HSC scaling

HSC scaling is the process by which subject marks received by a student are compared through the use of a common scale. When a student takes the exam for a certain subject, he receives a raw exam mark, which is not his final score.  The final score is obtained by means of converting the raw exam marks into scaled marks. A student should understand or at least have a basic idea of how HSC scaling works in order to choose his HSC subjects carefully.

One particular point a student must know is if a subject is “scaled up” or “scaled down”, meaning is if a subject translates to a higher or lower mark in the common scale. For example, a score of 60 over 80 in one subject might produce a higher or lower equivalent than the same score in another subject. The process of scaling is complex and never revealed to the public, but students are at least given an idea about which subjects are highly or lowly scaled. Of course, more students would prefer to take high- scaling subjects because they would produce much greater marks.

The difficulty of the subject doesn’t directly affect how well it is scaled, but rather by how well the students performed in a certain subject relative to other subjects. However, it might be noticed that harder and uncommon subjects seem to scale higher in the sense that students who take up these subjects are likely to do better than other students in the other subjects.

A student who knows how HSC scaling works can use it to his advantage in choosing the right HSC subjects. But still, the key is to choose something you are really good at. You might need your skills to be assessed by an expert so you should have an idea if you would do well in a certain subject or not.