HUNTER students said they felt "thrown" by some questions in English Paper 2 Modules - including an unexpected last section - but were well prepared to roll with the punches.
Maitland High students Lily Trench, Georgia Collins and Emily Baldwin, all 18, said they were glad to relegate one of their most content-heavy papers to the past.
"It was a lot better than I thought it would be," Lily said.
"I probably could have gone better if I had studied a bit more but besides that I think it was pretty good."
Georgia said she was "pretty relieved it's over".
"The short answers were pretty good and easier than trials, the extended responses though were a different story, but I think I did pretty alright."
Emily said the two English papers "take so much out of you because there's so much writing involved".
"I'm definitely happy it's over," she said.
"It was equally challenging as it was easier than I expected, it was a decent mix of both."
The first section for advanced students Lily and Emily was about textual conversations.
Lily said the paper had a still and dialogue from one of their prescribed texts, film Looking for Richard - the other was Shakespeare's Richard III- and asked students to explain how the extract and texts showed the collision of perspectives between the two composers.
"It was a bit daunting when I first looked at it because I wasn't too sure what to do, but once I started it was alright," Lily said.
"I was a bit intimidated by it because I hadn't done anything along the lines of that extract," Emily said.
"But once I sat back for a second and thought of some different ideas I was able to get it all down."
The first section for standard student Georgia was about language, identity and culture and asked students to answer a question about contemporary Asian-Australian poems and identity.
"I struggled with it and I had to definitely bend it so it fit what I wanted it to do," she said.
"I had to go back and forth, I started writing something, thought 'I can't do any more', went to something else and then came back to it multiple times."
The second section was a critical study of literature for advanced students and a close study of literature for standard students. Lily and Emily answered how TS Elliot's poetry expanded and altered their perceptions of entrapment.
"I found it difficult because we've been learning about isolation so it was along the same lines but not about being trapped, so I was thrown," Emily said.
"I talked about isolation and alienation of individuals because of urbanisation - he was very against industrialisation."
Lily said she expected to provide analysis, not her own opinion.
"I struggled to say how it affected me but I thought about how the quotes made me feel."
Georgia was given an extract from prescribed text The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and asked about its central ideas.
"It threw me because the chapter they chose was not one I had in mind - it wasn't that I glazed over that chapter, I knew that chapter and what it was about, but it threw me because I was ready with other things," she said.
"It did tell you to relate it to the rest of the text as well, which helped."
The third section was about the craft of writing.
The girls said students were usually asked to refer to their prescribed text and write either a persuasive, imaginative or discursive piece and then a reflection.
Instead, Emily said advanced students were given an unseen extract about how sharing with others brought personal fulfilment and asked about techniques in the piece.
"I thought 'What's going on?', I was thrown... I almost thought it was a trick question," Emily said.
"It wasn't too bad but it was unusual," Lily said. "It was easier after doing yesterday's paper."
The second question asked them to write an imaginative or discursive piece about personal fulfilment.
They said neither question asked them to refer to their prescribed texts.
Lily said she was a little disappointed because she had memorised specific quotes.
"I still felt I could use what I learned in my prescribed texts and apply it to that, but I probably wasn't as well prepared for it," she said.
Emily said she was pleased students weren't asked to refer to prescribed texts.
Georgia said standard students were asked a question about an unseen text - a podcast about taste - and to write about one of the five senses.
Again, neither question asked about prescribed texts.
"I was kind of disappointed at the start because I quite enjoyed the prescribed texts," she said.
"But I didn't have quotes, I had techniques.
"It was pretty straight forward and had a lot of things you could do for it and was pretty open-ended.
"It was definitely thinking on your feet."
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