to do your best. If you are averaging 80s-90s raw in most of your assessments then no scaling is going to be able to f**k you up. Don't waste your time researching all this crap like me.
Good luck people.
Please get the terminology right guys. Scaling is the process UAC undertakes. This is the scaling of your final HSC marks into scaled aggregate marks (you don't see these) in order to calculate your UAI. Very few subjects get scaled up on the most part (except ext2 maths and a few others). The rest are scaled down - some obviously scaled downwards more than the others. This is a table that shows final HSC marks (the marks you get) and the scaled agreggate marks (the one's you dont even see).
http://www.uac.edu.au/pubs/pdf/2007_table_A3.pdf
Before UAC even gets your final HSC marks, the BOS has their own "scaling" process if you like, known as moderation. This turns all your raw exam marks into your final HSC marks. For example, if one gets 85% raw in the physics HSC, experienced markers (depending on the difficulty of the exam as well as the strength of the canditure) may conclude thats its the equivalent of a 94 final HSC mark. Yes, on the most part, moderation increases your raw mark.
For the most detailed report on scaling (i had the wrong link before):
EDIT: http://www.uac.edu.au/pubs/pdf/scaling_report_2006-web.pdf
To sum up - no one is really gonna know exactly what UAC or BOS does. The most important thing is to do your best. If you are averaging 80s-90s raw in most of your assessments then no scaling is going to be able to f**k you up. Don't waste your time researching all this crap like me.
Good luck people.
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Steth0scope
Member
If you're doing advanced english and extension maths (i dunno if you are) you should be able to get most of it.
I CBF going through the whole report. If you come across something you don't understand, PM me and i'll try and help. I can tell you that I don't even understand some parts
EDIT: I added the wrong link for the report before. With the table (the link before it), it tells you what the HSC mark for the 99th, 90th etc percentile student was and the corresponding scaled aggregate mark (you don't see this mark - they use it in calculating ur UAI). For example, if Jim Bob got 90 (or 45/50) for his HSC Mark for Chemistry, it would mean that he was in the top 10% of students (since it corresponds to a 90th percentile rank), and that his scaled mark out of 50 was 42.5 or 85/100. They do this for every subject before adding up all the scaled marks to give a total out of 500. They rank these and the highest 20 odd get 100 UAI etc.
I CBF going through the whole report. If you come across something you don't understand, PM me and i'll try and help. I can tell you that I don't even understand some parts
EDIT: I added the wrong link for the report before. With the table (the link before it), it tells you what the HSC mark for the 99th, 90th etc percentile student was and the corresponding scaled aggregate mark (you don't see this mark - they use it in calculating ur UAI). For example, if Jim Bob got 90 (or 45/50) for his HSC Mark for Chemistry, it would mean that he was in the top 10% of students (since it corresponds to a 90th percentile rank), and that his scaled mark out of 50 was 42.5 or 85/100. They do this for every subject before adding up all the scaled marks to give a total out of 500. They rank these and the highest 20 odd get 100 UAI etc.
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