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March 28, 2024, 07:24:15 pm

Author Topic: Internal Rankings and Final ATAR  (Read 4251 times)  Share 

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beansandbobs

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Internal Rankings and Final ATAR
« on: September 04, 2021, 07:03:44 pm »
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Hi everyone! So I kinda bombed my English trials because of a misconception I had when reading the question and my ranking dropped to second. I feel totally disappointed because on every other section I did really well and now in the final HSC if I actually get a better mark than the person ranking first, they get my mark instead. I was wondering if anyone could tell me how it works if this happens, because now I feel like what is the point in trying to improve in English if getting better may not even benefit my ATAR? Would it help my ATAR at all if I did end up getting a really good mark in the HSC, or would I just get the second best mark?

fun_jirachi

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Re: Internal Rankings and Final ATAR
« Reply #1 on: September 04, 2021, 09:06:28 pm »
+3
Welcome to the forums!

Unfortunately, there are a lot of things that are incorrect about what you said, so I'm going to pick them apart so you have a better idea as to what happens.

if I actually get a better mark than the person ranking first, they get my mark instead
Not necessarily. You have to beat everyone else in the external exam for this to even happen. If this does happen, it only counts for the internal mark portion of their mark, which is only 50%, the other 50% of their mark will be made up of what they get in their external.

I feel like what is the point in trying to improve in English if getting better may not even benefit my ATAR

Half your final mark depends on how you perform in the final HSC exam. It will always benefit your ATAR. This is the point in particular that I'm worried about because it is completely false - curious as to where you got this idea from. Your two best units of English always count, so you can guarantee any improvement in English will benefit your ATAR.

Would it help my ATAR at all if I did end up getting a really good mark in the HSC, or would I just get the second best mark

This whole 'second-best mark' business applies only to your internal mark. It's a common misconception that you just 'steal' whatever corresponding mark for your internal, it's actually scaled based on the distribution of marks your school produces in internals. Getting good marks always benefits your ATAR.

Hope this helps :)
Spoiler
HSC 2018: Mod Hist [88] | 2U Maths [98]
HSC 2019: Physics [92] | Chemistry [93] | English Adv [87] | 3U Maths [98] | 4U Maths [97]
ATAR: 99.05

UCAT: 3310 - VR [740] | DM [890] | QR [880] | AR [800]
Guide Links:
Subject Acceleration (2018)
UCAT Question Compilation/FAQ (2020)
Asking good questions

Bozza36

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Re: Internal Rankings and Final ATAR
« Reply #2 on: September 21, 2021, 08:24:23 am »
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Hello everyone,

I just have a few questions regarding my internal rank.
Firstly, for Biology, I unfortunately lost 1st due to the another student going very well in the online trials. And I thought we had tied for first, but for some reason my school uses unrounded marks for ranks (he ended up being 0.01% ahead - very annoying for me as he recieved an extra 1/2 mark in a test for seemingly no reason earlier in the year. Little did I know this was the difference). Anyway, since my school has given him first, does this mean they will have to round my mark down by 1% when they give it to NESA, or do they hand in unrounded marks?

Secondly, in Chemistry, first place is sitting 7% ahead of me in third (once again slightly bottled my online trials). Even if I get first in the HSC, my internal mark will roughly equal thirds, but will this be moderated so it is around 7% behind the first place internal mark?

Thanks.

fun_jirachi

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Re: Internal Rankings and Final ATAR
« Reply #3 on: September 21, 2021, 09:35:12 pm »
+1
Please don't quote me on this, but:

Your marks to my knowledge will be whole numbers and rounded appropriately. If 1% lower than the first mark happens to be rounded to a smaller integer, that is likely what will happen. The marks will be presented as they are (with the appropriate differences) prior to rounding, then rounded. If the difference after rounding is not discernible then you will have the same internal mark.

Personally, it's not really important to a) worry about marks calculation (it doesn't help you right now to be thinking about this, and there's plenty of time to learn about it once it doesn't affect you so much) and b) compare yourself to those around you. I'm more willing to budge on the first point (free thinking exists, after all) but there's one more exam which you should definitely really get up for and focus on. There's not a lot you can do outside of maximising your mark in the final, which will obviously maximise your final mark overall.

Good luck!
Spoiler
HSC 2018: Mod Hist [88] | 2U Maths [98]
HSC 2019: Physics [92] | Chemistry [93] | English Adv [87] | 3U Maths [98] | 4U Maths [97]
ATAR: 99.05

UCAT: 3310 - VR [740] | DM [890] | QR [880] | AR [800]
Guide Links:
Subject Acceleration (2018)
UCAT Question Compilation/FAQ (2020)
Asking good questions