This issue has been raised since 2001. Since it is likely to be raised again, the explanation will be repeated.
HSC marks and scaled marks are different marks. HSC marks are the marks released by the Board to students
and are the result of the standards-setting exercise. Scaled marks are, however, based on raw HSC marks.
In 2 unit English all students complete a common paper (Paper 1) which counts for 40% of the total
mark. Standard and Advanced students then complete separate papers that count for 60% of the
total mark.
The Board then uses Paper 1 to place the marks of the separate Standard and Advanced papers on the
same scale so that a total (raw) examination mark can be calculated for 2 unit English. The marks for
Standard and Advanced students are deemed to be on the same scale.
The Board moderates school assessments using these raw examination marks.
The raw HSC mark which is used for scaling is then calculated.
The raw HSC marks for the Standard and Advanced English students are combined, and scaled as a
single course. A raw HSC mark yields the same scaled mark for Standard and Advanced students.
The Board aligns the raw examination marks against standards separately for Standard and Advanced
students. As a result, Advanced students on a given raw mark receive a higher aligned mark than
Standard students on the same raw mark. Consequently an aligned HSC mark corresponds to
different scaled marks for Standard and Advanced students. This gives the appearance that Advanced
students have been disadvantaged, but this is not true.
If Table A3 in the Appendix showed the correspondence between raw HSC marks and scaled marks rather
than between HSC marks and scaled marks, it would be clear that Advanced students are not
disadvantaged in the scaling process.