Derived exam ratings are restricted to senior secondary students experiencing unfortunate and unplanned circumstances, such as being sick, an emergency or other exceptional unexpected circumstances.

The process to determine a derived exam rating is designed to ensure you receive a fair and equitable course result when you are unable to sit the exam for a Level 3 or Level 4 course.

The derived rating you receive is based on your internal assessments during the year and then ‘derived’ using the external assessment performance of other students in your course who performed at a similar level to you in their internal assessments. Your derived rating for the exam won’t necessarily be the same as your internal ratings as it will rely on similar student performance in the exam.

The derived rating process recognises your achievement while also ensuring that the results of students who sat the exams and those that were unable to do so are consistent and comparable.

It also acknowledges that the outcome of senior secondary education isn’t simply the rating on an assessment but the knowledge, habits and ability to learn and take those skills into the future.

A ‘derived exam rating’ is a way of determining what results a student would likely have achieved if they had sat their exam. The ratings can be applied to all of the end-of-year external assessments (if required).

The ratings produce reliable results for students who have the misfortune of illness or personal circumstances that prevent them from being able to complete their scheduled external assessment.

Derived exam ratings involve complex statistical calculations of probability to ensure they are as accurate and comparable as possible and provide a fair and equitable course result for students. A simplified explanation of the steps is:

  1. Considering the school-based internal ratings in the assessments that the student completed during the year.
  2. Considering how the other students in that same course (who achieved similar internal ratings) did when they sat the exam or assessment.
  3. Using this data to produce a derived external assessment rating for the assessment(s) that were missed.

 

 

See Illness & emergency during exams for information about how to apply for derived exam ratings due to illness or an emergency special arrangement.

The Statement of Results for students who receive derived exam ratings does not specify that the results are from derived exam ratings.

A student who receives derived exam ratings is also awarded the other results and qualifications they are eligible for. For example, the Tasmanian Certificate of Education (TCE) or an Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR).

Use of derived exam ratings is a long-established process. All Australian states use comparable processes to generate senior secondary student results when students have legitimate reasons for not being able to complete an external assessment.