Explanation of HSC Marks (Moderating) (3 Viewers)

[Lazarus]

You heard wrong.

 

[kofmaster]

You heard wrong.

so what you saying you can't get a band 6 regardless of how much you get in the hsc exam because of ur rank or because ur skool is not like james ruse
that is nonsense!

 

[Tommy_Lamp]

the UAI is rank
go figure

 

[kofmaster]

the UAI is rank
go figure

you uai is a rank which takes count of ur skool rank and ur exam mark
am talkin bout just exam only not uai
n ur record of achievement is different
so u go n figure!

 

[Lazarus]

that is nonsense!

No, it is what you are saying that is nonsense.


The following statement is FALSE:

it doesn't matter what ur rank is in ur class
if you get say 90% in the actual hsc exam you will recieve a band 6 in ur record of achivements

The following statement is also FALSE:

you can't get a band 6 regardless of how much you get in the hsc exam because of ur rank or because ur skool is not like james ruse

This statement is true: You will achieve a band 6 if the average of your examination mark and your moderated assessment mark is 90+. Only your moderated assessment mark depends on your school ranking. This accounts for half of your HSC mark. The other half comes from your exam mark.

 

[kofmaster]

No, it is what you are saying that is nonsense.


The following statement is FALSE:




The following statement is also FALSE:




This statement is true: You will achieve a band 6 if the average of your examination mark and your moderated assessment mark is 90+. Only your moderated assessment mark depends on your school ranking. This accounts for half of your HSC mark. The other half comes from your exam mark.

what the hell you on bout i ask a question it was not a statement
n i do think you should get ur bands according to ur preformance in the hsc exam
i did not make a satement saying what you get in ur hsc exam is ur band mark
get ur facts right and don't contort my words

 

[Shuter]

Hey is the moderating thing broken? http://www.boredofstudies.org/moderate.php

I put in raw assessments marks of 80, 64, 43, 38
and then exam marks of 80, 64, 40, and then varied my mark (the lowest one) to be either 39, 40 or 41.

Now everything seems fine when it's 39 or 41, but when I put it as 40, it goes "WARNING: The bottom exam mark was atypically low and was initially excluded." and my moderated assessment mark jumps about 26 points!

Does this mean if me and the third place person get the same mark in the exam we magically get more points? seems broken to me.

 

[Lazarus]

Yes, you're correct - there is a small bug where more than one student has the bottom exam mark, and that exam mark is substantially less than what was to be expected on the basis of the distribution of assessment marks.

You can get around it by just making the marks slightly different so that the calculations work. For example, instead of entering 40 and 40, enter 40 and 40.0001. (They're still essentially the same mark.)

I'll add it to the list of things to be fixed. Thanks.

 

[teacosy]

bombing out

if you bombed out earlier in the year and now have a really bad rank. does that mean that even if you get say 80% on the HSC your mark will be scaled down because people who had a better rank than you got lower marks?

 

[Ragerunner]

You can't really say it 'scales you down'.

If in the end you attain a poor rank, and the mark corresponding of that rank is poor, then your Assessment mark will be poor and the average of your moderated assessment mark + HSC exam mark taken.

 

[matt_f64]

(NB: We've developed a prototype which simulates the moderation of assessment marks - www.boredofstudies.org/moderate.php)


Explanatory document: http://users.on.net/unix/HSCmarks.pdf

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.

[Edited formatting; the tables are messy, but they're better than plain text. - Laz]

as far as ive read on official sites, this is completely wrong. they dont just giv u the hsc mark as ur assessment mark, corrosponding to ur assessment rank... they take ur hsc mark and look at the general trend for assessment marks of ppl that got the same hsc mark as u, and calculate ur assessment mark.

eg, if tom gets 60/100 assessment mark and is ranked 5/20 in his class......
he then does the hsc exam and gets 75/100 and is ranked 5/20 in his class for the exam.... he doesnt just get given 75/100 as an assessment. what they do is they look at everyone who got around 75/100 in the exam and see what their assessment mark was... and take a kind of average and thats how they moderate ur assessment mark. so if u hav been marked really hard compared to the majority of schools, ur assessment mark will be moderated up, so it is in line with people of similar abilities (or exam performance).

 

[matt_f64]

Yes, you're correct - there is a small bug where more than one student has the bottom exam mark, and that exam mark is substantially less than what was to be expected on the basis of the distribution of assessment marks.

You can get around it by just making the marks slightly different so that the calculations work. For example, instead of entering 40 and 40, enter 40 and 40.0001. (They're still essentially the same mark.)

I'll add it to the list of things to be fixed. Thanks.

with this moderating thing, are we putting in RAW exam marks, or wat we predict to be our aligned exam marks?

 

[s.m.i.t.h]

what happens if u do worst in the exam then ure school assesment marks?

 

[Ragerunner]

as far as ive read on official sites, this is completely wrong. they dont just giv u the hsc mark as ur assessment mark, corrosponding to ur assessment rank... they take ur hsc mark and look at the general trend for assessment marks of ppl that got the same hsc mark as u, and calculate ur assessment mark.

eg, if tom gets 60/100 assessment mark and is ranked 5/20 in his class......
he then does the hsc exam and gets 75/100 and is ranked 5/20 in his class for the exam.... he doesnt just get given 75/100 as an assessment. what they do is they look at everyone who got around 75/100 in the exam and see what their assessment mark was... and take a kind of average and thats how they moderate ur assessment mark. so if u hav been marked really hard compared to the majority of schools, ur assessment mark will be moderated up, so it is in line with people of similar abilities (or exam performance).

I believe what you are thinking about is when they take into account the relative differences in marks between each student. You are correct that if you are ranked 5/20 and get the 5th highest mark, you may not necesarily get the 5th highest mark, rather a close approximation to it.

For simplicity, it was best to say you'd achieve close to the 5th highest mark as your moderated assessment mark, but may or may not necesarrily be equal to the 5th highest mark, unless the relative difference in marks between each student was identical to the relative difference between each student in the HSC exam.

what happens if u do worst in the exam then ure school assesment marks?

It just means you may attain a higher moderated assessment mark than an exam mark.

 

[superbird]

if u finish 1st in a subject, u definately receive the highest exam mark as ur assessment mark without it being approximated yeh?

 

[matt_f64]

oh ok that makes sense i guess. so what was posted at the start of this forum was just a generalised statement, saying u get the hsc mark as ur assessment mark equivalent to ur ranking blah blah... because it usually is reasonably close to this anyway, but of course it isnt exactly that mark cos they hav to take into consideration other candidates...

 

[Lazarus]

When moderating assessment marks, only the students from your school are considered - the performance of the rest of the state has no effect.

The statewide HSC exam is used as a 'benchmark' to place assessment marks from different schools on the same scale.

The moderated assessment mark corresponding to a particular rank will be similar to the exam mark corresponding to that rank when the shape of the distribution of exam marks is similar to the shape of the distribution of raw assessment marks.

if u finish 1st in a subject, u definately receive the highest exam mark as ur assessment mark without it being approximated yeh?

Yes.

This generally applies if you're ranked last as well (but the lowest exam mark is used).

 

[matt_f64]

im not trying to disrespect u or anything, but how do u know all this? and why should we believe u? (are u from uac or what) cos i read on some official site like uac.edu.au or something (i forget which site exactly) and it said it takes into consideration candidates from other school's assessment marks?

 

[matt_f64]

what the hell you on bout i ask a question it was not a statement
n i do think you should get ur bands according to ur preformance in the hsc exam
i did not make a satement saying what you get in ur hsc exam is ur band mark
get ur facts right and don't contort my words

just cos YOU think u shud get a band 6 based on ur exam mark, doesnt mean UAC are gonna say HEY KOFMASTER THINKS HE SHOULD GET A BAND 6 COS HE GOT A HIGH EXAM MARK WHEN HIS ASSESSMENT MARK IS 20%... SO LETS GIVE HIM A BAND 6.... no it doesnt work like that its called averaging, in order to reward those who have worked hard through the entire year not just crammed at the end.
also, learn to spell, it would go a long way in assisting you with those band 6s i reckon.

 

[Lazarus]

im not trying to disrespect u or anything, but how do u know all this? and why should we believe u? (are u from uac or what) cos i read on some official site like uac.edu.au or something (i forget which site exactly) and it said it takes into consideration candidates from other school's assessment marks?

A few years of research. I run this site - my original reason for creating it was to increase understanding of the complex procedures used to scale marks and calculate UAIs.

I'm not trying to disrepect you or anything, but I'd invite you to prove me wrong.

I should point out that the text you quoted from the beginning of this thread came from an official Board document. As was stated in that post. We don't just make this stuff up, y'know.