help on how UAI works (1 Viewer)

[IceBreaker]

this uai scaling process is really fucken hard to understand. I mean i do not want to know the full complexity of the uai scaling system work, i just want to know how this shit works and why certain subjects get scaled up and down(i always hear easy subjects scales you down and hard subjects scales you up, i believe it's fucking bullshit there gotta betta explanation than this).

 

[Captain pi]

I recommend, instead of swearing, you visit:

Scaling FAQ by withoutaface .

*locks thread*

 

[IceBreaker]

everyone swears in a while mate and what's aligning? yea that helps only a bit though...needs someone to actually explain it more

 

[Meldrum]

Good on ya Ice, break it to Pi-face.

 

[A l]

I would suggest you try this:
http://www.uac.edu.au/pubs/pdf/uaibook-2004-web.pdf
It explains scaling in a clear and understandable way.

In a nutshell, this is what happens to each successive HSC student who wishes to recieve a UAI:
Just after examination and marking, you have the following marks for EACH COURSE:
- School assessment mark (mark the school submits)
- Raw examination mark (mark from external test)

The school assessment mark goes through a process called moderating in which justifications are made to students' marks in every school in correspondance to their ranking. In other words it is a way to stop any school becoming advantaged or disadvantaged over other schools when marks are submitted, due to different standards and marking criteria in each school. However, ranking does not change, it is just a way of making each school "equal". The resultant mark after moderating is called the moderated assessment mark.

Your raw examination mark remains the same and does not change.

The raw examination mark and your moderated assessment mark are combined and converted to a mark out of 50 for each one unit course or a mark out of 100 for each 2 unit course. This is your RAW HSC MARK. This is NOT the mark that is reported to you from the Board of Studies when you recieve your results.

After that the SCALING PROCESS begins. The raw HSC mark gets scaled according to the statistics of that course and the overall state performance. After scaling, that new mark is called the SCALED MARK.

Your scaled marks for each course are taken and YOUR HIGHEST 8 UNITS OF SCALED MARKS PLUS 2 UNITS OF ENGLISH are then added together to form an aggregate out of 500.

Your aggregated mark out of 500 is then compared to other students in the state. The top mark out of 500 gets a UAI of 100.00, the second highest mark out of 500 gets 99.95 and so on.

For each course:
SCHOOL ASSESSMENT MARK --> MODERATING --> MODERATED ASSESSMENT MARK
then
RAW EXAMINATION MARK + MODERATED ASSESSMENT MARK = RAW HSC MARK
after that
RAW HSC MARK --> SCALING --> SCALED MARK
finally (if scaled mark would count in the UAI)
SCALED MARK--> AGGREGRATED (added to other scaled marks) --> UNIVERSITY ADMISSIONS INDEX

 

[A l]

why certain subjects get scaled up and down(i always hear easy subjects scales you down and hard subjects scales you up, i believe it's fucking bullshit there gotta betta explanation than this).

The belief that easier subjects scale lower than harder subjects is very misleading especially in the case of Extension courses. Everyone has a different opinion of what is easy and what is hard. There is no set definition for what is easy and what is hard.

Remember that the UNIVERSITY ADMISSIONS CENTRE conducts the scaling, NOT THE BOARD OF STUDIES. The people in the UAC do not see the HSC exam papers, nor should they know the level of difficulty let alone the content in each course. All they recieve are the students' marks and the statistics of each course. Note a quote from the UAC about scaling:
"The scaling process is carried out afresh each year. It does not assume that one course is intrinsically more difficult than another or that the quality of the course candidature is always the same."

Basically, courses with higher candidature performances are usually scaled positively, while courses with lower candidature performances are usually scaled negatively. This has to do with the mean and standard deviation of the course as well as other statistics. None should assume that each course will always be scaled negatively or positively all the time based on previous years. Statistics can change dramatically over each successive HSC year.

what's aligning?

Aligning is the process in which your marks (raw examination mark and moderated assessment mark) are "aligned" in accordance to standards set for each band. Judges from each courses check which marks fit into which performance descriptor and your marks are altered. The ranking still does not change. In most cases, the aligned mark would be higher than the raw HSC mark, sometimes with big gaps between them.