scaling english standard, etc. (1 Viewer)

[raymes]

yes yes i know this thread has been posted many a time before. i realise english standard isnt scaled.

my question however regards the mark distribution (as in VERY FEW people get band 5 and 6). everyone from what ive read on various boards say its purely cause of the candidature but it seems wrong to me. to me it seems like this course is marked harder (like did anyone get a band 6 last year??). i draw this conclusion because imagine an advanced-capable person dumbing down to standard (and im SURE it must have happened to a number of candidates). would they get an equivalent or better mark than if theyd stayed in advanced. from the statistics it seems not.

dont ask me why, maybe they do it so it has the *effect* of scaling without actually saying theyre scaling

it worries me though cause im doing IT at tafe (which i now realise i shouldnt have chosen cause im a capable student) and thats sort of in the same situation as english standard. it only gets scaled down slightly but its mark allocation is terrible.

though im probably wrong its just a theory. its quite possible that only that small percentage of candidates truely deserved those top marks. thats what im hoping for anyway lol in order to do well

 

[Xayma]

It is difficult to demonstrate an elegant answer in standard, as compared to advanced. Due to the questions asked it is hard to show the necessary skills required to get a band 5/6

 

[Ragerunner]

Originally posted by raymes
yes yes i know this thread has been posted many a time before. i realise english standard isnt scaled.

English Standard is scaled.

Originally posted by raymes

my question however regards the mark distribution (as in VERY FEW people get band 5 and 6). everyone from what ive read on various boards say its purely cause of the candidature but it seems wrong to me. to me it seems like this course is marked harder (like did anyone get a band 6 last year??). i draw this conclusion because imagine an advanced-capable person dumbing down to standard (and im SURE it must have happened to a number of candidates). would they get an equivalent or better mark than if theyd stayed in advanced. from the statistics it seems not.

dont ask me why, maybe they do it so it has the *effect* of scaling without actually saying theyre scaling

it worries me though cause im doing IT at tafe (which i now realise i shouldnt have chosen cause im a capable student) and thats sort of in the same situation as english standard. it only gets scaled down slightly but its mark allocation is terrible.

though im probably wrong its just a theory. its quite possible that only that small percentage of candidates truely deserved those top marks. thats what im hoping for anyway lol in order to do well

Most of your question, we cannot give a definite answer as no one really knows.

Imagine this hypothetical situation.

Student A is doing English Standard and attained a RAW mark of 75 for his HSC.

Student B is doing English Advanced and attained a RAW mark of 75 for his HSC as well.

Student A sees his ALIGNED HSC mark as 79.
Student B sees his ALIGNED HSC mark as 85.

It is these aligned marks we see that make us think of these conclusions that perhaps the board of studies don't like english standard students achieve band 6's. Or they mark harder just to annoy us.

I recall reading somewhere that English standard doesn't align as well as English advanced. In that example, both students will achieve the same scaled mark even if their aligned mark was different. It is the raw mark that is mainly important to us, so even if an advanced student achieves a high mark, that may not necesarilly be better off.

 

[Silver Persian]

My english teacher had a similar answer to Xayma, she said the outcomes tested made it difficult to recieve a band 6.

 

[raymes]

So what ur saying ragerunner is that although the mark is scaled - in contribution to your UAI it is only the raw mark that matters? if not i got no idea what ur on about

 

[Ragerunner]

Yes it is only the raw mark (and the UAC scaled mark) that matters when talking about calculating the UAI.

 

[Snapwizard]

LAZ said to me (not 100% sure) Standard - Advance Raws marks will get u the same UAI but in modules they mark Standard so hard that ur garrenteed to f**k up !! should have done advance bro!!

For the common paper if everyone in stadard beats everyone in advance then standard modules will get scaled higher hope that the difference is 50% otherwise ur screwed -

 

[santaslayer]

Originally posted by Snapwizard
LAZ said to me (not 100% sure) Standard - Advance Raws marks will get u the sam UAI but in modules they mark Standard so hard that ur garrenteed to f**k up !! should have done advance bro!!

For the modules if everyone in stadard beats everyone in advanced then standard modules will get scaled higher hope that the difference is 50% otherwise ur screwed

shouldnt u be studying for ur databasde test u turd? or perfecting the database assingment? :mad1:

 

[Zarathustra]

I doubt many band 6 advanced students would choose standard - more likey 3 or 4 unit - if they did the level of competition would be so low and the work requiring so little effort that relative to the advanced people they're skills would degrade - anyone that wants to achieve high marks in English should choose advanced (duh!) - only choose standard if you're struggling and even then I fail to realise the advantages? What are the advantages of doing standard for less able students?

 

[Snapwizard]

Even if you are failing English terrably you'll get a higher mark if you were bottom 10% in advance then bottom 25% in standard, try it with Sam and your'll see yourself how much standard scaled (downwards)!

 

[speersy]

Originally posted by Ragerunner
It is the raw mark that is mainly important to us, so even if an advanced student achieves a high mark, that may not necesarilly be better off.

in your example which mark is the raw mark.

 

[Ragerunner]

Originally posted by Snapwizard
Even if you are failing English terrably you'll get a higher mark if you were bottom 10% in advance then bottom 25% in standard, try it with Sam and your'll see yourself how much standard scaled (downwards)!

When using SAM, you are inputting aligned marks. 2 identical raw marks in advanced and standard do NOT equate to identical raw marks. If the raw marks were the same, they'd both be scaled to the same scaled mark. English standard does not scale you anymore downwards than Advanced.

Originally posted by speersy
in your example which mark is the raw mark.

In my example, Student A and B had a raw mark of 75.

 

[Snapwizard]

All BoS releases is that Standard and Advance are scaled the same !! How ever this would mean that a raw mark in both would contribute eually to your UAI ~~~~ therefore doing Advance is disadvantaged cause you are working harder and learning ahrder contents for the same marks, therefore BoS would mark standard modules very harshly to differanciate students that do advance and standard to give advance students a advantage for learning harder content~~~~~~~~~~~~~ something like that Ragerunner would clear me up if I'm wrong


All I can tell you from experience is that if you dont get alliend to band 5 in the HAD for standard then you will get draged down significantly

The biggest problem with standard is the attitue and motivation that your classmates show~~~~~~~~~ if you continously work throught about the whole yr ~~~~~~~~if you write heaps of has eassay and get your teacher to cheack over them ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ if you find your supplemantory material early and anayalse them theroughly ~~~~~ then your do great!!

 

[speersy]

ohhhhhhh i see now *thinking, thinking..............
ahh watever its not going to make me try harder

 

[paper]

the thing is that UAC doesnt give a shit about the band 5 band 6 or band 1003.05 crap that BOS uses to show the 'progress' that they r supposedly making... so even though BOS aligned only 1 person 2 band 6 in the past 3 yrs, in reality they r scaled the same as advanced by the UAC.

 

[untamedanimal]

In 2003, if you got an aligned mark of 90 for standard, you'd be in the top 100% and you're scaled mark would be around 94. If you got an aligned mark for advanced of 90, you'd be around top 93%, and scaled mark would be around 87-88. This shows how harder it is to get band 6 in standard, and the raw mark to get 90 aligned for standard would be much higher then for advanced

 

[rubylotus11]

I am someone who got a band 5 in Standard last year. It would probably have been a wiser decision to do Advanced but I was under a silly notion that Standard would be easier and therefore it would be easier to get a higher mark. I really didn't understand how it worked until I came across BOS and then it was too late. But I don't really get why they don't allow more to achieve a Band 6 level of achievement. But I guess there must be some reasonable explanation that I am just yet to comprehend.

 

[Estel]

"and the raw mark to get 90 aligned for standard would be much higher then for advanced"
Don't think so.

Fact is people who would get band 6 in Standard would do Advanced, no?

 

[nova]

Mmm I started off the preliminary HSC with Advanced english... my lazy attitude brought me down to a rank of about 90/120. I was advised to move down to standard. I moved down, and without doing any work whatsoever (I sit in class, do a bit of classwork, do NO homework at all..) I am ranked 4/75.

I'm guessing that this mark is probably better than getting off my ass in advanced and coming 40/120? (as I was in yr10 when I actually did work)

I'm not lazy for all subjects... I just find english tedious and quiet useless in real-life applications.

On a side note, im ranked 1/56 in business, 4/72 in general maths (again, another lazy drop down), 11/50 in economics (there are 6 marks between #1 and #15 so its very close) and haven't got my rank back for ancient yet..

 

[A l]

Advanced or Standard English?

English Standard and English Advanced are said to be scaled the same. As a result, the standards set for English Standard are said to be harder so Advanced students do not get disadvantaged.

However, we must remind ourselves one or two important things:
-SCALING only applies to students who wish to get a UAI
-NOT ALL HSC students would want to receive a UAI (so not all students have their marks are scaled)

Therefore the standards set for English Standard cannot be necessarily be regarded as tougher for the sake of scaling, since scaling only applies to students who wish to have a UAI and HSC students who do not wish to have a UAI would be disadvantaged.

Thus the most logical explanation of the statistics that show English Standard students rarely ever get a band 6, is that students who are capable of achieving the top band in English Standard, would most likely be doing English Advanced because of its challenging nature and its scaling.

In accordance to the Board of Studies and the UAC, English Standard is scaled lower than Advanced since the scaled mean for Standard is slightly lower than the scaled mean of Advanced (which is usually 50.0). Also, the maximum UAI that can be achieved doing English Standard would be 99.95, while for Advanced it is obviously 100.00.

However, this doesn't mean that everyone should be doing Advanced English because of its scaling. There are other factors to take into account.

The dilemma of choosing between Standard or Advanced is often due to the fact English is a compulsory subject and each offers different sets of material. Here are a set of questions from my school that gives a rough idea on whether Standard or Advanced/Extension is right for you.

1) Do you enjoy reading and read appropriate materials or books very often? (that is everyday)
2) Are you good at English? (i.e. ALWAYS get 85 or above in assessments & tests)
3) Do you enjoy English and its exploration of texts?
4) Are you a COMPETITIVE student?

If the answers to ALL of these were yes, then Advanced and Extension is the one for you
If the answers to either questions 2 and 4 were no (if only one of questions 2 and 4 was a no), then Standard is the one for you.
If the answers to questions 2 and 4 were BOTH yes at least, then Advanced is the one for you.

My school (Sefton High) has such restrictions when it comes to Advanced and Standard English. This is because they say those who are concentrating on other subjects such as science or maths for a career shouldn't bother putting in the hard effort for Advanced English because it is not necessary for their chosen career path.

I hope this has clarified a few things...