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Reports: If your rank sounds low but mark is good, is that bad? (3 Viewers)

Cheesecake_a

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Okay so my marks are useless?

and 7/10 means then it is really bad, huh?

And if they only consider the rank, that means they don't look at the mark itself, only after they have the final rank will they scale, etc? This is really confusing.
 

D94

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What you have to understand is that your marks mean nothing - its the RANK thats the only thing that matters.

A 80% at a rank 200 school is not the same as an 80% at James Ruse, if you get what I'm saying :)
No, that's also wrong.

Raw marks are very important because they determine your assessment marks, once you know the range and mean of HSC exam marks. BOS doesn't care about your rank, they only care about your deviation from the mean of marks.

If your raw mark deviates positively from the mean by a great amount, you will get a mark closer to the highest exam mark, and if you deviate negatively from the mean by a great amount, you will get a mark closer to the lowest exam mark.

This is why gaining as many raw marks as possible is important because it determines your moderated assessment mark. BOS can't assign moderated assessment marks to a rank (what method is there?!); they assign moderated assessment marks to your equivalent raw mark.

We just use ranks because it's far easier to comprehend than your deviated mark.

And why can't an 80% at a 200th school be the same as a 80% at James Ruse? How do you know the difference in difficulty in exams? Until you sit the HSC, you can't tell if those 80%'s are equal or unequal.
 

D94

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Okay so my marks are useless?

and 7/10 means then it is really bad, huh?

And if they only consider the rank, that means they don't look at the mark itself, only after they have the final rank will they scale, etc? This is really confusing.
No, they are very important. If you didn't have those marks, how would you gain a rank? For those who say 'marks aren't important', how the hell is your rank determined? And, your moderated assessment mark is determined by your raw marks and the highest/lowest HSC exam marks.
 

zombies

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Okay so my marks are useless?

and 7/10 means then it is really bad, huh?

And if they only consider the rank, that means they don't look at the mark itself, only after they have the final rank will they scale, etc? This is really confusing.
Ah well they're useless in a sense, but like the other people have been saying even if you're ranked 7/10, it can still be good if the people coming 1-6 have marks that are close to yours.

And yeah they will look at the space between each of the marks, as in person A gets 90%, person B gets 80% etc etc but the actual mark itself doesnt really matter.
 

zombies

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No, that's also wrong.

Raw marks are very important because they determine your assessment marks, once you know the range and mean of HSC exam marks. BOS doesn't care about your rank, they only care about your deviation from the mean of marks.

If your raw mark deviates positively from the mean by a great amount, you will get a mark closer to the highest exam mark, and if you deviate negatively from the mean by a great amount, you will get a mark closer to the lowest exam mark.

This is why gaining as many raw marks as possible is important because it determines your moderated assessment mark. BOS can't assign moderated assessment marks to a rank (what method is there?!); they assign moderated assessment marks to your equivalent raw mark.

We just use ranks because it's far easier to comprehend than your deviated mark.

And why can't an 80% at a 200th school be the same as a 80% at James Ruse? How do you know the difference in difficulty in exams? Until you sit the HSC, you can't tell if those 80%'s are equal or unequal.
Well a 90% at my old, rank 30 school is not even close to a 90% at my new, rank 5 school.

But okok i'll shush now.
 

Cheesecake_a

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Ahhh now I can sort of get a better understanding about it.

Well I think I am doing pretty well and I guess there is still trials and the actual HSC exams, so only time will tell.
 

D94

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Well a 90% at my old, rank 30 school is not even close to a 90% at my new, rank 5 school.

But okok i'll shush now.
But that's because of a difference in difficulty of exam/assessment, not because of a difference in school rank.
 

zombies

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But that's because of a difference in difficulty of exam/assessment, not because of a difference in school rank.
But the higher the school rank - the harder the assessments.

If they gave easy assessments at James Ruse, then everyone would be getting 100% and it'd be hard to rank everyone.
Also at higher rank schools you tend to learn more because everyone is smarter (generalising here, I'm sure there are exceptions etc etc) and so you cover more in your assessments.

But that's just from my personal experience.
 

D94

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But the higher the school rank - the harder the assessments.

If they gave easy assessments at James Ruse, then everyone would be getting 100% and it'd be hard to rank everyone.
Also at higher rank schools you tend to learn more because everyone is smarter (generalising here, I'm sure there are exceptions etc etc) and so you cover more in your assessments.

But that's just from my personal experience.
Yes, that's a fair inference, but now we are presupposing the validity in the ranking system. If by this logic, all those people who get 99+ must be from a top 50 school? Yes/no? How is it that students from 100-150+ ranked schools can get State Ranks (even first places in well contested subjects) if there are harder assessments in higher ranked schools and that everyone is smarter etc. etc.?

If everyone at Ruse received 100% in their assessments, then everyone would be ranked 1st. BUT, that doesn't matter because the exam mark will differentiate between students, so I don't see your point there.
 

Sidekickk

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No, that's also wrong.

Raw marks are very important because they determine your assessment marks, once you know the range and mean of HSC exam marks. BOS doesn't care about your rank, they only care about your deviation from the mean of marks.

If your raw mark deviates positively from the mean by a great amount, you will get a mark closer to the highest exam mark, and if you deviate negatively from the mean by a great amount, you will get a mark closer to the lowest exam mark.

This is why gaining as many raw marks as possible is important because it determines your moderated assessment mark. BOS can't assign moderated assessment marks to a rank (what method is there?!); they assign moderated assessment marks to your equivalent raw mark.

We just use ranks because it's far easier to comprehend than your deviated mark.

And why can't an 80% at a 200th school be the same as a 80% at James Ruse? How do you know the difference in difficulty in exams? Until you sit the HSC, you can't tell if those 80%'s are equal or unequal.
Wait, im confused. Are you saying that being first by a large margin is better than being first by a small margin?

I thought if you were first in internals, then you would get the highest external mark as your internal mark regardless of any margins...
 

zombies

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Yes, that's a fair inference, but now we are presupposing the validity in the ranking system. If by this logic, all those people who get 99+ must be from a top 50 school? Yes/no? How is it that students from 100-150+ ranked schools can get State Ranks (even first places in well contested subjects) if there are harder assessments in higher ranked schools and that everyone is smarter etc. etc.?

If everyone at Ruse received 100% in their assessments, then everyone would be ranked 1st. BUT, that doesn't matter because the exam mark will differentiate between students, so I don't see your point there.
Because they ranked well at their school, and then also did well in their HSC exams? I mean even if their assessments were easier, I'm not trying to say that they're not as smart as someone who did well on a harder test. They just won't have the chance to show it through that exam, thus the HSC external exam giving them that opportunity..

lets just agree to disagree, I really don't want to be arguing over this :(
 
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Woah such small classes man you have it good congrats modern history doesnt look that bad
 

D94

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Because they ranked well at their school, and then also did well in their HSC exams? I mean even if their assessments were easier, I'm not trying to say that they're not as smart as someone who did well on a harder test. They just won't have the chance to show it through that exam, thus the HSC external exam giving them that opportunity..

lets just agree to disagree, I really don't want to be arguing over this :(
But exactly my point. We can't tell if an assessment task is easy or not until you sit the HSC, just as you can't tell if an 80% at a school is the same as 80% in another school is same or different until you sit the HSC. Therefore, whilst you can make whatever inferences you like, it's not accurate to say this school must have had a harder exam than another school based on falsifiable ranks.
 

zombies

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But exactly my point. We can't tell if an assessment task is easy or not until you sit the HSC, just as you can't tell if an 80% at a school is the same as 80% in another school is same or different until you sit the HSC.
Alright :) I agree on that point
 

qwerty44

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Wait, im confused. Are you saying that being first by a large margin is better than being first by a small margin?

I thought if you were first in internals, then you would get the highest external mark as your internal mark regardless of any margins...
Yes. The larger the margin, the less you will be affected by other students in your cohort.
 

SunnyScience

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D94,

Firstly, thank you for correcting my original post on the moderation of internal marks (I wasn't quiet sure about this aspect). However, I think you are "deviating" from the original purpose of this thread and are perhaps starting to confuse the original poster. Also, I strongly disagree with your understanding of raw marks. They DO NOT matter in the sense of your overall HSC mark (average of internal and external). That is, a person who receives an internal mark "raw" mark of 60% is still able to get a HSC mark of 90+ - that is, if they scored 95% in the HSC and then (because, say they were ranked first) also receive a "moderated" internal mark of 95% (so, because they came first they recieve the highest external mark of their school as their internal mark - 95) and thus receive the average of the two - giving an overall mark of 95. However, they do matter in the sense that these raw marks determine the rank you come in your school, thus affecting the moderated internal mark you get (but your external mark will always stay the same - after "aligning" (but that's a different story)) and this would consequently affect the average between your external and internal mark to give you your HSC mark.

Just to confirm, school ranks do not matter. However, generally an internal exam from a higher ranking school e.g. 1 to that of a lower rank e.g. 300 would generally be harder than the latters. This is primarily due to the overall student ability at each school. At higher ranked schools, the calibre of the students is normally very high and thus they need to set challenging exams for the students as means to give them ranks - it would be no good if everyone got 100% as ranking them would be impossible - but instead, have some get e.g. 90,98,84 etc. However, at a lower ranking school they would not set such as hard exams as if all students fail e.g. getting 40,39,38,41,39, 39, this is both damaging the students and is also an ineffective ranking methodology.

We are all made to set the HSC exam as a means of moderating these differences in "difficulty" and the raw marks obtained by students - that's its purpose. So if a school set an extremely hard exam compared to that of a school who just set really easy exams can be compared.

For example,
School 1 has students with the following marks:
Internal External
60 90
62 92
74 98
58 88
65 91

These students would have these internal marks "moderated" upwards to account for their clear ability (I won't go into detail about how they do this, but it is based on your internal ranks etc.)

School 2 however, has the following marks:

Internal External
98 74
94 78
97 69
99 80
100 75

These students would have their marks moderated down to account for their clear lower ability then that of school one.
Thus, school 1 would have a higher calbri and (strong and general word) "better" students then school 2, disregarding their clearly lower marks in their school. In this way, the students from different schools can be equally compared.
School one can be generalised as the kind of mark differences (internal to external) you see at a "higher ranked school", whilst school two can be seen as a generalisation for prehapes a lower ranked school who sets easier exams as means to rank the students, or to ensure they all just don't fail.

In the end, the students from school one get the better marks because they performed better in the external exam, with the student who placed first in that school and course recieving the highest internal moderated mark (but not necessarily the highest external mark - as this stays the same no matter what (after aligning) e.g. they may get a moderated internal mark of 98 (because this was the highest external mark) they may have bombed the external exam and only got 85 - so their end HSC mark would be the average of the two (low 90's))




That's all i can think to type now :)
If i've made minor errors please feel free to point them out (not grammar errors - I cbf to proof read :p)
If you have any questions, feel free to ask.
If I've made everyone more confused - sorry :p
 

D94

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Firstly, thank you for correcting my original post on the moderation of internal marks (I wasn't quiet sure about this aspect). However, I think you are "deviating" from the original purpose of this thread and are perhaps starting to confuse the original poster. Also, I strongly disagree with your understanding of raw marks. They DO NOT matter in the sense of your overall HSC mark (average of internal and external). That is, a person who receives an internal mark "raw" mark of 60% is still able to get a HSC mark of 90+ - that is, if they scored 95% in the HSC and then (because, say they were ranked first) also receive a "moderated" internal mark of 95% (so, because they came first they recieve the highest external mark of their school as their internal mark - 95) and thus receive the average of the two - giving an overall mark of 95.
Without raw marks, you cannot determine your moderated assessment mark (hereinafter "MAM"), hence you cannot determine your HSC mark. Yes, of course, something with a raw mark of 60% can definitely get 90; I've never said otherwise.

Whilst what I am saying is definitely confusing, it is very relevant. OP is concerned by their rank, but their rank on face value has no meaning to BOS; it's their raw marks which matter. Why is it that the 50th/70 ranked James Ruse student can still get a 95 in [subject] if rank is so important? It's because the set of exam marks are high enough so that their deviation from the mean is so little, thus having little impact on their mark.

However, they do matter in the sense that these raw marks determine the rank you come in your school, thus affecting the moderated internal mark you get (but your external mark will always stay the same - after "aligning" (but that's a different story)) and this would consequently affect the average between your external and internal mark to give you your HSC mark.
Your rank in your school is just a trivial number; it has no meaning to BOS (except first and last). It's your raw marks that matter to BOS. In order to determine your MAM, you must use the raw marks and the highest and lowest HSC exam marks.

Now, BOS determines the mean/avg of the school's raw marks and aligns them with the mean of the HSC exam marks, whilst at the same time, pins the top and bottom external marks so ALL marks are within these two marks. Then, by a process of standard deviation, each student receives a MAM based on how much they deviate from the mean.

Now, if you say ranks are so important, and that we can disregard how many raw marks you get, please tell me how does BOS calculate your MAM?
 

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