ACT Senior Secondary System
School-based curriculum means that college teachers are involved in all curriculum development and that colleges determine what courses they offer to students. There is a commitment to offering high quality educational programs from a wide range of academic and vocational areas. Assessment in the ACT is continuous school based assessment. This means there are no external subject-based examinations. Courses are taught and assessed unit by unit. A unit of study is organised around a particular theme or skillset and has a value based on the time the unit took to deliver: One standard unit of study towards a Senior Secondary Certificate represents a minimum of 55 hours of structured learning activities generally over one semester. Moderation is conducted every semester to ensure comparability of grades from different schools and the ACT Scaling Test (AST), a higher order thinking examination, is used to compare Tertiary scores from different schools for calculation of the ATAR.