The Board of Studies gives UAC the raw HSC marks.
HSC marks are scaled to reect scores obtained if everyone
sat the course (but still scored out of 100).
sat the course (but still scored out of 100).
A student's best 2 units of English + best 8 other units
selected.
selected.
The results are added to produce a mark out of 500.
All students are ranked according to their score out of 500.
A student's ATAR is their percentile position out of all
students who started year 7 with them
A diference of 20 scaled marks has a diferent effect on the ATAR depending on which percentile you are in.
20 scaled marks may send 60 ->
20 scaled marks may send 60 ->
65 but 99 -> 99:5
Each bonus point makes you jump 200 places in the queue.
Each bonus point makes you jump 200 places in the queue.
If you get 5 bonus points you're jumping over 1000 people.
First we standardise all course results.
Board of Studies provides UAC with raw marks.
Results in 2-unit courses are scaled to a common profile;
same average (mean),
same standard deviation (sd) and
same top mark.
What do the words mean? What does the scaling do?
Note that this changes the marks but not the ranking within a course.
Now we benchmark the 2-unit courses. For each 2-unit course we
nd the standardised results in all other 2-unit courses for all
students taking this course;
students taking this course;
nd the mean and standard deviation of these results and
re-scale results in the 2-unit course to match these.
Everyone starts on an even playing eld because we had
standardised all the original marks.
This part of the scaling process is all about ranking according to
overall performance.
Everyone starts on an even playing eld because we had
standardised all the original marks.
This part of the scaling process is all about ranking according to
overall performance.
To understand the implications of this, note the effects of scaling.
