Students across the state have eyed the finish line as more than 60,000 sat the first English paper this morning.
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Students have knuckled down for the past two weeks to prepare for the final exams.
Wagga High School’s vice-captain Matilda O’Connor said the nerves have gone and she is ready to tackle the rest of her exams.
“I’m running off adrenaline really, which is probably the best thing for tomorrow’s exam and I’m ready to go home and prepare for it,” she said.
Since graduating from high school two weeks ago, Matilda said she has struggled to find the motivation to get back into study.
“It was a huge struggle and probably the most confronting thing in those two weeks following the end of school to then go and find that motivation to prepare for the upcoming exams,” she said.
The English exam consisted of three papers, including unseen texts, creative writing and an essay.
The unseen texts consisted of a number of short answer questions and required students to demonstrate how these materials presented different ideas about discovery.
The second paper required students to demonstrate the concept of discovery through a creative writing piece.
The final component of the English exam was the essay, where students had to form a structured piece of writing that answered the question.
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Another year 12 student Makenna Lucas was relieved that the first exam was over.
“I was feeling a bit nervous, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be,” she said.
Makenna said she used some tactics in the exam and started with the creative writing paper, followed by the essay and then the unseen texts.
“I did a prepared creative response that I rewrote to different stimulus to make it fit and I did that first, because I had memorised it and just needed to tweak it and I wanted to get the big stories done first,” she said.
Wagga High School principal Chris Davies said he is experiencing the exams from “both sides” as his daughter is also undertaking HSC at Kooringal High School.
“I don’t get nerves, I just hope they’ve done the study and I know they’ve done the study and I hope they achieve and get the results that they deserve and want so that they can move forward in their lives,” Mr Davies said.
Both Wagga High students have been accepted into their university business and law degrees, but have chosen they will defer for a year and work full-time.
Offering study tips to their fellow classmates, Makenna and Matilda both said that practice exams and past papers have been the “most effective”.
Design and technology and drama will conclude the three week exam period on Friday, November 9.
HSC results will be available via Students Online and sent by email and SMS from 6am on Thursday, December 13.