Talk:Higher School Certificate (New South Wales)

International Baccalaureate
I am in the ACT doing the International Baccalaureate... I was talking to a friend of mine who lives in sydney, and the conversation about the HSC prompted me to check out HSC past papers online... I noticed that they are remarkably similar to the IB exams... was just curious if the HSC system was actually modelled on the IB system?? and if so, is it worth mentioning in the article?? 58.168.254.237 13:48, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
 * The HSC has no relationship to the IB. WWGB 15:21, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Final HSC
This article states that the final HSC mark is partly based on a combination of internal assessments from years 11 and 12, however nothing from year 11 whatsoever counts towards the HSC or UAI; it is merely preparation. Should this be edited?
 * Maths (practically the only course not ammended for more humanities based new HSC) can use assessments from year 11 to rank students, but this is usually not the case. Additionally, you have to pass the preliminary course. Kenneth Charles 12:39, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * Maths (or any other subject) does not use assessments from year 11 to rank students. The only effect the preliminary course has on the HSC or the UAI, is that you must pass a preliminary course in a subject to take the HSC course. Kafkan 12:50, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
 * In the current maths syllabus, year 11 assesments can count towards your HSC assessment mark. see ACE Manual, Board of Studies, pg 110. AndrewHarvey4 (talk) 08:22, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * No, they cannot. Year 11 topics may be assessed towards the HSC, but not assessment tasks administered in Year 11. WWGB (talk) 13:45, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Oh yeah, yes you are correct. AndrewHarvey4 (talk) 05:54, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

UAI
The UAI - "and is essentially an "overall" score for the student calculated across their best subjects." - this is not true. It is a rank for university entrance and that is all. Not an overall score. UAC etc go to great pains to point this out each year.
 * Agreed, edited the page but added "this is generally considered, by students, to be representative of how they have performed" Xayma 13:51, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

"a student who achieved 50th-percentile rankings in subjects with an above average cohort would gain a better UAI than one who achieved the same rankings in a subject with a less able cohort." With the introduction of the "new" HSC (first year in practice was 2001) students no longer receive percentile rankings. They receive (supposedly raw - that is, unscaled) test marks against a graph showing the distribution of results.
 * The marks are still aligned (often seriously), shown by FOI requests. Kenneth Charles 12:39, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The Criticisms section - this seems very POV with no sources. Equivalent pages (eg VCE) have no such section. "Evidence of this comes in the form of drop-out rates in New South Wales Universities." This would need to be compared to, say, Vic/international drop out rates to prove that the HSC is particularly bad in these regards. "(the effect of taking courses with lower candidatures, a flaw abused in the older HSC, in order to achieve a higher percentile has been minimised by the capping of subjects in which a maximum scaled mark is placed lower then the norm)" - what is meant by this? what capping is being talked about here? I'm not aware of what this is talking about. The anon teacher quote surely does not belong.
 * A common criticism is that not enough people fail the HSC. Of course, this is all evened out in the UAI calculations, but the HSC is marked effectively between 50 and 100. This makes it hard to fail. Kenneth Charles 12:39, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Finally there is material missing - comment regarding the "new HSC" introducted in 2001. Reporting changed from students receiving scaled marks to receiving "raw" marks. Many courses were overhauled, e.g. English. Physics was also overhauled and is now criticised for having too much emphasis on "social and ethical impacts" etc rather than hardcore theory and maths (this is quite opposite to the criticism quoted in the article).

I am new to Wikipedia so I'm hesitant to run in and change this. I know it says 'be bold' but I'm still rereading all the newbie guides a million times. I sat the HSC in 2001 so I have a little knowledge of the previous system and a fair idea about the current. pfctdayelise 12:10, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Neutrality
I don't think this artile is at all adherent to WP:NPOV but I am at a loss as to how to fix it. I propose we get something like a POV check done for it, by someone who maybe doesn't know anything about the Australian education system. (I'm still trying to figure how exactly you go about that process, though.) Thoughts? Even if you don't have a Wikipedia account, please feel free to comment. - pfctdayelise 13:46, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
 * As a year 12 student currently doing the HSC, it seems pretty accurate. The article itself is not critical of the HSC, it merely cites common criticisms of it. The wiki article about Hitler is hardly glowing either, but I doubt many people will claim it to be NPOV. Frob 07:36, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
 * If it cites them, it should provide sources. Otherwise, it's just weasel words. Common according to who? If they're so common, we should have sources running out our ears. I'm not saying it's never criticised -- but it's so political, which makes WP:NPOV even more important. Secondly, I don't think comparisons with Hitler have helped any debate, ever. See Godwin's Law. :) (Nevermind the fact that Hitler is one of the most heavily edited pages on WP - I actually think it would be pretty damn NPOV by now.) -pfctdayelise 12:39, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't think you'll be able to find anyone who knows about the HSC and who is also neutral. Those who know about it invariably have some bias regarding it. I'm in the middle of my HSC exams and so probably should abscond from editing this article at least until my exams, and hatred, of the HSC are over. Your opinion of whether I have a conflict of interest? Razol2 13:14, 18 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Should every American declare a conflict of interest when editing Dubya? I sat the HSC in 2001. Certainly most people will have an opinion about it, but I hope that they edit in good faith and with NPOV in mind, rather than advancing their opinion of the flaws of the HSC. WP is not a soapbox. Fair enough, don't you think? pfctdayelise 13:54, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Well thats what I was thinking, but it doesn't leave much to the imagination about my opinions. I mean the exam I sat today had major flaws in the admisistration of those undertaking their exams. ie. People writing after the exam had ended, some up to 5 minutes due to the extensive and unwieldly admisistration that occurs post exam. Seeing these things destroys your faith in the BOS Razol2 13:58, 18 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Something like that can't be blamed on the BOS itself. The supervisors of these exams are human too - not to mention the majority of them being aged and old. --Vylen 02:58, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

It's fair to say that the HSC is quite a controversial exam and there are a fair few op-ed's that criticise it. It's not suprising therefore that it has a larger criticism section than equivelant exams. My personal feeling is that pretty soon we are going to start hearing calls to make the HSC easier.

Added the tag to the article. I think we all agree that it's far from neutral. Anyone NPOV checking it should have no knowledge of the Australian Education Sytem, though.211.30.219.64 03:52, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Changed the tag to {POV|Neutrality}} It seems more fitting211.30.219.64 03:55, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I would think part of the lack of usable citations is the fact that a lot of these criticisms come from students themselves, who generally don't, say, write newspaper articles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.106.50.219 (talk) 02:18, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

British examination
Reference should be made to the old British examination of this name (pre-GCE). Jackiespeel 18:39, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
 * It has a separate entry, Higher School Certificate (UK). WWGB 08:17, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

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Taking HSC early?
I don't live in New South Wales. As a matter of fact, I don't even live in Australia. But I have friends who live there. They told me that you can take the HSC early and go to college at the age of sixteen. Is this true? I do not see anything about that in the article.

I was born and raised in Los Angeles, and here we have a CHSPE, which means we can take it and graduate high school at the age of sixteen. However, we have to attend community college before transferring to an actual university. I was wondering how it is over there? ★ Dasani ★ 03:14, 2 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Especially talented students may accelerate to the Higher School Certificate in shorter time. Details are available here (see page 35). WWGB (talk) 06:11, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I read it but the wording is too complex for me to understand, or maybe it's that I missed that part... There are over fifty pages in that .pdf file. I read something about how they can take it if the child is incredibly "gifted", but what does that mean? They will be graduating from James Ruse next year... They told me, "Anyone in our school could take it, but we need the full HSC to get into a good college." However, this does not make sense to me. Because, well, it's a different country. Unlike the US, Australia doesn't really have a concept of a "Harvard", "Stanford", and such institutions. They even told me. I'm sorry to come out like I'm posting on a forum, but how exactly does that work? Do they progress to community college and then go ahead to a big four year like us? There's two versions of the test? I really don't live there and have never even set foot in this country across the world so I'm not sure. ★ Dasani ★ 05:31, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Victorian HSC
According to this Victoria also offered a qualification called a HSC until 1986. Not sure, however, whether the two were one and the same or separate qualifications offered by different bodies. Hopefully someone can clear this up. Cheers TheRetroGuy (talk) 22:03, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
 * That is/was a different credential. Every state and territory in Australia has a different education system, and hence a different leaving credential. WWGB (talk) 01:02, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for clearing this up. I think it's worth mentioning the Victorian HSC to avoid possible confusion for anyone who might come to this article looking for it, so I've added the correct info. It's in the leader at present, but you might want to move it elsewhere. Cheers TheRetroGuy (talk) 09:09, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually I've been thinking about this for the last couple of hours. As the two are unrelated I think I'll start a new article. Hopefully someone who is more familiar with the subject will be able to expand it. Cheers TheRetroGuy (talk) 11:19, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Proposed merge with The Age of Silicon
The Age of Silicon is hardly notable of itself. I was going to AfD it, but perhaps it fits is this article. Q VVERTYVS (hm?) 11:54, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Merged. And undid an edit that removed the merged text and proposed a merge. Comments to the merge and subsequent changes of its result should appear here to reach a consensus. WikiHannibal (talk) 12:34, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

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