Do internal marks really affect the external marks that much??? (1 Viewer)

[MathsN00b]

Recently my marks for all my subjects are either a fail or just passed the average mark. At the start of Year 12 I was doing pretty well before I started failing during the second half of my exams.
I'm ranked 2nd last in 3U Mathematics, 10th last in English Advanced and 8th last in Chemistry. I've constantly been regretting leaving my study to the last few days and now I want to push my ranks up to at least top 10.
My only exams left are the trials and the HSC.
I really want to get an ATAR of 92+ but I'm not sure whether achieving that goal is possible. :/

Hence I ask these questions:

Will the trials help me push up my ranks if I do well or only by a little?

Do I really need to come first in my trials in order to push my ranks up to top 10?

I've heard that if you do really well in the HSC but do really bad in your externals, then your HSC mark will be pulled down. I don't know if this is true.

I need advice.

 

[bigdawstv]

Your external mark cant get changed man, only internal. Just smash trials and do even better IN HSC.

 

[Sien]

Your external mark cant get changed man, only internal. Just smash trials and do even better IN HSC.

i heard that like for eg if you come 15th internally, you get the 15th highest mark scored in the external exam?

 

[D94]

i heard that like for eg if you come 15th internally, you get the 15th highest mark scored in the external exam?

You probably heard correctly, but that information is 100% incorrect.

Your internal mark reflects how well you performed in school, not how well others did in the HSC exam. Your school marks are unique to your cohort. It shows the range, the average and the spread of those marks. Those parameters will be reflected in your adjusted marks. Your HSC exam marks are separate from how you did in school. Half your school might have had a bad exam and the other half might have done well. First in school might not have done as well. Middle ranged students might end up getting good exam marks. So the scenario you described is in no way fair or accurate of your school performance.

 

[rembo]

Well, I'd guess an ATAR of 92 isn't very realistic if you are coming "2nd last in 3U Mathematics, 10th last in English Advanced and 8th last in Chemistry" at the moment (unless there are only a dozen or so people doing those subjects in your school).

The external HSC mark is purely the HSC exam mark (unless it gets adjusted due to illness/misadventure appeal), so it doesn't get affected by your internal assessment mark and ranking.

Your internal mark is basically calculated from your ranking in the school for each subject (which at this stage will be more or less set - the trial HSC isn't always part of school assessment, although it can be - your school should have given you details of the assessment tasks at the start of HSC year) and the HSC exam marks obtained by your school.

There is some interpolation of HSC marks to calculated your internal mark from your ranking (ie. while the top rank person gets the top HSC exam mark for their internal mark, and the median ranked person will get the median HSC exam mark, there is some adjustment of the HSC marks for the other ranks to calculate the internal marks (to allow for the relative total assessment mark distribution possibly being different to the HSC exam mark distribution curve)), so it's not quite as simple as 'the 12th ranked person (internal assessment) gets the 12th ranked HSC exam mark as their internal mark'... but that's a good 'rule of thumb'.

Also, the internal assessment mark used to determine your rank is based on the HSC course year only (except in Mathematics, where the preliminary assessment tasks can be used for no more than 20% of the Mathematics assessment). So the fact that you were doing well at the start of Yr 12 won't help your total assessment mark much. The trial exam also won't help if your school assessment tasks don't include it.

My advice would be to study as much as possible to get a good HSC exam mark (but the top ranked students will also be studying, so moving from 2nd last to top 10 is a big ask), and then carefully look at courses that require less than 92 ATAR so you can put in realistic second and third choice on your uni application... no point applying only for courses that require 92 ATAR when you might end up with an 85...