Week One, Day Two

The largest single examination in the 2010 HSC, Paper 1 for English Standard and Advanced, took place this morning from 9.30am to 11.30am.

Some 62,267 students sat the same paper this morning, facing three questions worth a total of 45 marks.  Students used the new format writing booklets, announced by the Board earlier in the year. The Board now provides the same booklets for every exam.

Floods have threatened some students’ access to schools in southern parts of NSW but have not yet posed a major disruption to an exam. 

Students are reminded that they should never endanger themselves to reach an HSC examination.  If in any doubt about their ability to reach an exam they should call their school for advice. Students who fall ill or have an accident during the exam period should also call their school as soon as possible for advice on how to proceed. 

Principals and presiding officers have the Board’s Exam Operations Centre number and may call for advice if floods or other difficulties arise during exams.  The Board’s usual Illness/Misadventure provisions apply to any unforeseen events.

This afternoon students appeared for examinations in German Beginners, Japanese Beginners and Information Processes and Technology (IPT).  IPT is one of several HSC courses where markers will work onscreen, logging in to a secure internet connection each day.  In 2010 about 25 per cent of the Board’s HSC and SC courses will be marked onscreen.

Week One, Day One

More than 16,000 students completed the first 2010 HSC written examinations today in about 700 schools around NSW and in several overseas countries.

Watched over by more than 1000 supervisors, the students completed exams in Agriculture, Arabic, Business Studies, Chinese, Classical Greek, Entertainment and Modern Hebrew.

Overall, comments to the Board from teachers and students have been positive – ‘straightforward’, ‘challenging’ and ‘fair’ being a common response about the Business Studies exam this year.

The Board notes that a minor production error led to a changed order for two of the possible answers in the final multiple choice question in today’s Business Studies paper.

Instead of reading down the list ABCD, the options were listed ACBD.  This will not affect any student who chose the correct answer, which is worth one mark. Students querying the list were advised to mark the answer as it was labelled.

Tomorrow’s exams begin with the first mandatory exam, Paper 1 of English Standard and Advanced and English as a Second Language.