FIGHTING against the clock, year 12 mathematics students were calculating to the last minute of Monday's HSC exam.
St Francis Xavier's College, Hamilton students Lily Bower, Scarlett Jones and Charlotte Francis sat the standard mathematics HSC test on October 21 and said it was nothing short of challenging.
"I thought it was harder than expected. It was definitely harder than last year's going off the past papers that we've been doing," Lily said.
"And it was also a lot longer than I thought it was going to be."
Lily said she barely had enough time to go back and double check her answers to questions.
"I felt I was a bit pressured for time because there was a lot of questions that had multi steps, so you don't get to fly through them as quick as you wanted," she said.
She said she chose to do standard maths because she felt it was a useful skill to have for the future.
"I wouldn't say I enjoy maths but I'm good at it and a lot of the topics in standard I find you need more in your every day life than what you would in advanced," she said.
Scarlett said there was a lot of writing for a mathematics exam.
"There were a lot of questions where you had to write an inverse from graphs and a lot of the questions said no calculations necessary," she said.
"It's so hard to know whether you're writing the exact thing they want, whereas with calculations - that is such a standard answer. It was less than what I was expecting going into a maths exam."
Charlotte found the test to be "quite challenging" towards the end.
"It wasn't at all like the past papers from the last two years. I wasn't expecting it. I feel like I went okay, but I definitely needed all the time. I didn't get much time to go back over it," she said.
The girls have three exams left each and said they were feeling under control and at ease with all three gaining early entry into the University of Newcastle next year.
This year more than 76,000 students are sitting the HSC across the state. With a record 80,166 students completing at least one HSC course in 2024, the HSC remains the most popular high school credential in the country.
