99.95 (1 Viewer)

[Momentazeus]

If a 99.95 is meant to be attainable with any subjects, why can I only find people who get it with maths ext2? Is the percentage of people getting this atar without maths ext2 and English ext2 low?

 

[jimmysmith560]

If a 99.95 is meant to be attainable with any subjects, why can I only find people who get it with maths ext2? Is the percentage of people getting this atar without maths ext2 and English ext2 low?

It is due to the scaling of Mathematics Extension 2 (and Mathematics Extension 1) in addition to other subjects (mainly science subjects such as Physics and Chemistry, which also scale relatively high). Such subjects, combined with English Advanced, constitute a seemingly popular subject combination that is as follows:

• English Advanced
• Mathematics Extension 1
• Mathematics Extension 2
• Physics
• Chemistry

This gives a total of 10 units. Such subjects are taken by people who are rather capable at maths and science subjects. Performing well across all those subjects is beneficial, especially when scaling works to your advantage, allowing students who take such subjects to maximise their ATAR.

Of course, you can theoretically achieve a 99.95 with any combination of subjects, the main difference being the difficulty of achieving 99.95 with different subject selections. For example, subjects such as English Standard make it more difficult to achieve an ATAR that high and as far as I'm aware, there is yet to be a student who achieves a 99.95 with English Standard.

I suggest having a look at this document from UAC:

https://www.uac.edu.au/assets/documents/scaling-reports/scaling-report-2020-nsw-hsc.pdf

I hope this helps!

 

[Life'sHard]

Scaling and also the type of students who actually do the course. Those who enter extension courses typically have the mindset and ability to get 100 for each test or at least perform really well. The difficulty of the subject is equivalent to the scaling. It's fair this way. You wouldn't want an advanced maths course to scale equally with extension 2 maths. It just wouldn't be fair for the significantly differing amount of time put into the different courses.

 

[tito981]

I suggest having a look at this document:

https://www.uac.edu.au/assets/documents/scaling-reports/scaling-report-2020-nsw-hsc.pdf

On the document, if you go to page 40 it shows the maximum atar for a person doing that subject. The notable subjects that dont get a 99.95 is std english, geography, std math, music 1 and some of the beginner languages.

 

[quickoats]

Of course, you can theoretically achieve a 99.95 with any combination of subjects, the main difference being the difficulty of achieving 99.95 with different subject selections. For example, subjects such as English Standard make it more difficult to achieve an ATAR that high and as far as I'm aware, there is yet to be a student who achieves a 99.95 with English Standard.

This is more a function of the cohort of standard English, rather than the scaling of the subject itself (scales the same as advanced - just much less common to get in a band 6 territory).

 

[quickoats]

On the document, if you go to page 40 it shows the maximum atar for a person doing that subject. The notable subjects that dont get a 99.95 is std english, geography, std math, music 1 and some of the beginner languages.

This is mostly a function of the candidature of the students who do that subject, rather than a capping of the marks for the subject alone.
Remember that there are only about 50 students getting 99.95 in the state so of course, they won't be covering all the subjects offered. A 99.95 calibre student (who probably would've been getting high 99's regardless) is less likely to choose something like business studies or standard maths, so this is a selection bias. This does NOT mean the ATAR maxes out for those doing other subjects.