Explanation of HSC Marks (Moderating) (2 Viewers)

[Drdusk]

so how do schools do the dux and top achievers stuff based on atar

Yeah what vishnay said.

Same thing at my school we had a post Hsc afternoon tea session in which they gave everyone a sheet where you had the choice to write down your atar and hand it in.

 

[specificagent1]

Yeah what vishnay said.

Same thing at my school we had a post Hsc afternoon tea session in which they gave everyone a sheet where you had the choice to write down your atar and hand it in.

all schools do this?

 

[Drdusk]

all schools do this?

Idk about the afternoon tea thing but definitely all schools who publish atars at some point have asked their students.

 

[specificagent1]

Idk about the afternoon tea thing but definitely all schools who publish atars at some point have asked their students.

what if people lie

 

[vishnay]

what if people lie

yeah i never thought about that wtf

but u know people are generally honest at my school

 

[sab13562]

A teacher told me that the principal gets your atar as well because some people lie? Idk it sounds wrong

 

[icycledough]

Idk about the afternoon tea thing but definitely all schools who publish atars at some point have asked their students.

That's interesting, because at our atar brunch/tea last year, none of the teachers asked or cared pretty much about our atars. I don't know if they get our ATARs or if they only get everyone's exam marks for their respective subjects. It was just a day to chill and meet up with everyone after a stressful year.

 

[jimmysmith560]

The school I went to would hold an award ceremony where students who have achieved at least 2 band 6's/E4's are invited to attend and are given an award. With the invitation comes a form containing the subjects they achieved top bands in (for confirmation) and they are asked to provide their ATAR in addition to other details such as what they intend to study beyond year 12 (if applicable) and the institution they will attend.

 

[jimmysmith560]

I'm trying to understand at least some what the way they get moderated/aligned etc...
From what I can tell, ar your HSC external marks that you get in your HSC results (as in when you open up your results and ATAR in december) actually YOUR marks from your own HSC exam you sat. Because I've heard people say you get someone else's marks based on your internal rank. Which concerns me because say, for example, I do Extension 2 English and I have been doing a major work for the whole year, since I did average in the internals, if my major work gets the best mark in the class, my classmate who is 1st in the internals will just get all of the marks from MY major work?
Or is it your internal marks that get changed and chopped up before they're given to you on that fateful day in December? If anyone can explain it or atleast provide some clarity that'd be appreciated.

The moderation process applies to your Assessment Mark (the mark that reflects your internal performance). It uses your internal rank as well as Examination Marks (i.e. HSC exam marks, or your major work mark in the case of English Extension 2) achieved by you and your cohort in determining your Assessment Mark. Essentially, the highest Assessment Mark is adjusted to equal the highest Examination Mark of any student in the cohort. Suppose that the highest major work mark achieved by a student in your cohort was 45. This means that the Assessment Mark of the student ranked first internally will also be 45. Assessment Marks of students with ranks other than first and last will not necessarily be equal to their equivalent Examination Mark, although they will be similar.

Your Examination Mark (your external mark) will be determined according to your own performance in your HSC exam for a particular subject (or equivalent in the case of English Extension 2). For instance, if after alignment, you have received an Examination Mark of 45, that will be the mark that will be recorded in the HSC results that you receive. This mark is not affected by factors such as your rank relative to your cohort or your school rank.

I hope this helps!

 

[9995jhp]

Explanation of HSC Marks

(NB: We've developed a prototype which simulates the moderation of assessment marks -


Explanatory document from the Board of Studies:

This answers a LOT of questions to do with moderation of assessment marks. refer to the link for the more indepth answer

Below is some information describing what happens to the School Assessment marks that are sent in to the Office of the Board of Studies.


For every HSC course you are studying, an Assessment mark, along with an Exam mark and an HSC mark will appear on a course report. This assessment mark is not the raw assessment mark that your school has sent to the Board of Studies, but first goes through a process of change, called moderation. The marks are moderated because, some teachers set harder assessment tasks or are more strict with marking than other teachers.

Below is the working for two small-sized hypothetical schools:

<table border=1><tr><td colspan=4>School A:
<tr><td colspan=2>Raw School Assessment marks<td colspan=2>Exam marks
<tr><td colspan=2>(sent in to Board of Studies)<td colspan=2>(on the external exam)
<tr><td>Tim<td>94<td>Fred<td>86
<tr><td>Fred<td>90<td>Tim<td>82
<tr><td>Joe<td>60<td>Joe<td>70
<tr>
<tr><td colspan=2>(average: 81.3)<td colspan=2>(average: 79.3)</table>

Now, we moderate the raw School Assessment marks (while students keep their own Exam marks). We need to retain the rank order of students according to the School Assessment, but need to make sure the marks are high enough (or low enough) to be in line with the group performance on the Exam. Tim gets the highest Exam mark as his moderated Assessment mark, Joe gets the lowest Exam mark as his moderated Assessment mark, and Fred receives a mark that ensures that the average of the two groups of marks are the same, and so in this case receives the middle Exam mark as his moderated Assessment mark.

<table border=1><tr><td colspan=2>Assessment marks<td colspan=2>Exam marks
<tr><td colspan=2>(moderated)<td colspan=2>(no change)
<tr><td>Tim<td>86<td>Fred<td>86
<tr><td>Fred<td>82<td>Tim<td>82
<tr><td>Joe<td>70<td>Joe<td>70
<tr>
<tr><td colspan=2>(average: 79.3)<td colspan=2>(average: 79.3)</table>

Then the third mark reported on the course report, the HSC mark, is calculated by averaging the Assessment mark and the Exam mark:

<table border=1><tr><td colspan=2>HSC mark
<tr><td colspan=2>(average of Assessment and Exam)
<tr><td>Tim<td>84
<tr><td>Fred<td>84
<tr><td>Joe<td>70</table>

Now here is a different example, in which the student who comes first only receives a mark of 60/100, as in your example:

<table border=1><tr><td colspan=4>School B:
<tr><td colspan=2>Raw School Assessment marks<td colspan=2>Exam marks
<tr><td colspan=2>(sent in to Board of Studies)<td colspan=2>(on the external exam)
<tr><td>Anne<td>60<td>Ben<td>86
<tr><td>Ben<td>56<td>Anne<td>82
<tr><td>Chris<td>26<td>Chris<td>70
<tr>
<tr><td colspan=2>(average: 47.3)<td colspan=2>(average: 79.3)</table>

In School B the raw school assessments are much lower than School A, but the Exam marks are consistent between schools. The raw School Assessment marks are moderated in the same fashion:

<table border=1><tr><td colspan=2>Assessment marks<td colspan=2>Exam marks
<tr><td colspan=2>(moderated)<td colspan=2>(no change)
<tr><td>Anne<td>86<td>Ben<td>86
<tr><td>Ben<td>82<td>Anne<td>82
<tr><td>Chris<td>70<td>Chris<td>70
<tr>
<tr><td colspan=2>(average: 79.3)<td colspan=2>(average: 79.3)</table>

<table border=1><tr><td colspan=2>HSC mark
<tr><td colspan=2>(average of Assessment and Exam)
<tr><td>Anne<td>84
<tr><td>Ben<td>84
<tr><td>Chris<td>70</table>

The School Assessment marks were originally much harsher (lower) for students in School B than School A, but the performance in the Exam suggests that both groups are similar in ability. While School A's School Assessment average was slightly higher than expected given their exam performance, School B's School Assessment average was much lower than expected (it was 47.3, rather than 79.3). Therefore moderation for School A brought the assessment marks downward slightly, while moderation for School B brought the assessment marks upwards a large amount. The end result is School A and School B students receiving consistent HSC marks.

We want students to work equally hard both during the year for assessments and for the HSC exams itself, so they are worth equal amounts. Because Fred (and Ben) ended up with the best performance on the exam in their respective school groups, they should be rewarded for that by retaining their own high Exam mark, but because Tim (and Anne) had the best assessment performances in their school groups, they should be rewarded by having the highest Assessment mark in the school group (which is made equal to the highest Exam mark for the school). Therefore, in this simple case Tim and Fred end up with exactly the same HSC mark, as did Anne and Ben.

In School A, Joe, although always coming last ends up with 70, rather than 60, because this is how he performed in the external Exam - his School Assessment mark seems to be a little harsh, so is brought up in line with the lowest Exam performance (which happens to be his own). Likewise in School B, Chris always comes last, but ends up with 70, rather than the 26 suggested by the teacher, given his exam performance.

These examples I have given are of pretty simple cases, and when more students are in a class and/or when a student performs very poorly in comparison with their Assessment ranking, other rules can come in to play, so students are not disadvantaged by the process. However, the examples should give you a good understanding of how moderation generally works and why it is used.

In summary, both the School Assessment rankings for a group of students and how these marks are distributed are important. So if you want to have the highest Assessment mark in the class you need to be ranked first in the group in the School Assessment. However, if you come second in the School Assessment but someone beats you by only one mark and the next student is a lot lower, you and the student who just beat you will end up with similarly high marks, and the next student will receive a mark that is quite a bit lower. If you do receive a low ranking in your class for a particular course, but end up beating most of your classmates in the exam, you will end up with a rather higher reported Exam mark than Assessment mark, and your HSC mark for the course will be half way between the two.

Therefore, work as hard as you can both during the school year and in preparation for the external exam itself. In addition, if you think your teacher is giving very hard tasks and marking them harshly in comparison to another school, this will not have an effect on the reported HSC marks, because the process of moderation is used; only the relative rankings and distributions
within each group is important.


Flowchart - Basic Process of the HSC System
While procrastinating i've made a little flowchart for the basic process of the HSC system. Let me know if anything is wrong...

What does this mean for someone who gets, say an 85 internal mark for some subjects because they had complications in internal assessment rankings and their school ranking is like 70 in NSW so the cohort support isn't well--BUT for the actual HSC receives 96+ for those subjects?
Does it still get calculated like (95+85)/2= 90 which is scaled to, what 95 ATAR, or would NESA take a look and do something about it? Because that person is hoping to get 99+ ATAR but really, school rankings aren't looking well, averaging at top10 (but since the school is top 70-80, only 5-6 people get band 6s for most subjects)...

 

[jimmysmith560]

What does this mean for someone who gets, say an 85 internal mark for some subjects because they had complications in internal assessment rankings and their school ranking is like 70 in NSW so the cohort support isn't well--BUT for the actual HSC receives 96+ for those subjects?
Does it still get calculated like (95+85)/2= 90 which is scaled to, what 95 ATAR, or would NESA take a look and do something about it? Because that person is hoping to get 99+ ATAR but really, school rankings aren't looking well, averaging at top10 (but since the school is top 70-80, only 5-6 people get band 6s for most subjects)...

A student's Assessment Mark in a particular subject will be determined according to their rank relative to their cohort and an equivalent Examination Mark in that subject. If a student experiences difficulties with school-based assessment tasks/exams, it is their responsibility to seek clarification and/or assistance as soon as possible. If a student does not do anything to address such difficulties, then it is likely that their rank will be negatively impacted as a result, resulting in a lower Assessment Mark. This means that the outcome of the example that you have provided is definitely possible.

 

[C_master]

its been 20 years

 

[Curiousmind]

I did my HSC in 1986 and I always wondered about my school assessment marks. I was ranked 1 in my school for physics, chemistry and French. Why was my school mark lower than my exam mark?

 

[jimmysmith560]

I did my HSC in 1986 and I always wondered about my school assessment marks. I was ranked 1 in my school for physics, chemistry and French. Why was my school mark lower than my exam mark?

This is very interesting, especially considering that moderation was first implemented in your HSC year.

 

[ash71]

if multiple people share the same internal rank how does the aligned mark work? e.g. if 5 people came 5th internally do they all get the same 5th highest exam mark?? and if so how does that affect the people below them? like would there be "unused" exam marks

 

[Cute-Duckie]

I did my HSC in 1986 and I always wondered about my school assessment marks. I was ranked 1 in my school for physics, chemistry and French. Why was my school mark lower than my exam mark?

damn 100/100 for 4u is crazy

 

[jimmysmith560]

if multiple people share the same internal rank how does the aligned mark work? e.g. if 5 people came 5th internally do they all get the same 5th highest exam mark?? and if so how does that affect the people below them? like would there be "unused" exam marks

Yes, the students ranked equal fifth would all receive an Assessment Mark similar to the fifth highest Examination Mark. Regarding your other question, I am not entirely sure of the technical adjustments that may be made, although NESA does state that it does consider special cases when moderating, meaning that they are familiar with such possibilities and can address them while maintaining the quality/effectiveness of the moderation process.