How to ace the HSC: Exam tips Newcastle TikTok star student Jasmine Withford ‘swears by’

This TikTok influencer is on track for a 99+ ATAR, achieving band 6s in accelerated mathematics before setting foot in a Year 12 HSC exam. Watch the video and read the tricks she swears by.

On social media, Newcastle Grammar School student and ‘studytok’ influencer Jasmine Withford is a picture of serenity as she broadcasts her aesthetically pristine desk set-up and colour-coded notes to her 27,000 followers.

In real life, the 18-year-old TikToker has big ambitions, setting her sights on a 99+ ATAR and admission to the University of Melbourne’s guaranteed entry to medicine pathway.

With the final exams looming, less than a fortnight away, Ms Withford stands in good stead to reach her goal – she’s already secured top marks in advanced and extension mathematics through a Year 11 accelerated course, and ranks first in her cohort for biology and chemistry.

Jasmine Withford, 18-year-old star student at Newcastle Grammar School, shares her HSC study tips with the world via TikTok.

The soothing, aesthetically pleasing videos are part of the ‘studytok’ trend.

Through trial and error, Ms Withford has adopted study strategies she believes will gain her more band six results to come, from condensing the amount of content she revises to “blurting … religiously”, and says other Year 12 students should try them out for themselves.

Ms Withford starts off by producing beautiful, highly-organised subject notes including mind maps on an iPad with a stylus, but from now until her exams “application” with pen and paper will be her focus.

“I do all of the different Sydney schools’ past … trial papers. There’s a lot of kids who, when they see me put down a James Ruse paper for example, they’re like, ‘Oh, that’s my school’, and we talk about the questions they found difficult,” she said.

“I used to put a lot more time into making my summary notes, but at the end of the day, there’s only an hour or three hours for the HSC worth of content that they can test you on.”

Jasmine Withford, 18-year-old star student at Newcastle Grammar School, shares her HSC study tips with the world via TikTok.

She says students shouldn’t get tripped up trying to memorise swathes of content on a topic just because it was studied in depth at their school.

“There’s a lot of topics, say in biology, that they would never ask you a seven-mark (question) on (in the HSC), you just need to know three or four marks’ worth of it … you don’t need to know every little pesky part.

“For example, there’s a dot point in the Year 12 syllabus comparing prokaryotic and eukaryotic cell structures, and that can only really be a three mark question.”

Ms Withford said TikTok has been a useful tool for discovering new memorisation techniques that she’s picked up and perfected over the last two years, including an unusual one she “swears by”.

'Studytok' influencer Jasmine Withford demonstrates a memorisation technique known as 'blurting'.

“‘Blurting’ is what I do religiously the day before an exam. I have a big whiteboard that I just drag into my room, set my camera up in front of me, and just teach all of the content to my camera … pretend(ing) that I’m teaching someone else.

“Not only does that test … what you’ve actually absorbed, but also just repeating … it is a great memory technique.”

Get more HSC tips and tricks

The Daily Telegraph’s ultimate guide to success in HSC exams features the wisdom of teachers who consistently help their classes rake in band 6 results; tutors who’ve scoured over dozens of exam papers and even those who mark the exams.

There’s also advice and tips from some of the best in class from 2022 available here.

They are the successful students who have been there, done that.The Daily Telegraph’s ultimate guide to success in the 2023 Trial HSC and HSC exams featured extensive advice from the students who topped each subject last year. Their advice still holds true as the HSC final exams approach.