How was the exam? (4 Viewers)

[sikeveo]

You cant trust what keypad says. He's a bit of a dick. Just a bit.

 

[Dumsum]

What about something he got WRONG?

He still got 99, so the lower he got means the cutoff would have also been lower.

 

[~ ReNcH ~]

Well we make the assumption that 120/120 is required to get 100. Is this warranted? (i.e. is this in writing anywhere?)

Yep. That's stated in that BOS link that I posted. The upper end-point is always 100% when interpolating marks for a Band 6/E4.

 

[~ ReNcH ~]

You cant trust what keypad says. He's a bit of a dick. Just a bit.

I trust him...he's got no reason to say that he got 108/120 if he didn't. Besides, if anything he would artifically inflate, rather than deflate, his mark and if he did the former then the raw band cut-off would be even lower. The only instance in which my calculations are flawed is if his exm mark wasn't 99...his HSC mark was 99 but I don't know about his exam mark in isolation but I'm presuming that it was most probably 99.

 

[haboozin]

Well, he must have got 99 since the highest mark was 99 according to the UAC data - unless he got an assessment mark of 100 and an exam mark of 98, though he was probably first at school meaning that that isn't the case.

And he told me that he didn't put pen to paper for 12 marks, so 108/120 is the most he could have got.

didnt a few ppl get 99

 

[sikeveo]

He could be completely off. He doesn't know that for sure.

 

[who_loves_maths]

Originally Posted by ~ ReNcH ~
Well, he must have got 99 since the highest mark was 99 according to the UAC data - unless he got an assessment mark of 100 and an exam mark of 98, though he was probably first at school meaning that that isn't the case.

Rench, maybe it's my appalling understanding of the mark assignment processes, but i do not understand your above reasoning:
first of all, you are only saying it is "probably" true that he was 1st placed in internal assessments...
but let's say you are right and that he was indeed ranked 1 before the exam, then please explain why the following scenario cannot be plausible:

he comes 1st in internal assessment, but 'only' manages a 98 for examination mark.
then, another person (2nd, or 3rd, etc...) does better than him in the external exam - obtaining, say, a 99 examination mark, which turns out to be highest mark for his school group.
so doesn't that then mean keypad would be assigned the 99 as his aligned assessment mark?
so then that 99 combines with his 98 exam mark to give an overall 99 HSC mark for 4u maths?

and the person who got 99 exam mark at best (eg. if he/she placed 2nd internally behind keypad) would only be tied equal first overall in the HSC mark with keypad. (since keypad's 98 exam mark would become the 2nd best aligned assessment mark in his school.)
and so in the end, keypad is ranked 1st internally before the exam, and is still ranked 1st in his school after the exam too. it all seems consistent.

^ unless i'm missing some key understanding of the HSC processes, then wouldn't this above scenario be possible Rench? in which keypad only achieves an exam mark of 98?

 

[who_loves_maths]

okay, it's looking pretty good that the situation of keypad getting 98 for his examination mark, as i suggested in the last post, is probably what happened.
look at what you'd get in linear interpolation:

let's assume he got 108/120 for his raw, and then gets 97.5/100 for his exam mark.
Define the points {108/120, 97.5/100} = {0.9, 0.975}, and, {120/120, 100/100} = {1, 1} to fix the line y = mx + b

substituting:
0.975 = 0.9m + b ...................................(1)
1 = m + b ...............................................(2)

(2) - (1):
0.025 = 0.1m -----> m = 0.25 , b = 0.75 ;
i.e. y = 0.25x + 0.75 is equation of the extrapolating line.

now to find the cut-off mark for a band E4, subtitute in y = 90/100 = 0.9
0.9 = 0.25x + 0.75
-----> 0.15 = 0.25x -----> x = 0.6

i.e. the raw mark is x = 0.6 x 120 = 72

so the cut off mark for a band E4 for 2003 could have been as 'high' (and reasonably so) as 72/120

i.e. since keypad could have gotten either a 99 exam mark or a 98 exam mark, then the actual cut-off mark can lie anywhere within the range from around 40/120 to 72/120 .

but personally, like everyone else, i think 40/120 is too low. and that a mark of around 70/120 would have been plausible for that hard 2003 test. this would then mean of course that keypad 'only' got about 98 for his examination mark; further implying that he got a 99 for his aligned assessment mark, to give him an overall HSC mark of 99.

 

[haboozin]

okay, it's looking pretty good that the situation of keypad getting 98 for his examination mark, as i suggested in the last post, is probably what happened.

but,
he didn't...

he got 99
i am 100% sure.
I am pretty sure a few ppl got 99


I don't like this method. 42? super ew.... the whole state would have got E4.
The exam was hard, but not THAT hard... there was a lot of questions which many people could have done to get at least 42.

I would have preferred 2003, don't need to think as much.

 

[~ ReNcH ~]

Rench, maybe it's my appalling understanding of the mark assignment processes, but i do not understand your above reasoning:
first of all, you are only saying it is "probably" true that he was 1st placed in internal assessments...
but let's say you are right and that he was indeed ranked 1 before the exam, then please explain why the following scenario cannot be plausible:

he comes 1st in internal assessment, but 'only' manages a 98 for examination mark.
then, another person (2nd, or 3rd, etc...) does better than him in the external exam - obtaining, say, a 99 examination mark, which turns out to be highest mark for his school group.
so doesn't that then mean keypad would be assigned the 99 as his aligned assessment mark?
so then that 99 combines with his 98 exam mark to give an overall 99 HSC mark for 4u maths?

and the person who got 99 exam mark at best (eg. if he/she placed 2nd internally behind keypad) would only be tied equal first overall in the HSC mark with keypad. (since keypad's 98 exam mark would become the 2nd best aligned assessment mark in his school.)
and so in the end, keypad is ranked 1st internally before the exam, and is still ranked 1st in his school after the exam too. it all seems consistent.

^ unless i'm missing some key understanding of the HSC processes, then wouldn't this above scenario be possible Rench? in which keypad only achieves an exam mark of 98?

I agree with you. I acknowledged that that was the only possible flaw in my calculations. That said, the only way we can find out if he really did get an exam mark of 99 is to ask him...if he did get 99 then 40/120 is the cut-off. If he got 98, then 72/120 is the max. cut-off. And yes, I admit that I was assuming his exam mark was 99.

Although, there was a student last year who answered no more than 85/120 and received 93, suggesting that the Band E4 cut-off was no higher than 73/120 and given that the 2003 paper was more difficult than last year's this seems to suggest that the cut-off for 2003 was probably around the high 50s or low 60s if Keypad got 98 as his exam mark.

 

[haboozin]

I agree with you. I acknowledged that that was the only possible flaw in my calculations. That said, the only way we can find out if he really did get an exam mark of 99 is to ask him...if he did get 99 then 40/120 is the cut-off. If he got 98, then 72/120 is the max. cut-off. And yes, I admit that I was assuming his exam mark was 99.

http://community.boredofstudies.org/showpost.php?p=385754&postcount=18


proven.

 

[lum]

that's no excuse for you "stuffing up". so basically according to you, if i do a 4u test, and take up the first thrid of the time doing question 1 -4 , then i might as well give up eh? since i'm already, what, 20min behind on schedule?
...
actually this is exactly what happened to me today too, but it doesn't mean one cannot fasten and still finish the rest of the paper in the next 2 hours. (which, luckily for me, happened.)

i didn't say it was an excuse for stuffing up,,, i said that's why i thought the paper was harder than the previous years.. and i did every single one since 1988, and this has to be on of the 5 hardest ones out of all those years

 

[~ ReNcH ~]

http://community.boredofstudies.org/showpost.php?p=385754&postcount=18


prove.

Nice. Thanks Haboozin. I was looking for that

Hmm...so, under the assumptions that:
- Keypad wasn't lying in that post
- Keypad wasn't lying about his 108/120 (each of which I think are reasonable assumptions)

then the cut-off must have been <41/120.

Well, I'm at a loss to explain why the cut-off would be so low, but I guess you can't argue with the numbers...

 

[tofu]

Maybe we should track down someone who got an aligned mark of exactly 90 in 2003?

 

[_dhj_]

Maybe we should track down someone who got an aligned mark of exactly 90 in 2003?

xactly waht i was thinkin...

 

[~ ReNcH ~]

Maybe we should track down someone who got an aligned mark of exactly 90 in 2003?

Well, apparently Newbie got 60/120 and an aligned mark of 90. Nevertheless, that's just speculation and Keypad's marks are virtually concrete data (given my assumptions above )

 

[KeypadSDM]

Just to throw a spanner in the works, I might have got 109.

It was a while ago, and I was tossing up whether to say 108 or 109 [as in I did put pen to paper for one of those marks, but by God, if they gave it to me, they really screwed up the marking], I went with the conservative estimate of 108 accounting for 1 possible error in my paper. But it MIGHT have been 109.

Then again, I COULD just ask the BOS for my marks, then you could be satisfied.

Moreso, this could be just rumour, but the person with the highest raw mark in the exam in the state wins the T.G. room medal, which I got. So I'm assuming no one at ruse (like 2nd or 3rd in the class) got a higher raw exam mark.

 

[~ ReNcH ~]

Just to throw a spanner in the works, I might have got 109.

It was a while ago, and I was tossing up whether to say 108 or 109 [as in I did put pen to paper for one of those marks, but by God, if they gave it to me, they really screwed up the marking], I went with the conservative estimate of 108 accounting for 1 possible error in my paper. But it MIGHT have been 109.

Then again, I COULD just ask the BOS for my marks, then you could be satisfied.

Moreso, this could be just rumour, but the person with the highest raw mark in the exam in the state wins the T.G. room medal, which I got. So I'm assuming no one at ruse (like 2nd or 3rd in the class) got a higher raw exam mark.

Hmm...well, if you did get 109/120, then the cut-off would have been <48/120, which seems more correct than 40/120. No need to ask BOS for your marks...you would have got 109 or less and presuming everything you answered you answered correctly, then the cut-off is 47 or less. I guess that's plausible given it was a difficult exam. An exam such as the 2002 paper probably would have had a cut-off of around 75/120 and all the other exams probably fit somewhere in between.

Would you agree with me in saying:
2003>2005>2004>2001>2002 in order of difficulty (taking into consideration both the difficulty of the questions themselves and the length of each paper)?

 

[Estel]

2004 is easily the least difficult of the papers.
2003 is not that bad.

 

[Captain pi]

Hmm...well, if you did get 109/120, then the cut-off would have been <48/120, which seems more correct than 40/120. No need to ask BOS for your marks...you would have got 109 or less and presuming everything you answered you answered correctly, then the cut-off is 47 or less. I guess that's plausible given it was a difficult exam. An exam such as the 2002 paper probably would have had a cut-off of around 75/120 and all the other exams probably fit somewhere in between.

Would you agree with me in saying:
2003>2005>2004>2001>2002 in order of difficulty (taking into consideration both the difficulty of the questions themselves and the length of each paper)?

If:
Thomas got 109/120 raw in the exam with an exam mark of 99, this means that, if we want the band to be as high as possible, his exam mark was actually 98.5. This means that 120 – {(120–109)/1.5} = E4 cut-off = 46.67 or thereabouts.

This is insane! That's the first five pages – which were not comparatively harder than other years.

I think Mr Clement should request his marks (and others in 2003). I remember when I practised this exam, I think I got 82 / 120. I got 93 in the 2004 exam and I didn't think I did that much poorer in that case. Maybe I marked myself very easy (I don't think so: I read the markers' comments, and am generally pretty harsh) or the markers marked especially hard.

EDIT:
Could it be possible that the Board made a mistake? Could it be that Keypad's mark was reported incorrectly? or they made a mistake in marking? I know that would be pretty devastating to learn, but I think it is more likely than a 40/120 E4 cut-off. (Of course, I have as much experience in Judging as you do; so this is pure speculation. An astrologer would be just as good. I'm just thinking of possible assumptions. )