Are marks relevant at all? (1 Viewer)

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Kozak92

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Just wondering cause I see some people just post their rankings and get ATAR estimates.

Hypothetically, If I received 5/10 in say Maths but that was enough to top the grade, is that as good as receiving 9/10 and topping the grade?
 

madsam

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depends, is your grade shit?

a 5/10 and topping the grade will give you the best results out of your cohort in the internal exam and junk, but if noone else is expecting to get over 60% in say the 2unit maths exam, then its not very good


coming last at james ruse will probably still beat coming 1st at most country schools... So you know, take it with a grain of salt
 
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Kozak92

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Nah my grades pretty good I guess. Nobody would ever get 5/10 since these people (me :p) have already dropped down to General.

I've received 82/100 for my first General test and rank 9th out of I'd estimate around 60-70 students but just wondering if I had received say only a 75 but that was still enough to get my 9th. Will the mark or rank matter?
 

Thecorey0

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If you can maintain the first ranking for the duration of the HSC, and do not get sick during the exams, then the marks aren't relevant at all. A ranking other then first is a completely different story. In your example, it would most probably matter, as the relative gaps between the ranks would vary.
 
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Kozak92

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If you can maintain the first ranking for the duration of the HSC, and do not get sick during the exams, then the marks aren't relevant at all. A ranking other then first is a completely different story.
Thanks.

rep+1
 

flaminwaffle

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In the end, the HSC mark that is sent in to the board of studies (that is, your overall school mark) is the weighed average of all your assessment marks.

However, these are 'changed' in accordance to the external marks.

For instance
If i get ranked first out of a 'dumb' school with average marks of 50%, then the rank becomes irrelevant, because in the external exam, i'll still get crap compared to the state and in this way, your rank 1 in school becomes irrelevant.

Conversely, if i get ranked last in james ruse with a mark of 90%, i'll still do well compared to the state and again, my rank of last will become irrelevant.

Another example
Let's say i have a cohort that is very bright. But in my particular HSC year, the teacher decides to be a cock and sets extremely hard assessments/ marks extremely hard, and everyone fails all of the assessments. However, because we're still bright sparks, we all score 90% in the external. Then the BOS will say 'wow, these kids are actually smart, and they had hard assessments/ hard marking, so we'll bump their assessment marks up to an appropriate value'. In this way, both the ranks and marks are rather important.

The opposite will be true for not very smart kids who get easy assessments.

There's probably a complex formula for all this but i cant really explain it. The moderation of your assessment marks is determined by factors such as outliers, rank, external marks and the size of your cohort.

hope i answered.
 

Makdadddy

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Sorry to invade on your thread champ, but just a quick simple question :p

Would a weighted task, say 10%... be actually 5%? As in the end, the assessment task value is only 50%. Amirite? :uhoh:
 
K

Kozak92

Guest
In the end, the HSC mark that is sent in to the board of studies (that is, your overall school mark) is the weighed average of all your assessment marks.

However, these are 'changed' in accordance to the external marks.

For instance
If i get ranked first out of a 'dumb' school with average marks of 50%, then the rank becomes irrelevant, because in the external exam, i'll still get crap compared to the state and in this way, your rank 1 in school becomes irrelevant.

Conversely, if i get ranked last in james ruse with a mark of 90%, i'll still do well compared to the state and again, my rank of last will become irrelevant.

Another example
Let's say i have a cohort that is very bright. But in my particular HSC year, the teacher decides to be a cock and sets extremely hard assessments/ marks extremely hard, and everyone fails all of the assessments. However, because we're still bright sparks, we all score 90% in the external. Then the BOS will say 'wow, these kids are actually smart, and they had hard assessments/ hard marking, so we'll bump their assessment marks up to an appropriate value'. In this way, both the ranks and marks are rather important.

The opposite will be true for not very smart kids who get easy assessments.

There's probably a complex formula for all this but i cant really explain it. The moderation of your assessment marks is determined by factors such as outliers, rank, external marks and the size of your cohort.

hope i answered.
Yeah I understand. Basically I should still aim to get high marks in subjects.

Sorry to invade on your thread champ, but just a quick simple question :p

Would a weighted task, say 10%... be actually 5%? As in the end, the assessment task value is only 50%. Amirite? :uhoh:

Thats what I think too which is why its confusing to see people create ATAR estimates from only ranks.
 

muzikk93

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Sorry to invade on your thread champ, but just a quick simple question :p

Would a weighted task, say 10%... be actually 5%? As in the end, the assessment task value is only 50%. Amirite? :uhoh:
I think yes because 50% of ur internal assessments and 50% of external assessment (HSC Exam) counts towards the atar mark.. so ur statement is correct about the 10% being considered a 5%.
 

flaminwaffle

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Thats what I think too which is why its confusing to see people create ATAR estimates from only ranks.
Yes, it is correct.

Using your school rank and your subject rank, people can 'fill in the blanks' with your marks, because as i demonstrated above, sometimes marks can be meaningless, so rank is a better judgement. However, as i also demonstrated above, ranks can also sometimes be meaningless. So yes, it is rather a guessing game.

Alternatively, to be really safe you could always give people your marks for past hsc papers you did :p

But here's my 2c. just try your hardest. this means your results will be as high as they can be. you don't have to bother comparing your results to others if you did your best. dont worry yourself too much over the technical crap of the hsc.

goodluck in your studies.
 

Starfriend

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Just wondering cause I see some people just post their rankings and get ATAR estimates.

Hypothetically, If I received 5/10 in say Maths but that was enough to top the grade, is that as good as receiving 9/10 and topping the grade?
Depends on the ability of your cohort. That's why there's scaling and aligning and stuff like that, to create a fairly accurate comparison between schools AND subjects.
 

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