WHAT IS SCALING?

Competition in the top places for Universities is tough To get into courses like Medicine Law Commerce and other Health Sciences you need to have very strong ATARs Your ATAR is your ticket to University, and it is therefore very important you understand exactly what it takes to score the ATAR you are looking for

In this article I will show you what it takes to target and achieve any ATAR, i e what you need to score in each of your individual subjects in order to score your target ATAR

Why is this important? Many of you who are reading are probably aspiring to be engineers, businessmen, doctors or lawyers – which requires high ATARs (95 to 99) The problem with aiming for an ATAR of say 95 is you don’t understand what it means in each subject. By breaking down the scaling of each subject we will show you how you can actually convert this ATAR goal of 95 into a rank in each subject

WHAT IS SCALING?

Scaling is the process of standardising marks so that they can be compared across subjects. In scaling marks, the UAC will adjust the highest mark, median mark and standard deviation so that all subjects are directly comparable The reason it is needed is that without scaling, it would be impossible to compare a 95 in Economics with a 95 in Mathematics Extension 2

Atar Vs Uac

The UAC basically converts the averaged HSC Assessment and HSC

Examination Marks to their own UAC score through a process of scaling to a UAC score Each unit is converted to a score of 50 and the best 10 units (including English) are used to calculate a score of 500 Most students are unaware that their ATAR is calculated from this base score of 500 The table below illustrate the relationship:

Scaling Graphs

The most important thing to note is that not all subjects are created or scaled equally Some subjects that are considered harder are obviously scaled higher, whilst some subjects in which it is easy to score high marks will be scaled downwards

The graph below (fig 1) gives you a good indication of how subject scales From the previous table, you should be able to see if you wanted to score an ATAR of, say 99, you would need to score ~45/50 Following those marks, you can see that you would need to score in the top 56% of Maths Ext 2 the top 23% of Maths Ext 1, but in the top 4% of Maths Advanced For simplicity’s sake we’ve shown what it takes to score ATARs of 95, 97 and 99 respectively

What you now have are the relative benchmarks for performance to score any ATAR. Hence suppose you were aiming for an ATAR of 99 00: If you were in the top 20% for Maths Ext 2 but in the top 20% for English, this graph clearly indicates that your time will be better spent in English, because an improvement to the Top 10% in English is going to deliver much better gains than a similar improvement in Maths

HOW DO THE DIFFERENT SUBJECTS SCALE?

At Talent 100 we’ve examined the scaling of categories of subjects such as Mathematics, English, Science and the Humanities When you examine the scaling graphs, some clear trends emerge:

WE’LL TEACH YOU TO STUDY SMARTER, NOT HARDER

In this article we’ve shown you what standards of performance you need in each of your individual subjects in order to score a particular overall ATAR The next step is to achieve those standards of performance

If you are in Year 9-12 and are studying Mathematics, Physics Chemistry, and English, our courses can help you do just that

1 We will teach you every syllabus dot point to a full marks standard Our aim here is to help you understand the work rather than memorize it This will equip you with the knowledge to answer every question in the exam

2 We also methodically perfect your examination technique so that you can It is important that you don’t make careless mistakes and that you manage your time effectively That’s why we have exam style homework that conditions students to the rigour of examinations It is perfect practice that makes perfect, rather than practice alone

Our concise straight-forward and results-focused approach has helped the Talent 100 students perform at the top of Sydney’s best private and selective schools If you would like to know more information about scaling or any of our courses, please register for the free information seminar or call 1300 999 100 Further information about our course can be found at www talent-100 com au

Source: Report on the Scaling of the 2008 NSW HSC

You should use this graph to target the UAC score out of 500 you need to achieve your desired ATAR This way, you can be fairly certain what ATAR you are heading for well before you sit your exams and adjust your study patterns accordingly For instance if you wanted to score an ATAR of 99 you would need 449 or roughly 45/50 for every subject