Unfair Weighted Exam (2 Viewers)

[albertcamus]

I'd wager the test was out of 28, not 14

Were there any half-marks given?


It's both fair and unfair.

Fair: you knew the weighting, and your cohort went through the same exam under same (or similar) conditions.

Unfair.... "14" seems too small of a scale for a 30% weighting task (unless if half-marks or decimal-marks were given).

All HSC sciences don't award 1/2 marks. It's a mark or 0.

 

[Spiritual Being]

Yeah there is no way that the hsc is a test of so called true skills... it is a test of who can rote learn the best.

Method is more important than strength, when you wish to control your enemies. By dropping golden beads near a snake, a crow once managed To have a passer-by kill the snake for the beads. - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Enough said.

 

[someth1ng]

Keep this conversation civil, harsher punishments will be handed out for those that continue to flame and abuse.

 

[Makematics]

Method is more important than strength, when you wish to control your enemies. By dropping golden beads near a snake, a crow once managed To have a passer-by kill the snake for the beads. - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Enough said.

lets not get too philosophical m8 hahaha

 

[RivalryofTroll]

yeah, I did better than usual so that was good for me and nah apparently there is some Board of studies policy that says that they can make a maximum of 50% of internal assessments written exams... and the half yearly was 20 so that left 30 for the trial it seems no other school has ever heard of this lol...

Yeah, my half-yearly was 15% while Trials is worth 35%.

20% for first prac assessment, 30% for 3rd task.

Yeah there is no way that the hsc is a test of so called true skills... it is a test of who can rote learn the best.

As a person who heavily does this, this is not entirely true... or else I'd be utterly destroying all competition .

There are numerous anti-rote learning aspects of the HSC, despite it being so heavily content/memorising based across many subjects.

E.g. Curveballs 4U Mathematics or curveball questions in Physics or very specific questions in Advanced English.

If it was testing natural ability or aptitude.. I think I wouldn't be able to perform at the top end of the spectra for half of my subs and above average for the other half of my subjects...

the thing is, you cant really say an exam isnt fair because some people make sillies... everyone is doing the same exam and can be prone to sillies.

But then again, there's always the possible situation where:

A naturally gifted Physics student gets lower than a no-so-gifted person internally due to the fact that the second person is more adept at reducing sillies throughout those smaller tests....

Then externally, we see that the first student beats the second person. But obviously, the first student will suffer a lower internal mark because his internal rank was not as strong as his external performance.

(Note - I think I'm similar to the 2nd student here so yeah - at least for my first two Physics tasks )

 

[Makematics]

Yeah, my half-yearly was 15% while Trials is worth 35%.
20% for first prac assessment, 30% for 3rd task.

oh right so there is a policy like that... anyways our school's science department had no head teacher in term 4 of last yr, and as a result the science teachers decided to make this absolutely ridiculous task which involved reading articles that were vaguely related to syllabus topics like biopolymers in chem and artificial blood in bio, and then assessing validity, reliability, evaluating relevance, etc. it was a lot different from anything that you would ever get in a hsc exam. to make things worse the task was marked as if we were uni students or something. for chem the average was 6/15. a bit higher for phys and bio iirc... and it had a weighting of 15%. it pretty much mixed up the ranks, with students who would normally be in the top 10 coming in at random positions... oh and the top mark was 10/15 -.-

 

[albertcamus]

oh right so there is a policy like that... anyways our school's science department had no head teacher in term 4 of last yr, and as a result the science teachers decided to make this absolutely ridiculous task which involved reading articles that were vaguely related to syllabus topics like biopolymers in chem and artificial blood in bio, and then assessing validity, reliability, evaluating relevance, etc. it was a lot different from anything that you would ever get in a hsc exam. to make things worse the task was marked as if we were uni students or something. for chem the average was 6/15. a bit higher for phys and bio iirc... and it had a weighting of 15%. it pretty much mixed up the ranks, with students who would normally be in the top 10 coming in at random positions... oh and the top mark was 10/15 -.-

Your 1st task is not that bad tbh, since it''s very similar to most schools' research tasks for science - the validity/reliability/relevance stuff is pretty common, but it usually comes from reading scientific journals/scientific articles/syllabus + non-syllabus sources and assessing these sources with respect to the aforementioned areas, as opposed to newspaper articles (I assume your 'articles' meant newspaper articles).

And if it's a hand in task, a lot of schools check for also check for correct bibliographies, Harvard style referencing blah blah so yeah, not surprised the average was that low LOL

 

[Lul]

Mate, life is tough. That's all i have to say.

 

[nerdasdasd]

Mate, life is tough. That's all i have to say.

+1. Life is hard if you think it's hard.

 

[Makematics]

Your 1st task is not that bad tbh, since it''s very similar to most schools' research tasks for science - the validity/reliability/relevance stuff is pretty common, but it usually comes from reading scientific journals/scientific articles/syllabus + non-syllabus sources and assessing these sources with respect to the aforementioned areas, as opposed to newspaper articles (I assume your 'articles' meant newspaper articles).

And if it's a hand in task, a lot of schools check for also check for correct bibliographies, Harvard style referencing blah blah so yeah, not surprised the average was that low LOL

lol nah it was under time conditions... 30 mins reading time and 60 mins writing time. and not rlly newspaper articles, they were from scientific papers, usually stuff that had nothing to do with the syllabus/was way beyond the syllabus. but what does this have to do with the syllabus? if the hsc doesnt test it, why should the school do this... i understand hand in tasks for essay-based subjects arent in the hsc, but thats fine because it is still relevant to the syllabus. same with prac tasks... but this task... i mean seriously, out of 120 people who studied reasonably hard for it in a top 20 school, could it really be that hard to get above 70%?

 

[albertcamus]

lol nah it was under time conditions... 30 mins reading time and 60 mins writing time. and not rlly newspaper articles, they were from scientific papers, usually stuff that had nothing to do with the syllabus/was way beyond the syllabus. but what does this have to do with the syllabus? if the hsc doesnt test it, why should the school do this... i understand hand in tasks for essay-based subjects arent in the hsc, but thats fine because it is still relevant to the syllabus. same with prac tasks... but this task... i mean seriously, out of 120 people who studied reasonably hard for it in a top 20 school, could it really be that hard to get above 70%?

Yeah haha I agree with you, in my opinion, all tasks for all subjects should be tests for that lead you onto the HSC exam - that's why maths has the best tasks since it's just a constant build up to the trial, and then the HSC exam.

 

[Makematics]

Yeah haha I agree with you, in my opinion, all tasks for all subjects should be tests for that lead you onto the HSC exam - that's why maths has the best tasks since it's just a constant build up to the trial, and then the HSC exam.

exactly maths teachers have the best jobs! i may become a high school maths teacher myself!

 

[Nataliexu]

its fair because everyone did the same test. and on the notification it would have said the weighting... plus my economics trial is weighted 45% so 30% is nothing

 

[RishBonjour]

Wow... Trials are worth less than the prac exam?

(I'd love that... since I tend to strive in those small exams compared to like a trial/yearly test for Physics)



I agree that you can't classify it as 'unfair' BUT...

I kind of disagree with the bolded --> sillies can do damage for these assessments even if you are a top student especially on a bad day. I.e. If a test was 30% weighting, had 30 marks... Just 4 marks worth of sillies = 4% gone... Meanwhile 2 marks worth of sillies in a Trials out of 100 marks = less significant % lost.

We all make sillies (I'm make way too many fk), but it has to be accounted for in the marks. I agree 30% is a bit much - but everyone had the same, and 9ish people got full marks haha - most likely marking wasn't too harsh or a fairly simple assessment (unless top 9 are absolute beasts and 94+ in Physics expected).

just work hard for trials, read the question and then read it again.

 

[christinew77]

My last English Extension 1 assessment was weighted 40% and we had both a creative and an essay. Trials is only 30% for us. Toughen up.

 

[omyguru]

oofttt bro the cops must hear about this outrageous exam, ill call 000 and 911, they must hear about this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Lul]

All HSC sciences don't award 1/2 marks. It's a mark or 0.

not sure if (srs)

 

[RishBonjour]

not sure if (srs)

sik dp kuzzz (srs)

 

[albertcamus]

not sure if (srs)

Srs? hahaha

That's one of the reasons why the raw mark for a Phys B6 or a Chem B6 are only ~76 and ~73 respectively.

 

[AnimeX]

I believe it's unfair if you weren't told the examination was out of 14 before the actual day.

When were you told what the test was out of?