‘My brain has blanked it all out’: One question has stumped many year 12 students during this year’s first exam

About 3000 students from around the state have undertaken the mathematical methods exam with some students left scratching their heads over one question.

As year 12 students streamed out of the testing hall at Adelaide High School, they were all chatting about the questions that stumped them during the mathematical methods exam.

Students Finn, Elia, Pranati and Elsa all took the exam and came out of it with varying degrees of confidence.

Mathematical methods was the first SACE exam on Monday and one of the most popular for students around the state.

It was the third most popular exam in South Australia with almost 3000 students tackling the test.

The exam, split into two question booklets, gradually ramped up to the most difficult questions in the second half, which was full of advanced algebra.

The Adelaide High students were stumped in particular by question nine of ten, which tasked them with finding a point of a graph with an equation.

Adelaide High School students (L-R) Finn, Pranati, Elia and Elsa coming out of the first year 12 exam of the period. Photo: Naomi Jellicoe

Head prefect Finn said the first half of the exam was “quite the breeze”, but the second half was a challenge.

“That’s where my mind really got a bit twisted,” said Finn, 18, who still had physics and specialist maths exams to go.

“I couldn’t really get it in the end but I might still get a few marks for it.”

Fellow student Elia, 18, is hoping for an A minus grade for the exam despite the difficult final questions.

“I can’t even remember it because my brain has blanked it all out and I don’t even think I completed it,” she said.

Elia, who has two more difficult exams to go, said there were “a couple of questions that were worded a bit hard”.

Pranati had to balance celebrations for the Hindu Diwali festival with study but despite this, she said the test “wasn’t the hardest”.

“I did procrastinate and I took about three days off for cultural events,” said Pranati, who had another two exams to go.

The 18-year-old attempted the difficult question nine last but ran out of time.

Elsa, who is already studying a subject at university, histology, said she “really cruised through booklet one and the start of booklet two”.

“I didn’t have anything where I thought ‘oh I definitely didn’t get that right’,” Elsa, 18, said.

Adelaide High School students take the first SACE exam of the period, mathematical methods. Picture: Brett Hartwig

Head of senior years at Adelaide High School, Warren Eaton, said mathematical methods was the most popular exam at the school and of 290 year 12 students, 81 took the test.

Students had been preparing for the exam since early in the year with tutors and graduates providing advice.

Exams account for 30 per cent of the overall grade and Mr Eaton said “it certainly isn’t something that defines a student”.

“If they prepare themselves the best they can throughout the year they’re not leaving anything to chance,” he said.