HSC and ATAR (3 of 10) - Determining the HSC Result

A student's achievement in the HSC consists of the results in each of the HSC courses they study. The achievement of each course is determined and reported by the Board of Studies (BOS) with 50% based on the open HSC examinations and 50% based on the assessment tasks completed in individual school in Year 12. The process of determining the HSC result of each course is as follows:

HSC course:           HSC examination            Assessment tasks
                                         |                                   |
                                         |                            submitted
                                    marked                        by school
                                         |                                    |
                                      raw                                raw
                             examination mark            assessment mark
                                         |                                    |
                                         |                             moderation
                                         |                                    |
                                         |                             moderated
                                         |                        assessment mark
                                         |                                    |
                                   alignment                       alignment
                                         |                                    |
HSC mark:                    reported                         reported
      |                      examination mark            assessment mark
      |
Performance band

Before we walk through the process of determining the HSC result, we first give some explanations of the performance band standards defined by BOS.

Performance Band Stardards
Performance of the achievement is measured against standard performance bands. Marks obtained for each course are divided into bands and each band aligns with a description of a typical performance by a student within that mark range. For 2-unit courses, there are 6 performance bands (1-6) with Band 6 being the highest level of performance. For Extension courses, there are 4 performance bands (E1-E4) with Band E4 being the highest. The standard Performance Bands and the corresponding mark ranges defined by BOS are as follows:
2-unit courses
Band            1        2         3         4        5         6
Mark range   0-49   50-59  60-69  70-79  80-89  90-100
Extension courses (except Mathematics Extension 2)
Band             E1      E2      E3       E4
Mark range   0-24   25-34  35-44  45-50
Mathematics Extension 2
Band             E1      E2      E3       E4
Mark range   0-49   50-69  70-89  90-100

As students' performance in the HSC may be different in different years due to differences in examination papers and marking criteria etc., a procedure is used to enable the raw examination marks awarded each year to be aligned to the standard performance bands. BOS looks at critical information each year like statistical data and student responses to produce a set of cut-off marks for each performance band. e.g. Based on current year's student performance, BOS may set 82 to be the minimum mark required for Band 6, 74 for Band 5, and so on. The cut-off marks for the standard performanc bands for 2-unit courses in the current year may be set as follows:
2-unit courses
Band             1         2        3         4         5         6
Cut-off          0         45      55       64       74       82
Extension courses (except Mathematics Extension 2)
Band             E1       E2       E3       E4
Cut-off          0         20       32       40
Mathematics Extension 2
Band             E1       E2       E3       E4
Cut-off          0         45       60       80

We shall walk through the process of determining the HSC result with the example of Alex in the current year HSC.