TAKING practice tests, memorising content and balancing study breaks, year 12 students across the Hunter are ready to sit the Higher School Certificate.
Almost 4000 students in Newcastle and Lake Macquarie, and close to 2000 in the Hunter Valley will join 70,000 others across the state in picking up their pens on Tuesday, October 15, for English Paper 1 - the first on the exam timetable.
Newcastle Grammar School year 12 students Sasha Stockham, Maya Agostina-Morrow, Alex Roth and Brin Valaire have been putting in the study hours and are feeling well prepared.
"I'm not too concerned. I think the school has set us up well and we're just kind of keen for it to be over," Sasha, 18, said.
Her whiteboard is her "best friend" at the moment as she scribbles down her ideas using the active recall and active revision study method.
"I've been blurting a lot of ideas and quotes on there as well as doing past papers."
Sasha said she was looking forward to her ancient history exam and least looking forward to English Paper 2.
"There is so much in one exam, so time management is probably going to be a struggle for me."
Maya, 17, said her study had been "pretty productive" and she had used AI sources to help her revise.
"I've used ChatGPT to give me quizzes and explain difficult concepts," she said.
Two days before an exam, she dedicates her study to one topic.
But then between those - to give my mind a break from that one subject - I'll work on the next one, and I'll go down the list in chronological order of all my exams," she said.
She wanted to remind other HSC students that the results weren't everything, and to take some pressure off their shoulders.
"Ultimately, at the end of the day, you are more than a mark. The HSC is a blip in the year and next year we are going to achieve so much more," she said.
Alex Roth, 17, was applying himself to his STEM subjects and was feeling confident ahead of his physics, chemistry and maths exams.
"I feel like I'm pretty STEM-focused in a lot of my aspects of life. I'm not looking forward to English, but once that's over I think I'll be pretty happy with the rest of them," he said.
He said sometimes it could be difficult to find motivation to study for exams you didn't want to do, but he encouraged others to pick up the textbook, even if it was just for five or 10 minutes.
"You eventually get into a rhythm where you just continue doing it until you eventually stop and just call it a day," he said.
Brin Valaire, 18, has been practising past papers and writing essays under time conditions and said he was feeling confident.
"At this point, with all the studies I've done and all the help the teachers have given, I'm excited to get it over and done with," he said.
Brin has also been surfing, advocating it's important to have down time to give yourself a break between study sessions.
The students also have future plans on their radars with Sasha receiving early entry into ANU Canberra for Political Science, Maya with early entry to Macquarie University of a Bachelor of Archaeology and Ancient History and Brin with early into into Phsyiotherapy at the University of Newcastle. Alex hopes to study engineering at the University of Sydney or UNSW.
Exemptions for 11,000 students
It's expected this year that 11,000 year 12 students may have exemptions to sit their HSC, including rest breaks, extra time and feeding breaks, after more than one in seven accessed disability provisions last year.
Disability provisions allow students to participate in the examination process and show markers what they know and can do. Emergency provisions are also approved for late injuries such as a broken arm prior to the examinations.
Applicants approved for disability provisions do not receive additional marks.
While figures for the 2024 HSC are yet to be confirmed, the NSW Education Standards Authority's (NESA) records show 14.9 per cent of students were approved for disability provisions in 2023, a significant increase across the past five years.
Of those students, 230 students required assistance to turn pages or move onto the next question, over 1100 with vision or cognitive disability needed extra time, and almost 8000 students had rest breaks after they demonstrated pain, anxiety disorder/concentration issues with difficulty to complete an exam without a break.
