What to do when you receive your results

[Ragerunner]

As we all know the HSC results are due to be revealed soon.

Just a few things to help you understand what they really mean.

First and foremost, as a result of Lazarus' who I'm sure you all know, we have a program called SAM (Student Assessment Modeller), where you can input aligned HSC marks and it will show the UAI a student would of achieved if he/she sat in that year to close accuracy.

Here is the link to it.

Briefly, to get you started, when you get your HSC results and you are eager to know what type of UAI you may be looking for, please don't post threads asking for UAI predictions. SAM will provide the most accurate guess that anyone can make.

Now, lets have a look at what to type into SAM. What we are mainly concerned about is the HSC Mark. The HSC mark is the average of the examination mark and the assessment mark. Reading the forums, a lot of people have asked whether they take into account ranks of the class. The answer is yes. The HSC mark is the final mark you receive for that subject. It takes into account all aligning and moderation processes.



The HSC mark surrounded by red (which I did to show you) is the mark you input into SAM after adjusting it to the subjects you did. After which you simply just click 'submit'.

You'd then want to look at the result which corresponds to the 2004 UAI. Most likely your 2005 UAI will be closest to the 2004 one. In my opinion, I would say you should deduct about 1.4 UAI points from the 2004 UAI number SAM provides. If everything remains stable, my guess is it would take a little higher marks every year to achieve the same UAI as the previous.
Reason for this I believe is the candidature is getting smarter each year, as a result, it would take higher marks to achieve the same UAI because the UAI is a ranking index which ranks students from each other.

Now for those who aren't too concerned about the UAI, but rather the HSC marks, and would like to know what they really mean.

First off, the examination mark is simple. It's simply the HSC exam mark from the exams you did from October 18th - Novemeber. This mark however is not your raw mark. A process known as aligning as been done to those marks to ensure the marks every year will be able to be compared with each other.
Typically the majority of marks will be over 50.

You can see this flowchart to understand how the aligning/scaling process differs.
http://www.boredofstudies.org/other/flowchart.pdf

The assessment mark is the mark based on your year's performance in the HSC exam. This mark is not the final school mark that you may have calculated yourself at school. This is the mark after your raw school marks have been moderated. These marks are moderated to ensure that every school is fair, and a more acedemic school will not have an advantage over less acedemic schools. i.e. a person attending a highly acedemic school can still attain a low UAI, and vice versa.
More information can be found in this thread.

The HSC mark is simply the final mark for your course. It is the average of your HSC examination mark and your assessment mark.

The performance band is the category that your mark falls under.

Band 1 is a mark between 0 - 49
Band 2 is a mark between 50 - 59
Band 3 is a mark between 60 - 69
Band 4 is a mark between 70 - 79
Band 5 is a mark between 80 - 89
Band 6 is a mark between 90 - 100

Band E1 - E4 is given out to 1 unit subjects with the exception of 3/4U maths in which a student undertaking 2 units of 4U and 3U maths are still 'banded' between E1 - E4. There is no real importance of these bands, except to tell you what you fall under.

So to end this, the main thing I'm trying to put out is to use SAM to help you get an idea of the type of UAI you will get, rather than posting UAI predictions on the forum as they can be very inaccurate sometimes. SAM will provide the most consistent and accurate UAI based on your marks. With that said, good luck with your results and hope everything turns out for the best.

[KeypadSDM]

And above all remember. DO not take SAM to be the be all and end all. It's a PREDICTION. NOT WHAT YOUR UAI WILL BE.

Don't get your hopes up by using it, the best advice is to wait a day until you actually recieve your UAI if you believe it will get your hopes up.

[mm87511]

very helpful!thanx!
iwas just wondering what is the difference btw the exam mark and HSC..

[Phanatical]

The trend over the last few years has proven that the same marks in progressive years will result in a lower UAI. SAM does not take this into factor, and as such estimates should be considered inflated by up to 5 points in comparison to 2003 figures (that is, the estimate will most likely be up to 5 points higher than the actual result).

[Ragerunner]

5 points seems a bit too much.

In my guide, I would say 1.3 - 1.5 would be most accurate. We'll see...

[Phanatical]

I said "up to", and the deviation between projected and actual marks increases as the UAI drops. By the time you reach 75, the deviation is already up to 3 points off, depending on subject choice, and by the time you reach 60, the deviation is up to 5 points off. I don't see anybody getting lower than that using SAM.

[Lainee]

How about for UAIs in the upper range (97-100)? An error margin of 1.3-1.5 marks seems... too high for this upper range?

[Ragerunner]

Originally Posted by Lainee

How about for UAIs in the upper range (97-100)? An error margin of 1.3-1.5 marks seems... too high for this upper range?

Yes. Between the 70-90 range I have a feeling it shouldn't be more than +/- 1.5 off the 2003 UAI.

Between the 90-100 range, the deduction would definitely be lower.

[bitchymcbitch]

in rural towns etc is there addition of UAI marks? its only something i heard was wondering if its true and what is considered a rural town and how many marks if any?

[grimreaper]

Originally Posted by bitchymcbitch

in rural towns etc is there addition of UAI marks? its only something i heard was wondering if its true and what is considered a rural town and how many marks if any?

Nope thats not true

[bitchymcbitch]

thanks for bursting my bubble..

[SNOW927]

I just got 98.20from SAM. what's the lowest actual UAI can be?

[KeypadSDM]

Originally Posted by SNOW927

I just got 98.20from SAM. what's the lowest actual UAI can be?

I'd say it's probably a normal probability distribution (left skewed of course) around 97.6-97.8 (as a generous guess)

[sly fly]

is SAM 2005 out yet?

[Lazarus]

It is on the verge of being released.

I am just adding the final touches...