SC Marking/Results Process (1 Viewer)

cem

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Re: Obtaining SC Results

kaz1 said:
so 90 is not always band 6

A raw mark of 90 will always get Band 6 as marks are aligned upwards.

A raw mark of 90 would probably rise to between 93 - 96 depending on the cut-off point.

In most subjects raw marks of mid-80s ends up at 90 with all raw marks above that also going up.

From my training days for the aligning process and doing the process itself and talking to others doing it the whole exercise is to work out how low is the cut-off for students who have achieved the 'minimum' standard and to work up from there for the other cut-offs.

If the cut-off for Band 1/2 is 25% then the other cut-offs (Band 2/3, 3/4. 4/5, 5/6) would all be worked out but as 25 is going to = 50 you can see that the other cut-offs would also rise e.g. 36=60, 48=70, 63=80, 83=90 (these marks are purely fiction and are not reflective of any specific course or year but just to show the way the marks are aligned).
 

bored of sc

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Re: Obtaining SC Results

cem said:
A raw mark of 90 will always get Band 6 as marks are aligned upwards.

A raw mark of 90 would probably rise to between 93 - 96 depending on the cut-off point.

In most subjects raw marks of mid-80s ends up at 90 with all raw marks above that also going up.

From my training days for the aligning process and doing the process itself and talking to others doing it the whole exercise is to work out how low is the cut-off for students who have achieved the 'minimum' standard and to work up from there for the other cut-offs.

If the cut-off for Band 1/2 is 25% then the other cut-offs (Band 2/3, 3/4. 4/5, 5/6) would all be worked out but as 25 is going to = 50 you can see that the other cut-offs would also rise e.g. 36=60, 48=70, 63=80, 83=90 (these marks are purely fiction and are not reflective of any specific course or year but just to show the way the marks are aligned).
So does this mean a mark of say 95 could be scaled up to 100? This doesn't seem right as 100 is a "perfect" score.
 

cem

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Re: Obtaining SC Results

bored of sc said:
So does this mean a mark of say 95 could be scaled up to 100? This doesn't seem right as 100 is a "perfect" score.

If 95 was the top raw mark then yes (and that has always been the case) but it is more likely that 95 would go to 96 or 97.

100 would stay the same with 99 probably also raising to 100, 98 to 99, 97 to either 98 or possibly 99 depending on how low the actual cut-off was and therefore how many marks have to be in the range. What I mean is if the Band 5/6 cut off is set at 86 then all the marks 86 - 100 have to be put in the range from 90 - 100 meaning some marks would rise by 1 mark to allow for the extra 4 marks into the range but if the cut-off was say 83 then some marks would have to go up by two marks to allow for the extra 7 marks that have to be fitted into the 90 - 100 range.

Is that clear (or as clear as mud)?
 

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Re: Obtaining SC Results

cem said:
If 95 was the top raw mark then yes (and that has always been the case) but it is more likely that 95 would go to 96 or 97.

100 would stay the same with 99 probably also raising to 100, 98 to 99, 97 to either 98 or possibly 99 depending on how low the actual cut-off was and therefore how many marks have to be in the range. What I mean is if the Band 5/6 cut off is set at 86 then all the marks 86 - 100 have to be put in the range from 90 - 100 meaning some marks would rise by 1 mark to allow for the extra 4 marks into the range but if the cut-off was say 83 then some marks would have to go up by two marks to allow for the extra 7 marks that have to be fitted into the 90 - 100 range.

Is that clear (or as clear as mud)?
Mmmm yeah that's clear as mud :)
 

bored of sc

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this question is for cem

do they give out half marks in the school certificate tests?

if they don't give out half marks but someone's answer is worth half marks (for example 3.5/5) do they give them the mark (to make it 4/5) or do they not (to make it 3/5)?

does that make sense?

in my trials i got 2/3 for a question but the teacher said it was worth 2.5/3, so he rounded down (damn)

thanks for all your great posts cem :)
 

cem

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bored of sc said:
this question is for cem

do they give out half marks in the school certificate tests?

if they don't give out half marks but someone's answer is worth half marks (for example 3.5/5) do they give them the mark (to make it 4/5) or do they not (to make it 3/5)?

does that make sense?

in my trials i got 2/3 for a question but the teacher said it was worth 2.5/3, so he rounded down (damn)

thanks for all your great posts cem :)

No - they don't give half marks.

We are always told that if it is worth say 6.5/10 then it is worth 7/10.

Some markers will go down though. It would be up to each marker. I personally don't even think in half marks after marking for as long as I have.
 

bored of sc

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cem said:
No - they don't give half marks.

We are always told that if it is worth say 6.5/10 then it is worth 7/10.

Some markers will go down though. It would be up to each marker. I personally don't even think in half marks after marking for as long as I have.
Thanks, its good to know most markers bump you up, not down :)!
 
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Why scale?

It doesn't give an accurate reading of the students potential and you never find out how good or bad you actually are.
 

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cem said:
No - they don't give half marks.

We are always told that if it is worth say 6.5/10 then it is worth 7/10.

Some markers will go down though. It would be up to each marker. I personally don't even think in half marks after marking for as long as I have.
They follow marking guidelines and they never have half-marks.
 

dpospination

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Re: Obtaining SC Results

cem said:
The marking process is just the beginning and they have the HSC to do at the same time.

After all the exams are marked the aligning process has to be finished.

This is where they adjust the raw exam marks to the scaled marks that you get. This process won't begin for SC until part way through the marking process and will finish a week or so afterwards but... the BOS only spends two days in consultation with the various judging panels to finalise these aligned marks. These two days are in early December and will entail all HSC and SC courses over the same two days. One consultation committee might go from SC History to HSC Japanese and then onto 2U Maths before morning tea and so on.

Some HSC subjects have already finished being marked (Geography, Chemistry and Modern History that I know about) but their judging panels haven't finished their work and the SC judging panels won't finish their job until late next week I believe. Some HSC subjects are just beginning the marking process and won't be finished for another two weeks and then they have to finish the judging process before the consultation committees meet.

The Consultation committees ask the judges about how they reached their determination for the cut-offs for the bands and then the committee decides whether to go with the panel's recommendation or not (and the panel isn't told - or at least we weren't told when I was on the judging panel a few years ago - it was one of our complaints that we did all that work and then never got told the result).

The Consultation meetings are usually late in the first week in December and then all the marks have to go into the computers and the results printed. Printing 80,000 results sheets for each SC subject (you get a separate sheet for English, Maths, Science, History, Geography and Computers) plus the actual certificate, which can't be done until all the necessary requirements of the certificate have been met (i.e. after checking students have either done the exams or satisfactorily explained why they didn't do so) takes time - a couple of days at least. Then they have to be put into envelopes and sent to schools. Some of the reason for the delay is simply the sheer number of candidates and the amount of paper required to be sent to each student.
this year we didnt recieve a separate test results sheet for each subject, we only received the school cetificate credential and the record of achievment- BOS might be trying to save on paper!
 

cem

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Phoenix Fury said:
Why scale?

It doesn't give an accurate reading of the students potential and you never find out how good or bad you actually are.

But...

in eduspeak - Band 2 students have reached the minimum acceptable standard for the course. However, many people associate that description with an older idea of pass or fail so the minimum acceptable standard has to be reported as 50% which is why the aligning process takes place.

How would you feel if, instead of getting say 60% you got the real mark of 30%. One mark labels you a failure whereas they other one says your aren't brilliant but you can do some of the things taught in the course.
 

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Re: Obtaining SC Results

dpospination said:
this year we didnt recieve a separate test results sheet for each subject, we only received the school cetificate credential and the record of achievment- BOS might be trying to save on paper!
Lol, the BOS clearly wasted paper for me, they tried to squeeze all my results on one sheet, but it didnt fit so I got an extra piece of paper for the Record of Acheivement (and it only had 1 subject on it - LOTE ewww...)
 

dpospination

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Re: Obtaining SC Results

the-derivative said:
Lol, the BOS clearly wasted paper for me, they tried to squeeze all my results on one sheet, but it didnt fit so I got an extra piece of paper for the Record of Acheivement (and it only had 1 subject on it - LOTE ewww...)
lol, that must look awkard!!!
 

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Hi all,

I'm a newbie to this forum. I'm curently in year 10. I read the posts about the SC. I was just wondering if:

90-100 A
81-89 B
71-79 C
61-69 D

Thanks
 

cem

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Ashutosh said:
Hi all,

I'm a newbie to this forum. I'm curently in year 10. I read the posts about the SC. I was just wondering if:

90-100 A
81-89 B
71-79 C
61-69 D

Thanks

I assume that you are referring to your school's decision about which Grade to award you.

The simple answer is: it is up to each school and even faculty each year and there is no hard and fast rule relating marks to grades but rather it is based on whether or not the student has achieved the grade described in the Performance Descriptor Bands. Some years my school has given As to marks as low as 75 and others it has been as high as 86. This is due to our perception of the students and the Performance Descriptor Bands.

We don't set the same tasks every year and different markers can mark differently so sometimes our marks are lower or higher but then we can look at the Descriptor Bands and match the students to those and come up with a decision.

That is a similar process to that undertaken by the aligning process undertaken for the external exams.


The Descriptor Bands can be found here.

http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/schoolcertificate/sc_cpd.html
 

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Is it true a school gets a limited number of As, and Bs- and its upto the teachers to distribute dem out fairly, i.e via ranks- or is it more to do with the 'descriptor bands ie a certain benchmark score.
 

kaz1

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sungkwo said:
Is it true a school gets a limited number of As, and Bs- and its upto the teachers to distribute dem out fairly, i.e via ranks- or is it more to do with the 'descriptor bands ie a certain benchmark score.
The school can give as many As as they want.
 

Cardea

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Wow - thanks for all the info, cem. That's kind of a relief to know that our marks get "scaled" up higher.. but it's a shame we don't actually get to know our raw marks to see how well we actually did. All the same, a relief.
 

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Re: How Does The Sc Marking Process Work?

advice in these threads is helping.

(not being sarcastic):ninja:
 

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