In addition to the above, let's provide an overview of what HSC marks consist of, how they are determined and how this is related to your ATAR.
The Assessment Mark:
The Assessment Mark is the mark you receive that reflects your performance in your school-based assessment tasks/exams. It contributes 50% of your HSC mark in a subject and is determined using a process called moderation. This process uses the following information to determine your Assessment Mark in a particular subject:
- Your final rank - Your final rank in a subject is determined after you complete all your school-based assessment tasks/exams.
- Examination Marks - This will be explained below.
The Examination Mark:
The Examination Mark is the mark you receive that reflects your performance in the HSC exam of a particular subject. It contributes the remaining 50% of your HSC mark and is determined using a process called alignment. This process involves using your raw mark on the HSC exam of a particular subject, which is the mark you receive on the actual paper which you don't receive. This mark is modified, the modified mark being the one you receive and is thus called the Examination Mark. In most instances, the Examination Mark is made higher than the raw mark.
The Examination Mark is also used to calculate the Assessment Mark of a student in a particular subject.
The HSC mark:
The HSC mark is the final mark a student receives in a particular subject. HSC marks are used to determine the student's ATAR and are determined by calculating the average of the student's Assessment Mark and Examination Mark. For example, if a student achieves 70 as their Assessment Mark and 90 as their Examination Mark, their HSC mark will be
. Consider the diagram below:
The moderation process:
Moderation is the process used to determine a student's Assessment Mark in a particular subject. To keep things fair, NESA moderates (adjusts) school Assessment Marks so that they can be compared across schools. To do this, they use the Examination Marks, which are the only component that would allow them to achieve this fairness, because the only tasks that all students complete that is exactly the same and is marked in exactly the same way is the HSC exam. The highest Assessment Mark is adjusted to equal the highest Examination Mark of any student in a school cohort. Similarly, the lowest Assessment Mark is adjusted to equal the lowest Examination Mark of any student in a school cohort. In the case of other ranks, the Assessment Mark will not equal its equivalent Examination Mark. However, it will be similar. Consider the following example from NESA:
As you can see, the highest Assessment Mark was adjusted to equal the highest Examination Mark (92). The lowest Assessment Mark was also adjusted to equal the lowest Examination Mark (50). However, the Assessment Mark for the student ranked third (74) is not identical to the third-highest Examination Mark (72).
Therefore, maximising your chances of receiving favourable Assessment Marks will require you to rank as high as possible relative to your cohort across your subjects.
To answer your question, the Assessment Mark you can achieve with 90's in your school-based assessment tasks/exams will depend on your rank relative to your cohort in addition to whether your cohort is academically capable. However, it would be safe to assume that you will need high marks across your subjects if you wish to achieve a 95+ ATAR, i.e. as many results in the band 6/E4 region as possible.
I hope this helps!
