Determining HSC results
Understand how Higher School Certificate (HSC) results, performance bands and cut-off marks are determined by NESA's panel of judges, and how exam marks are aligned to achievement standards.
HSC results
Your HSC results will generally show 3 marks for each of your courses:
- an assessment mark
- an exam mark
- an HSC mark, which is the average of the assessment and exam marks.
You will also be assigned a performance band, which shows how well you performed compared to the standard in the course. Read more about understanding HSC marks and bands.
Aligning exam marks to achievement standards
Because exam papers and marking guidelines differ each year, the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) uses a procedure called 'standards setting' to align raw exam marks to performance band descriptions.
NESA then moderates assessment marks with the performance of the school group on the HSC examination. This allows student marks and performances to be compared over different years.
Performance band descriptions
Each performance band comes with a description. These descriptions outline typical performance demonstrated by students.
Band 6 represents the highest level of achievement, and Band 1 the lowest. A student who receives a higher mark within a band shows a stronger grasp of the required knowledge and skills for that band than a student with a mark towards the bottom of the band.
You are assigned to a performance band for each course, based on your HSC mark.
Determining HSC band cut-off marks
Expert markers known as 'judges' decide on the 'cut-off marks' for each band for each course. The supervisor of marking recommends markers to be judges. The judges decide the minimum mark needed in each exam to meet the achievement standard for each performance band.
To maintain the integrity of the standards-setting process, we don’t publish these marks. This allows judges to set each year’s cut-off marks without being influenced by those from previous years.
Deciding the cut-off marks for each performance band involves 4 stages.
Independent judging
- Judges refer to the standards materials to get a clear overall understanding of the standard at the borderline of each band.
- Each judge reviews each question and determines the mark that a student at the level between each performance band would receive.
- These marks are added together to get the judge’s set of recommended cut-off marks for the exam.
- All judges’ recommended marks for each band are averaged to get the team’s first set of estimated cut-off marks.
Team discussion
- The judges review statistics on:
- how students at different levels of attainment in the course performed on each question
- how they responded to different multiple-choice question options.
- Judges adjust their earlier recommendations as needed.
- The judges’ modified cut-off marks for each band are averaged to get the team’s second set of estimated cut-off marks.
Refinement and recommendation
- Judges review sample student responses marked at or near each cut-off mark and confirm that these are as expected at that level.
- Judges further refine their recommendations as needed.
- The judges recommend these cut-off marks to the HSC Standards Committee, which is made up of leading NSW authorities in educational measurement.
HSC Standards Committee review
- This expert committee reviews the judges’ work and recommendations, then decides the final cut-off marks.
- The committee also decides what to do if it finds any issues or anomalies in the whole exam, marking or standards-setting processes.
Aligning marks to performance bands
All exam marks are aligned to our standards-based reporting scale. When the cut-off marks have been decided, we use the mathematical technique below to align raw exam marks to our reporting scale.
The cut-off mark for band:
- 6 is adjusted to 90
- 5 is adjusted to 80
- 4 is adjusted to 70
- 3 is adjusted to 60
- 2 is adjusted to 50.
A mark of 100 stays at 100 and a mark of 0 stays at 0.
For Extension courses, the cut-off mark for band:
- E4 is adjusted to 45
- E3 is adjusted to 35
- E2 is adjusted to 25.
This means that 90 is the lowest mark a student can receive to be placed in Band 6. Students whose raw exam mark was on or above the cut-off mark between bands 5 and 6 will receive an exam mark somewhere between 90 and 100, using a technique called ‘interpolation’. Similarly, students whose raw exam marks fell between the Band 2/3 and Band 3/4 cut-offs will receive exam marks between 60 and 69 on their HSC.
Example of aligning marks
The cut-off marks for a hypothetical course could be:
- 82 for Band 6
- 74 for Band 5.
In this case:
- A student whose raw exam mark was 82, just meeting the standard for Band 6, would receive an exam mark of 90 on their HSC.
- A student whose raw exam mark was 74, just meeting the standard for Band 5, would receive an exam mark of 80.
Your final mark and performance band
The HSC mark averages your exam mark and assessment mark.
The mark you receive for each course, reported beside the exam mark and the assessment mark, is the average of these two marks.
Half-marks are rounded up to the nearest whole number. For example, if your exam mark is 92 and assessment mark is 89, the average is 90.5. This is then rounded up to an HSC mark of 91.
Your performance band for each course is based on your HSC mark. For example, if your HSC mark is 91 you will be placed in Band 6.