Scaling In General Maths (1 Viewer)

Merely_Spastic

New Member
Joined
Feb 24, 2009
Messages
2
Gender
Female
HSC
2010
Apologies for the mundane question, but i was just wondering if anyone knew how much General Maths got scaled down in the HSC as opposed to getting scaled up in 2U ?
And if youre someone who does relatively well in maths, what are your chances of getting scaled down drastically in General ?

thanks muchly =]
 

savio23q

Band
Joined
Dec 15, 2007
Messages
394
Location
Sydney
Gender
Male
HSC
2008
If you do well, your chances of being scaled down aren't high. Get 85+ and you're set.
 

lyounamu

Reborn
Joined
Oct 28, 2007
Messages
9,998
Gender
Male
HSC
N/A
I really recommend you to go to this website: www.uac.edu.au

and on undergraduate forum search funcion, type in scaling repot and you will be able to access great variety of scaling reports where you can see roughly how well/poorly general maths is scaled.

If I give you a general outline, it's scaling is quite atrocious. If you are someone hoping for 99+ UAI, you will basically need to get 96+ in the course unless the general maths doesn't count for your top 10 units...
 

dp624

Active Member
Joined
Oct 16, 2008
Messages
2,326
Gender
Male
HSC
2008
Actually, I think 2U scales down for most of the marks regardless. And general scales down even more than that.
BTW, I base this on the aligned -> scaled mark comparisons.
 

Timothy.Siu

Prophet 9
Joined
Aug 6, 2008
Messages
3,449
Location
Sydney
Gender
Male
HSC
2009
If you do well, your chances of being scaled down aren't high. Get 85+ and you're set.
not really. depends what UAI ur after.

an 86 aligned for general would become approx. 68.6 scaled
and 86 for 2unit would become approx. 75.6

but bear in mind that for an 86 in general thats the 90th percentile but for 2unit 86th is 75th percentile
but its up to you what to choose, if ur not aiming for too high general is fine
 

Schoey93

Member
Joined
Sep 29, 2007
Messages
988
Location
Western Sydney
Gender
Male
HSC
2011
Apologies for the mundane question, but i was just wondering if anyone knew how much General Maths got scaled down in the HSC as opposed to getting scaled up in 2U ?
And if youre someone who does relatively well in maths, what are your chances of getting scaled down drastically in General ?

thanks muchly =]
OK...I'm guessing you want the type of advice that is honest and straight-forward. To be honest, General Mathematics does scale down.

However, Mathematics Advanced does NOT scale that well either (for example, Modern History and Advanced Math have roughly the same scaling). The school of thought that says "maths will scale you up" are wrong. Tbh, there are STACKS of HSC subjects that do scale a lot better than 2-unit mathematics. Some of these subs are:

  • LANGUAGES: German Continuers is one of the best scaling subjects for the HSC. Why? Because generally, being a hard language (i.e. very strict grammar rules), people struggle with it. Also, keep in mind that German is very similar to English - our words come mainly from Latin and German). I'm a languages person - I should know LOL I speak English (mother tongue), Italian (advanced), French (intermediate) and Spanish (beginners). I have also learnt German LOL ... trying to beat the Pope's language record ahahaha. :)
  • HISTORIES: Ancient History has bad scaling compared to Modern History. However: Ancient scales better than General Maths.
  • SCIENCES: Chemistry and Physics scale, generally (generally being the key word!!) the same. The conhorts for each subject are generally of the same quality. Therefore:
  • People who do Chem generally don't do so well, and Chem, being MORE POPULAR than Physics, has better scaling in place. If people do badly in Chemistry (badly meaning 75% raw) perhaps it may be scaled up to 80 scaled mark and this mark included in the UAI calculation.
TO SUMMARISE: Math does NOT scale you up as well as people say - scaling is based on hear say - and the Board of Studies has never since 2001 - released the way marks are scaled.
WHY? The BOS do not want employers to be aware of how sh*t some people's raw marks are and how much they scale them up. Scaling, IMO, does the inverse of what it was intended to do. It was intended to STOP students from coming out of school with shit marks and not being able to get a job... which IT DOES DO...
but honestly! If prospective employers (generally ppl who employ young ppl are over 40)... if they KNEW how much the Board fiddles with your marks and fucks them up!!
OH WELL. My eng. teacher: "It doesn't matter. People who get Band sixes generally deserve them." <--- I <3 Tricia Sewell!! haha ;)


james
 

lyounamu

Reborn
Joined
Oct 28, 2007
Messages
9,998
Gender
Male
HSC
N/A
OK...I'm guessing you want the type of advice that is honest and straight-forward. To be honest, General Mathematics does scale down.
Yep, along with 95% of the HSC subjects (if we only look at aligned -> scaled)

However, Mathematics Advanced does NOT scale that well either (for example, Modern History and Advanced Math have roughly the same scaling). The school of thought that says "maths will scale you up" are wrong.
Generally agreed. However, I don't agree that Modern History = Mathematics in terms of scaling. Mathematics generally scales better than Modern History. Refer to 2008 and other scaling reports.

LANGUAGES: German Continuers is one of the best scaling subjects for the HSC. Why? Because generally, being a hard language (i.e. very strict grammar rules), people struggle with it. Also, keep in mind that German is very similar to English - our words come mainly from Latin and German). I'm a languages person - I should know LOL I speak English (mother tongue), Italian (advanced), French (intermediate) and Spanish (beginners). I have also learnt German LOL ... trying to beat the Pope's language record ahahaha. :)
Nope. German Continuers has a relatively poor scaling in comparison to best scaling language subjects like Latin Continuers, Latin Extension, French Continuers, French Extension, Classical Greek Continuers, Clasiscal Greek Extension and stacks more. On top of that, difficulty of the course is not counted when it comes to scaling. It's purely based on the overally calibre of the course that determines scaling.

SCIENCES: Chemistry and Physics scale, generally (generally being the key word!!) the same. The conhorts for each subject are generally of the same quality. Therefore:
People who do Chem generally don't do so well, and Chem, being MORE POPULAR than Physics, has better scaling in place. If people do badly in Chemistry (badly meaning 75% raw) perhaps it may be scaled up to 80 scaled mark and this mark included in the UAI calculation
75% RAW is not BAD. 75% in the paper is extremely high which can potentially lead to high Band 5 if not low Band 6. If you do get 75% in the paper, that's a guaranteed mid-band 5.

TO SUMMARISE: Math does NOT scale you up as well as people say - scaling is based on hear say - and the Board of Studies has never since 2001 - released the way marks are scaled.

WHY? The BOS do not want employers to be aware of how sh*t some people's raw marks are and how much they scale them up. Scaling, IMO, does the inverse of what it was intended to do. It was intended to STOP students from coming out of school with shit marks and not being able to get a job... which IT DOES DO...
True. We don't know exactly how scaling is done. But it's possible to predict it through some raw marks data that we got from James King and other early pioneers.

Your reasons are flawed. That's not the reason why they don't tell us about scaling procedure. The reason why they don't tell people how the scaling is done is because it can potentially harm the integrity of the marking system and the reporting procedures that come along with it. They don't want people to make false estimation and become manipulative about their subject choice and give it a thought that they can actually get certain mark (meaning that they make false judgement of themselves...thus fooling themselves really)
 

helper

Active Member
Joined
Oct 8, 2003
Messages
1,183
Gender
Male
HSC
N/A
  • LANGUAGES: German Continuers is one of the best scaling subjects for the HSC. Why? Because generally, being a hard language (i.e. very strict grammar rules), people struggle with it. Also, keep in mind that German is very similar to English - our words come mainly from Latin and German). I'm a languages person - I should know LOL I speak English (mother tongue), Italian (advanced), French (intermediate) and Spanish (beginners). I have also learnt German LOL ... trying to beat the Pope's language record ahahaha. :)
  • HISTORIES: Ancient History has bad scaling compared to Modern History. However: Ancient scales better than General Maths.
  • SCIENCES: Chemistry and Physics scale, generally (generally being the key word!!) the same. The conhorts for each subject are generally of the same quality. Therefore:
  • People who do Chem generally don't do so well, and Chem, being MORE POPULAR than Physics, has better scaling in place. If people do badly in Chemistry (badly meaning 75% raw) perhaps it may be scaled up to 80 scaled mark and this mark included in the UAI calculation.
The difficulty of the subject does not come into scaling. It is based on the cohort and how they do. Yes it is self selecting and the reasons given may be among the reason better students do the courses and they scale up but it is not the reason they scale more.

TO SUMMARISE: Math does NOT scale you up as well as people say - scaling is based on hear say - and the Board of Studies has never since 2001 - released the way marks are scaled.
The BOS doesn't scale any marks. You are talking about judging of the marks and that doesn't affect scaling and your UAI.
 

Timothy.Siu

Prophet 9
Joined
Aug 6, 2008
Messages
3,449
Location
Sydney
Gender
Male
HSC
2009
A friend of mine got 65 in general maths for the HSC however it was scaled to a mark of 70.....
thats incorrect,
he's internal mark might have been 65, as in from his school internal assessments, and he probably means his 65 was MODERATED to a 70, due to the schools, HSC performance in general maths.
 

dp624

Active Member
Joined
Oct 16, 2008
Messages
2,326
Gender
Male
HSC
2008
He got 65 in the HSC exam and the HSC mark was scaled up to 70... but i thought general maths scaled down.
you do not get to know scaled marks. perhaps read some of the stickies around here?
 

the-derivative

BCom/LLB (UNSW)
Joined
Nov 11, 2007
Messages
2,124
Location
Within the realms of the complex field.
Gender
Male
HSC
2009
He got 65 in the HSC exam and the HSC mark was scaled up to 70... but i thought general maths scaled down.
He is referring to an internal mark which is your RAW internal marks. The Board of Studies will moderate these marks depending on your cohort's performance in the External Examinations to make it fair for students who go to schools which mark uber hard or uber easy.
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 0, Guests: 1)

Top