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HSC Standards Packages (CD)

In the HSC Standards Package for each subject, the Office of the Board of Studies has provided statistical information and samples of student work that indicate the standards at the crucial borderlines between the performance bands.

The 2002 Packages contain a range of students’ responses to 2001 HSC Examination questions – at each of the different band cut-offs. Additionally they contain exemplar responses – to illustrate what the highest standards achieved by students were. The packages also include:

• Course Syllabus
• HSC Examination Paper
• Marking Guidelines
• Multiple Choice Performance Statistics
• Performance Band Descriptions

Teachers should have access to the 2001 and 2002 packages for the HSC subjects they teach. New packages were not produced for 2003 or 2004. If necessary, copies of the packages can be ordered on the Board of Studies site. The site currently contains sample pages for all HSIE subjects for both 2001 and 2002:

Some schools have made the packages available for all teachers and students by placing then on school intranets whilst others allow students to borrow the CDs from the school library.

Benefits to students:

The materials enable students to develop further their understanding of the kind of work that matches the standards represented by the band descriptors.

Students can work with the packages and be guided to analyse the sample responses in respect to their strengths and weaknesses. They can look at the examination criteria and see to what extent responses matched them and look at the directive terms in the questions and again consider to what extent the sample response did in fact analyse, evaluate, discuss and so forth.

In some cases students can see that answering a short answer question clearly, according to directions, may earn full marks and that writing excessively long responses may rob them of time needed elsewhere in the paper for little or no gain.

Once familiar with working with the packages, students can then look at their own responses to examination questions; be self-critical and work out for themselves the strengths and weaknesses of their own responses and what they need to do for better marks.

Working through the Standards Package can help students develop their own understanding of how their work compares with the standards. They may then plan to improve their performance to achieve the higher standard represented in the next band level.