Rank, school assessment marks and examination marks. (1 Viewer)

[cloudstr1f3r]

It's half the HSC and we only have about 207 days lefts... and I am starting to get overwhelmed with stress and HOW the ACTUALLY game work.

The teacher from our school are extremely harsh, so harsh that everyone got stripped 20-30 marks from the preliminary to the HSC.

I've ranked first for preliminary in Modern History with a mean raw year mark of 96, but this year he've graded all my assignments and exams under 90 and above 75. I'm shocked.

My school said that it is the rank that matters, but the question is.. I just saw on the board of studies that they also submit a school assessment mark? This is something entirely new to my knowledge as all they've mentioned is the mark and what matters the most are the external examinations.

My school has been EXTREMELY vague in explaining how the HSC works, and from what I know everything is based on raw marks in our school if this information helps....

I'm aiming for an ATAR of 98.5+ and the teachers said that getting 60 doesn't matter when the whole grade does, and also getting 70s in the course when you're top of the class. This sounded rational.

But it appeared to be irrational when I came across this piece of information http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/hsc-results/moderation.html

So can someone who is an expert clear me up on this subject matter? Is it really the rank and external exams that matters or do schools actually manipulate the school assessment marks?

PS. School rank: 66

Thanks guys!

 

[cem]

It's half the HSC and we only have about 207 days lefts... and I am starting to get overwhelmed with stress and HOW the ACTUALLY game work.

The teacher from our school are extremely harsh, so harsh that everyone got stripped 20-30 marks from the preliminary to the HSC.

I've ranked first for preliminary in Modern History with a mean raw year mark of 96, but this year he've graded all my assignments and exams under 90 and above 75. I'm shocked.

My school said that it is the rank that matters, but the question is.. I just saw on the board of studies that they also submit a school assessment mark? This is something entirely new to my knowledge as all they've mentioned is the mark and what matters the most are the external examinations.

My school has been EXTREMELY vague in explaining how the HSC works, and from what I know everything is based on raw marks in our school if this information helps....

I'm aiming for an ATAR of 98.5+ and the teachers said that getting 60 doesn't matter when the whole grade does, and also getting 70s in the course when you're top of the class. This sounded rational.

But it appeared to be irrational when I came across this piece of information http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/hsc-results/moderation.html

So can someone who is an expert clear me up on this subject matter? Is it really the rank and external exams that matters or do schools actually manipulate the school assessment marks?

PS. School rank: 66

Thanks guys!

In order for the BOS to determine your ranks the school sends in the final mark gained by adding the weighted assessment marks for all your tasks e.g. a task worth 20% but given a mark of 70/100 will contribute 14/20 for the final assessment mark. All the marks will be tallied and that final mark submitted. From these marks the BOS will have your rank within your cohort and the difference in ability between the different candidates and that is also important (for anyone other than first). These marks will be moderated later on and these moderated marks will contribute 50% of the final HSC mark.

After the schools send in these marks the cohort all sit the HSC exams. These marks will be aligned by the BOS and then also count 50% of your final HSC marks.

Aligning is done by a panel of 5 - 6 markers who will determine the cut-off marks for each course for each of the bands and this is what moves the exam marks up so much as the aligning will see about 99% of the state in most subjects get marks of between 50 and 100 although the way more than that number of candidates will have a raw mark below 50%.

In addition to aligning the state's exam marks the BOS moderates each cohort's assessment marks. This is the process of using the top earned exam mark to determine the top assessment mark and the bottom earned exam mark to determine the bottom assessment mark.

It works like this:

Students' raw school submitted marks: 90, 85, 75, 60, 50
Students' exam marks: 98, 97, 89, 80 and 75

Assessment marks will now have a top mark of 90 and a bottom mark of 75 (regardless of who earned those marks in the exam those will be the top and bottom assessment marks.

Now the total marks earned in the exam by this cohort is determined by adding them up = 439

The total moderated assessment marks will therefore be 439 - give or take a mark or two in the moderating process.

When you look back at the school marks there were 5 marks between first and second - using a scale from 0 - 100 but now the scale is virtually 50 - 100 so the gap will probably close to about 3 thus second will end up with a moderated mark of 95. We then have a 10 mark gap which will probably close to about 6 so third will get an assessed mark of 89 now we would have to drop back about 8 marks to 80 so that the final mark will be 75 - a total of 437.

Now say the student the school sent in with first rank also got the top exam mark - no problem - 98 exam and 98 assessment - final HSC mark 98

But say the student who came second internally got the top mark externally - again simply - 98 exam but 95 assessment - final HSC mark 97 (average of 98 and 95).

But say the school sent in the following marks: 70, 65, 55, 40, 30

As you can see these marks are considerably lower (20 marks lower actually) but this group also get the same exam marks - guess what - they get the same marks e.g. top student top on the exam as well - 98 overall.

The reason for this is that the schools could set different assessment tasks and more importantly will mark them differently. The only common assessment task is the HSC and so it is used to moderate the schools' different marks and allow for these differences.

Thus what matters - your rank and the gaps between you and those around you. The marks themselves are immaterial except for determining the actual rank and the relative difference between the students within the cohort.