2015 Notes from the Marking Centre – Construction
Introduction
This document has been produced for the teachers and candidates of the Stage 6 Construction course. It contains comments on candidate responses to the 2015 Higher School Certificate examination, highlighting their strengths in particular parts of the examination and indicating where candidates need to improve.
This document should be read along with:
- the Construction Curriculum Framework Stage 6 Syllabus
- the 2015 Higher School Certificate Construction examination
- the marking guidelines
- advice for candidates attempting VET examinations
- Advice for HSC students about examinations
- other support documents developed by the Board of Studies, Teaching and Educational Standards NSW to assist in the teaching and learning of Construction in Stage 6
Section II
Candidates showed strength in these areas:
- providing a process for using a spirit level on a door jamb (Q16)
- providing a method to test squareness for the door opening (Q16)
- outlining factors to consider when drilling concrete (Q18)
- identifying symbols/features from the site plan (Q19)
- identifying information from the site plan to set up the site (Q19)
- identifying strategies that could be implemented to deal with harassment in the construction industry (Q20)
- applying formulae to work out the circumference of a garden bed (Q21)
- calculating volume (Q21)
- calculating surface area (Q21)
- extracting information from a diagram and calculating the area to be paved (Q21).
Candidates need to improve in these areas:
- outlining how to use a spirit level to find plumb (Q16)
- describing how to use the appropriate tools to test for squareness (Q16)
- describing the implications of construction delays (Q17)
- describing the effects of poor maintenance of tools and equipment (Q17)
- outlining functional adjustments to the drill (Q18)
- identifying the purpose of a symbol or feature on a site plan (Q19)
- correctly calculating the total cost of labour to set up a temporary fence (Q19)
- outlining how a builder would extract information from the site plan to set up the site (Q19)
- addressing all aspects of the question regarding workplace harassment and discrimination (Q20)
- converting all measurements to the correct value, for example, mm-m (Q21)
- placing the decimal point in the correct position (Q21)
- showing all working in mathematical questions (Q21).
Section III
Candidates showed strength in these areas:
- creating explicit links between quality work standards and ethical work practices
- using precise industry terminology
- describing quality work practices
- understanding quality work standards, practices, plans/specifications, local council requirements
- identifying WH&S procedures
- understanding of PPE and its importance in relation to quality/work practices
- recognising the importance of accuracy when cutting and measuring
- understanding the consequences of poor accuracy, such as the loss of reputation for quality work.
Candidates need to improve in these areas:
- understanding the meaning of the term ‘ethical’
- improving the use of industry terminology
- expanding on ideas and relating these ideas to the industry
- providing a range of examples to support a response
- writing in a sequential order when providing an outline for a process.
Section IV
Candidates showed strength in these areas:
- identifying a hazard
- describing effective ways to communicate on a worksite
- explaining effective ways of identifying hazards
- prioritising hazards from most dangerous to least dangerous
- extracting information from the stimulus and using this information in the response.
Candidates need to improve in these areas:
- linking the effect of workplace hazards to workers on site
- addressing all parts of the question
- using appropriate terminology.
NSW Government