Assessment
Course standards
Course standards are comprised of syllabus standards and performance standards. Syllabus outcomes and content form the syllabus standards that describe what students are expected to know, understand and do. Performance standards, including the Common Grade Scale for Preliminary courses, HSC Performance Band Descriptions and Achievement Level Descriptions (for HSC courses with grades only) describe how well students have achieved in relation to syllabus standards. Performance standards are used to report student achievement on NESA credentials.
Common Grade Scale for Preliminary courses
The Loading provides generic, holistic descriptions for performance at each of the 5 grade levels. It is used to report student achievement in Year 11 courses in all NSW schools.
Performance Band Descriptions for Business Studies
HSC performance band descriptions summarise the knowledge, understanding and skills typically demonstrated by students at each band level in a particular course. NESA uses these holistic descriptions to report a student's overall level of achievement in an HSC course.
Band 6
A student who performs at this level typically:
demonstrates extensive knowledge and understanding of business functions and activities, and influences on business performance
demonstrates skilful application of business concepts to comprehensively analyse the effects of business activities and the interdependencies between business functions
makes well-informed judgements about business performance and decisions by skilfully applying understanding to business scenarios
skilfully interprets data and applies appropriate mathematical tools in business contexts to draw insightful conclusions
skilfully communicates business ideas and concepts in a range of appropriate forms.
Band 5
A student who performs at this level typically:
demonstrates thorough knowledge and understanding of business functions and activities, and influences on business performance
demonstrates effective application of business concepts to thoroughly analyse the effects of business activities and the interdependencies between business functions
makes informed judgements about business performance and decisions by effectively applying understanding to business scenarios
effectively interprets data and applies appropriate mathematical tools in business contexts to draw informed conclusions
effectively communicates business ideas and concepts in a range of appropriate forms.
Band 4
A student who performs at this level typically:
demonstrates sound knowledge and understanding of business functions and activities, and influences on performance
demonstrates sound application of business concepts to analyse the effects of business activities and the interdependencies between business functions
makes judgements about business performance and decisions by applying understanding to business scenarios
interprets data and applies mathematical tools in business contexts to draw clear conclusions
clearly communicates business ideas and concepts in a range of forms.
Band 3
A student who performs at this level typically:
demonstrates basic knowledge of business functions, activities and influences
demonstrates basic skills in using business concepts to describe business functions and activities
describes business performance and/or decisions based on business scenarios
refers to data and uses mathematical tools in one or more business contexts
communicates business ideas and concepts in one or more forms.
Band 2
A student who performs at this level typically:
demonstrates limited knowledge of business functions and activities
outlines business decisions and/or performance and/or influences
uses elementary data and mathematical tools
communicates some business ideas or concepts.
Band 1
Performance reported as Band 1 indicates that the minimum standard expected was not demonstrated.