Gunnedah’s Year 12 students have officially started their Higher School Certificate (HSC).
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The Namoi Valley Independent had a chat with Gunnedah High School’s Kustiani Tuckerman and Jaxon Holbrook and St Mary’s College’s Annerley Fitzsimmons after their first English exam.
Kustiani and Jaxon said the atmosphere in the two-hour exam wasn’t tense as they had expected.
“It was better than I thought,” Kustiani said.
“Everyone was smiling when they finished.”
Jaxon said the exam was on par with the HSC trials.
“I’m good because I feel chilled,” he said.
“I really thought it would be harder being our final exam.
“It’s good that it wasn’t difficult for what we’ve been experiencing for our whole education.”
Kustiani said their teacher, Belinda Foran, had been a huge help in being exam-ready.
“I think what we’ve been doing in class has prepared us,” she said.
“Hats-off to Mrs Foran.”
Annerley sat both an English exam and a music exam.
“I was able to answer all the questions in the English paper one confidently, so hopefully all is well and the answers are correct,” she said.
“I also had my music exam… It was an interesting aural exam and hopefully I did well, but I am glad they are both over.”
Annerley said her study was going well but “it is a bit stressful trying to remember everything”.
“My family says if you don't know it now you'll never know it, so hopefully I am prepared and equipped with the knowledge I need,” she said.
“I have a very hectic exam schedule with five exams in the first four days so after English on Tuesday I have senior science followed closely by PDHPE.”
Kustiani and Jaxon are also preparing for their second English exam, then Kustiani has a break until Monday when she will sit her Mathematics exam. Jaxon is straight into his PDHPE exam on Thursday.
“[I have] my three hardest but that’s nice; it’s good to get it out of the way,” Jaxon said.
The student has a unique way of tackling his exam papers – he completes the questions at random, starting an essay then moving on to another question before going back to the essay.
“I find it hard to do one thing at a time,” Jaxon said.
“I just feel like it’s really daunting if you finish a section and have to start all over again in another section.”
Kustiani said she found it difficult to balance study time for each subject, but recently had some news that made her feel less stressed about her results.
“I feel less pressure coming into it because I got early entry into Wollongong for environmental engineering,” she said.
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