The NSW Higher School Certificate is a huge operation with many, many people, papers and processes all leading to the final results. Each year at this time, as the start of Year 12 in Term 4 draws close, many Year 11 students and their parents send us questions about how parts of the HSC work. For example, what is moderation? How do you check your assessment ranking? Who sets the exams? To help you understand how all these parts come together, we've put together a new web-based description of How Your HSC Works. Breaking the process up into nine big steps, How Your HSC Works will walk you through from Step 1, being eligible to start the HSC in Term 4, to the final Step 9 where results are delivered before Christmas the following year. In between, the steps describe such things as where exam papers come from and where they go and how we know exactly where each student's marks are at any time. And just as some people only want to know how to drive a car, while others also want to understand the fuel injection system, there are different levels of information in each of the nine steps. The most important summaries are on each main step page, but many links are included to take you deeper into the more technical or comprehensive descriptions you might want to read. And if you like factoids - we have those too. Where else would you find out that a gathering of all the HSC students, markers, supervisors and support staff would fill the Sydney Olympic Stadium? Or that in the Class of 2009, Nguyen is the second most common surname and Daniel Brown is the most common first and last name combination? Designed with Year 11 students in mind, we think How Your HSC Works will be useful for other readers with an interest in how many checks and balances are in place to guarantee the quality of the final results. We're planning to build on this bank of information for students, parents and teachers in a range of ways, so please send your comments and ideas to us at information@bos.nsw.edu.au. Don't miss out! Get your Board news fast and from the source with our easy email news alerts. Simply enter your address in the box to the right of this article and remember to verify when you get our confirmation message.