Some of the main parts you may want to look if you can't be bothered reading.
HSC examination marks
The examination mark reported on a students Record of Achievement indicates the standard a student has attained in a specific course. If, for example, a student's examination
performance in Society and Culture shows that they have achieved the standard specified for Performance Band 3 for that course, the examination mark reported on the Record of
Achievement for Society and Culture will lie between 60 and 69. In general this mark, termed the aligned examination mark, will differ from the mark the student actually gained on the examination. What the aligned mark indicates is the standard reached and the position of the student in the Band. For example, a mark of 62 means that, while the student has achieved at Performance Band 3 level, their achievement is towards the bottom of this Performance Band.
School assessments
To enable school assessments from different schools to be compared, assessment marks submitted by schools are first moderated using the actual examination marks. These moderated school assessment marks are then aligned to the course standards. The school assessments reported on the Record of Achievement are the aligned school assessments.
Although school assessments are moderated and aligned against standards, the schools rank order of students in a course is maintained.
Scaling process
The scaling process takes marks provided by the Board of Studies and estimates what the marks would have been if all courses had been studied by all students. The scaling algorithm
is designed to encourage students to take the courses for which they are best suited and which best prepare them for their future studies. The principle underlying the algorithm is that a student should neither be advantaged nor disadvantaged by choosing one HSC course over another.
The scaling model used assumes that the position of a student in a course depends on the developed ability of the individual student and the strength of the competition with whom
they compete. Since the UAI is a rank that reflects academic achievement, strength of competition is defined in terms of the overall demonstrated academic attainment of the course candidature. The mean, the standard deviation and the maximum mark in a course are modified in the process of scaling. Adjustments are then made to the marks of individual students to produce scaled marks, which are the marks the students would have received if all courses had the same candidature.
Although scaled marks in most cases are different from the raw marks from which they are derived, the ranking of students within a course is not changed. Once the marks have been scaled, aggregates are calculated according to the rules given
previously for students who are eligible to receive a UAI. Percentiles, which indicate the ranking of students with respect to HSC students who are eligible for a UAI, are then determined on the basis of their aggregates.
In most cases, this ranking or order of merit based on scaled marks is quite different from the order of merit obtained from adding the best 10 units of HSC marks.
