How does your internal ranking affect your ATAR? (1 Viewer)

[Lazarus]

As usual the board of studies generally provide better explanations...

It is a good explanation, but it has only been available on the Board's website since 4 September 2009.

The same explanation has been discussed in this thread.

 

[Prashant Sallan]

bump

 

[Gibbatron]

This is probably a good way of looking at the marking system, plus i want to know the answer. To set the stage, you came second to the same person in every subject, so in the final internal rankings you are consistently second and the other person consistently first, but there isn't a big difference in the rankings.

What happens in the final exams if you beat that person and everyone else in every exam. Will they still get a higher ATAR than you because they were ranked first, or will you get the higher ATAR because you got the best marks.

 

[jet]

This is probably a good way of looking at the marking system, plus i want to know the answer. To set the stage, you came second to the same person in every subject, so in the final internal rankings you are consistently second and the other person consistently first, but there isn't a big difference in the rankings.

What happens in the final exams if you beat that person and everyone else in every exam. Will they still get a higher ATAR than you because they were ranked first, or will you get the higher ATAR because you got the best marks.

On your record of achievement you will see three marks for each subject - Exam mark, School mark and HSC mark.

The exam mark is the mark you receive in the HSC exam, nothing else. You sit the exam and get a raw mark, which the BOS plays with to set some standards, and this moderated mark becomes your exam mark. It only depends on your performance in the exam.

The school mark reflects your performance at school, based on your performance in all of your assessments. Very soon (i.e. either last week or this week) your school will send in your cumulative marks for each course. Ours were sent in yesterday. This has been discussed previously, so I will only say that it depends a) on your rank, b) on the distance between you and all the other marks in your school for that course and c) on the performance of your cohort in that exam for that course. So, if everyone in your class does well for that exam, your mark will go up a bit. If they all do crap, it will probably go down etc. If you come first, then your school mark will be the highest exam mark someone got for that course in your school.

The HSC mark is an average of the exam mark and the school mark. If there is a 0.5, it is rounded up. Thus, if you do crap at school, but well in the exams, you will only get an average mark (depending on the school mark). If you are 1st at school and do well in the exams, your HSC mark will be good.

The mark upon which the ATAR depends is what the UAC calls the raw HSC mark. This is an average of the raw exam mark and the moderated school mark (i.e. the one you see on your report). So whilst you will see one of the marks you work with - the moderated school mark - you have no real idea of what your raw marks were because the board of studies messes with them before you get them. This should change in the future, however. [Thanks to Lazarus for pointing this out. I edited what I originally wrote]

So, it still works out that if you do well in the exam, then you will get a good ATAR. if you do crap in the exam, you well get a crap ATAR because your exam mark affects your school mark. On top of this, a good rank in school is required, as this contributes to your school mark as well. But, remember, they also look at EVERYBODY in that course, not just at the mark you got. So you also need to have done well in the course IN RELATION to everybody else.

Hope that helps. lol.

 

[Gibbatron]

So even if you're not first in your school INTERNAL rankings, you can still be first in the EXTERNAL rankings? And have the highest ATAR?

 

[jet]

So even if you're not first in your school INTERNAL rankings, you can still be first in the EXTERNAL rankings? And have the highest ATAR?

Supposedly. That's why some schools reward dux on ATAR, not internal performance.

 

[annabackwards]

So even if you're not first in your school INTERNAL rankings, you can still be first in the EXTERNAL rankings? And have the highest ATAR?

Correcto.

Jetblack explained it extremely well

 

[jet]

Correcto.

Jetblack explained it extremely well

Thanks It helps that i've already done maths, so i researched the crap out of it last year. I would show you all a screenshot of what I mean, but I can no longer access my results online.

 

[possessionless]

still confused

as am i

 

[jet]

as am i

What are you confused about? If you tell us, we should be able to break it down for you. This is what I hate about BOS; they are so clandestine. It doesn't help to confuse students over the process. Thankfully, the ombudsman is helping a bit with that.

 

[Lazarus]

The ONLY mark upon which the ATAR depends is the exam mark (according to the UAC website). They don't look at the moderated exam mark that you see; they deal with the raw mark you got in the exam, thus, sticking moderated exam marks into SAM is only accurate to a certain extent, as you aren't using the same mark as the UAC uses.

jetblack2007 is 100% correct except for the above statement.

ATARs are calculated from scaled marks, which are calculated from raw HSC marks.

Your raw HSC mark is the average of your raw examination mark and your moderated assessment mark.

So, it's not accurate to say that the "ONLY mark upon which the ATAR depends is the exam mark", because it also depends on your moderated assessment mark.

Otherwise, jetblack2007 is spot on.

 

[Prashant Sallan]

So whats the advantage for the person getting ranked first in a subject? and what would happen if lets say they get 70 in a subject where the highest mark was 95 (and they got the 5th highest mark in the school - external)

 

[zazzy1234]

So whats the advantage for the person getting ranked first in a subject? and what would happen if lets say they get 70 in a subject where the highest mark was 95 (and they got the 5th highest mark in the school - external)

good question

 

[zazzy1234]

On your record of achievement you will see three marks for each subject - Exam mark, School mark and HSC mark.

The exam mark is the mark you receive in the HSC exam, nothing else. You sit the exam and get a raw mark, which the BOS plays with to set some standards, and this moderated mark becomes your exam mark. It only depends on your performance in the exam.

The school mark reflects your performance at school, based on your performance in all of your assessments. Very soon (i.e. either last week or this week) your school will send in your cumulative marks for each course. Ours were sent in yesterday. This has been discussed previously, so I will only say that it depends a) on your rank, b) on the distance between you and all the other marks in your school for that course and c) on the performance of your cohort in that exam for that course. So, if everyone in your class does well for that exam, your mark will go up a bit. If they all do crap, it will probably go down etc. If you come first, then your school mark will be the highest exam mark someone got for that course in your school.

The HSC mark is an average of the exam mark and the school mark. If there is a 0.5, it is rounded up. Thus, if you do crap at school, but well in the exams, you will only get an average mark (depending on the school mark). If you are 1st at school and do well in the exams, your HSC mark will be good.

The ONLY mark upon which the ATAR depends is the exam mark (according to the UAC website). They don't look at the moderated exam mark that you see; they deal with the raw mark you got in the exam, thus, sticking moderated exam marks into SAM is only accurate to a certain extent, as you aren't using the same mark as the UAC uses.

So, if you do well in the exam, then you will get a good ATAR. if you do crap in the exam, you well get a crap ATAR. But, remember, they also look at EVERYBODY in that course, not just at the mark you got. So you also need to have done well in the course IN RELATION to everybody else.

Hope that helps. lol.

oooooooooooo, so they only look at th HSC exam mark to get th ATAR?

 

[possessionless]

What are you confused about? If you tell us, we should be able to break it down for you. This is what I hate about BOS; they are so clandestine. It doesn't help to confuse students over the process. Thankfully, the ombudsman is helping a bit with that.

well our school explained things slightly different. they sort of said that if you were say ranked 1st in our school and then you got like 60% in the HSC exam but the top mark was 80% from our school, you would get the 80%.

is that true?

i also just read some more stuff in this thread. so they dont use your school marks to contribute towards your atar? if not, well im screwed!

 

[Prashant Sallan]

well our school explained things slightly different. they sort of said that if you were say ranked 1st in our school and then you got like 60% in the HSC exam but the top mark was 80% from our school, you would get the 80%.

is that true?

i also just read some more stuff in this thread. so they dont use your school marks to contribute towards your atar? if not, well im screwed!

Exactly what my next question was!

 

[annabackwards]

well our school explained things slightly different. they sort of said that if you were say ranked 1st in our school and then you got like 60% in the HSC exam but the top mark was 80% from our school, you would get the 80%.

is that true?

i also just read some more stuff in this thread. so they dont use your school marks to contribute towards your atar? if not, well im screwed!

Exactly what my next question was!

Your internal mark would be adjusted to 80 while you'd keep your external mark of 60. The overall HSC mark would be an average of the two ie (60+80)/2 = 70

UAC would use the over HSC mark of 70, scale it (as Lazarus explained) and use that in combination with your other scaled HSC marks to give you an ATAR.

So as you can see, it's both your internal school performance as well as your HSC performance that determines your final mark in the end

 

[jet]

well our school explained things slightly different. they sort of said that if you were say ranked 1st in our school and then you got like 60% in the HSC exam but the top mark was 80% from our school, you would get the 80%.

is that true?

i also just read some more stuff in this thread. so they dont use your school marks to contribute towards your atar? if not, well im screwed!

Ok, what your school said is slightly right. The basic process is this:

1) You do your internal assessments and get a final cumulative mark that is calculated from assessment weightings etc. It might get scaled by your school (ours does) or it might not. Then, the school sends it in. The mark you get is not so important as a) your RANK, and b) the distance between your mark and the marks of the people around you in each course. That mark is sent in to the BOS

2) You get stressed, study your ass off, and do your external HSC examinations. They get marked in the marking centre and that is called a RAW mark.

3) Then, based on a set of standards the BOS has for that course, they will moderate that mark to those standards, so they get a spread of marks they feel properly represents the candidature for that course.

4) After this, they get your school results and look at the class for each course. They take the top exam mark that ANY student in your school got for that course. That is the top mark that the person ranked first in your school will get. Generally, they do the same for the bottom mark, though not always depending on how similar school and exam marks are. Then, they make the average of the school marks for that course equal to the average of the exam marks for that course in that school.

Think about it like this: If you have a scatter graph of the school assessment marks organised by rank (so rank is on the bottom axis and the mark is on the vertical axis), then the board of studies makes the top school mark equal to the top exam mark by moving that point vertically up or down for rank 1, and makes the bottom school mark equal to the bottom exam mark by moving the mark the person on the lowest rank got vertically up or down.
After this, they draw a curve between the top and bottom marks. This curve depends on exam performance, and is determined by the schools performance in that exam for that course. They then move the points between the lowest and highest ranks vertically up and down to sit on this curve. That is how they do it. Often it might seem that they map exam marks to school ranks (like everybody believes) but it's actually not true.

So, the moderated school marks are determined by a) the schools exam performance in that course, b) your rank and c) the spread of the school marks for that course. Notice that school ranks ARE maintained in this process. [If I could draw a diagram, I would, but I don't have enough time right now. I might later]

5) Next, they take an average of the moderated school and assessment marks to give you your final HSC mark.

As for the question about the ATAR, Lazarus corrected me (thanks, btw) in that they use the RAW mark from step 2) and the moderated mark from step 4) to get a raw HSC mark. This is what they scale to get your final ATAR. So, yes school does have an influence on the ATAR, but keep in mind that they get to your school mark through the exam marks, so I would probably say that the exam mark is slightly more important. But, of course, you still need to be doing well in school to get a good final (and raw) HSC mark.

What else do you need to know?

 

[Prashant Sallan]

So basically, first internal rank.. gets the first external mark, but that doesnt necessarily mean that there going to get the highest assessment mark (which is calculated by the average of the internal + external mark), which consequently is used to work out the atar?

 

[zazzy1234]

So basically, first internal rank.. gets the first external mark, but that doesnt necessarily mean that there going to get the highest assessment mark (which is calculated by the average of the internal + external mark), which consequently is used to work out the atar?

hope ur right