ATAR/Scaling Questions

[12070]

Hey! It would depend on the spread in your internal results, because that affects the way moderation works, but 84 would be a decent estimate of your moderated assessment mark in most cases. If we ignore the complexities of moderation and assume your moderated assessment mark was 84, then that would be averaged with your exam mark of 40 and your HSC Mark would be 62. This would be compared to averaging with 82, which would yield a HSC mark of 83 (again, completely dependent on the specifics of moderation, which is dependent on your cohort, but these are solid estimates)

That said, an exam mark of 40 could quite possibly trigger alarm bells at NESA (just got a flash of a giant tower with security fences and armed guards, aha)  - There are special procedures students who perform significantly below expectation in the HSC exam. I don't know of any specific documentation regarding this, but it is possible that the normal procedures wouldn't apply to you

Okay because I'm in a class of 6 and 2 students will probably get band 6's and 2 will probably get band 2's. I beat the other student by 1 mark in the assignment but I feel like she will be much better than me in the written exam. I could possibly drop to like a 60 in the HSC because my teacher is really bad (our class had 13 in prelim and 5 said they dropped due to our teacher. 3 of us would have also dropped if we could) and a lack of interest in economics. I only have 10 units as well and I'm wondering how important getting the 3rd rank is and how much of a factor in the HSC that will become.

[jamonwindeyer]

Okay because I'm in a class of 6 and 2 students will probably get band 6's and 2 will probably get band 2's. I beat the other student by 1 mark in the assignment but I feel like she will be much better than me in the written exam. I could possibly drop to like a 60 in the HSC because my teacher is really bad (our class had 13 in prelim and 5 said they dropped due to our teacher. 3 of us would have also dropped if we could) and a lack of interest in economics. I only have 10 units as well and I'm wondering how important getting the 3rd rank is and how much of a factor in the HSC that will become.

Ultimately, you shouldn't be thinking whether or not getting the 3rd rank is important or not, because you should be going for it anyway. Any energy you spend hyper analysing the logistics is just time you should spend studying for Economics to maximise your result! Don't worry too much about what you can't control, just do the absolute best at what you can control!

[Claudiaa]

I absolutely adore procrastinating by reading forums like this! Good job guys, some interesting stuff in this thread! 

[Ellie__]

Hey guys,

Just a quick question, scaling wise how does the class affect your overall mark? Say if about 4 people are working quite hard and achieving good marks, yet the other 12 aren't going quite so well, will that affect the top 4's overall mark?


Sorry if this doesn't make sense

[jamonwindeyer]

Hey guys,

Just a quick question, scaling wise how does the class affect your overall mark? Say if about 4 people are working quite hard and achieving good marks, yet the other 12 aren't going quite so well, will that affect the top 4's overall mark?


Sorry if this doesn't make sense

Hey Ellie! Speaking basically, yes it does, but the impact is lessened the better those 4 students go! Their exam marks are theirs without any effect, but their internal mark will be based on the performance of the class in the exam, and their rank the process is explained here! Hopefully it makes sense of things for you

[Ellie__]

Hey Ellie! Speaking basically, yes it does, but the impact is lessened the better those 4 students go! Their exam marks are theirs without any effect, but their internal mark will be based on the performance of the class in the exam, and their rank the process is explained here! Hopefully it makes sense of things for you

Ah okay, so that means that the top 4's marks shouldn't really be affected even though there will be a big gap between 4th and 5th??

Thankyou!

[rmdb]

Ah okay, so that means that the top 4's marks shouldn't really be affected even though there will be a big gap between 4th and 5th??

Thankyou!

Your assessment mark will be adjusted such that the relative gaps between ranks are maintained. If there is a large gap between 4th and 5th, there will also be a large gap in the assessment marks. You should think of the assessment marks as coming from a pool of marks, i.e. the pool of HSC exam marks. The higher your school mark (%) is, the higher your share of the pool of marks. Every mark in the pool is important, so the higher your cohort's marks are, the higher your assessment mark can be. All marks affect each other, so you should aim to get many marks in school, and many marks in the HSC exam. The rest is beyond your control.

[pikachu975]

Is it bad to do standard english in terms of scaling?

[jamonwindeyer]

Is it bad to do standard english in terms of scaling?

Hey! So it depends on what you mean by 'bad', but here is some data compared to Advanced based on scaling that occurred in 2016 -

HSC Mark - 76
Advanced: Scaled to 52.4
Standard: Scaled to 51.8

They are both meant to scale down, just the way it works! But at a mark in the Band 4 range, the difference is pretty slim! The difference starts to become a little bigger as you go higher:

HSC Mark - 81
Advanced: Scaled to 65.4
Standard: Scaled to 63.2

But even then, not huge right! The difference between the two doesn't get much larger than a few points. The big difference isn't in scaling but in where the marks sit, the average mark for Advanced is about 12 points higher than Standard (81 vs 69) - And while 15% of Advanced students will get a Band 6, only 1% of Standard students get a Band 6

That said, there is absolutely nothing stopping you succeeding with Standard! I've seen plenty of people do it. Statistically, it's less likely, but it's up to you not to be a statistic!

[Joseph41]

I absolutely adore procrastinating by reading forums like this! Good job guys, some interesting stuff in this thread! 

It truly is the best form of procrastination, hahaha.

[pikachu975]

Hey! So it depends on what you mean by 'bad', but here is some data compared to Advanced based on scaling that occurred in 2016 -

HSC Mark - 76
Advanced: Scaled to 52.4
Standard: Scaled to 51.8

They are both meant to scale down, just the way it works! But at a mark in the Band 4 range, the difference is pretty slim! The difference starts to become a little bigger as you go higher:

HSC Mark - 81
Advanced: Scaled to 65.4
Standard: Scaled to 63.2

But even then, not huge right! The difference between the two doesn't get much larger than a few points. The big difference isn't in scaling but in where the marks sit, the average mark for Advanced is about 12 points higher than Standard (81 vs 69) - And while 15% of Advanced students will get a Band 6, only 1% of Standard students get a Band 6

That said, there is absolutely nothing stopping you succeeding with Standard! I've seen plenty of people do it. Statistically, it's less likely, but it's up to you not to be a statistic!

Yeah I just asked about this because I did bad in 30% worth of assessments and my rank is 25 of 35, last year my school got 12 band 6's and the rest band 5's (I think) so I was just thinking of dropping. I probably won't now though.

[jamonwindeyer]

Yeah I just asked about this because I did bad in 30% worth of assessments and my rank is 25 of 35, last year my school got 12 band 6's and the rest band 5's (I think) so I was just thinking of dropping. I probably won't now though.

Yeah, my thinking is that any mark you get in Standard, you'll absolutely be able to get that same mark in Advanced. So given that you're halfway through already, I reckon you should hang in there!

[grace.estelle]

State ranks are NOT based off your internal marks at ALL. ONLY the final exam mark.

Hi! Does this mean that even if you are not coming first in your school, say if I'm coming second or third, but my HSC exam mark is the highest from my school, then I could still get a state rank? I'm unsure because I saw somewhere that if you are not coming first in the internal school exams, but you come first in the HSC exam, then your exam mark will be given to the person who came first in the internal exams. Is this true?

[jamonwindeyer]

Hi! Does this mean that even if you are not coming first in your school, say if I'm coming second or third, but my HSC exam mark is the highest from my school, then I could still get a state rank? I'm unsure because I saw somewhere that if you are not coming first in the internal school exams, but you come first in the HSC exam, then your exam mark will be given to the person who came first in the internal exams. Is this true?

Hey Grace! Yes, that is true, and it happened to me - I state ranked Legal even though I came 2nd in Legal internally

What you say about your exam mark going to the highest ranked student is true, but that is to do with the moderation of your internal marks. Like, the exam marks get used to moderate your assessment mark, and THAT is averaged with your HSC exam mark. The exam mark is yours, and it is that mark that state ranks are based on!

If you've not read this guide a read yet, it will hopefully explain this in a little more detail for you!

[mohanedibrahim1]

Hey just say i got all band 6 in my 12 units, but in a very poor ranking school would i still be able to achieve a good ATAR.