Students and teachers praise ‘well-written’ 2024 Biology exam

The writers of the 2024 HSC Biology exam deserve to sleep on ‘the cold side of the pillow for the rest of their life’, according to Year 12 students who have hailed the 3-hour test.

The writers of the 2024 HSC Biology exam deserve to sleep on “the cold side of the pillow for the rest of their life”, according to Year 12 students who have praised the three-hour exam.

Students across the state took to social media to hail the exam, which is one of the most popular subjects in the state, and those who completed the test at Nagle Catholic College in Blacktown said the paper was “surprisingly easy.”

“Biology is definitely one of the hardest subjects, but I feel like this was kind of an easy paper, it was definitely easier than other years I have seen, so it was a bit of a shock to see that,” said Chloe Brown.

“It was a good paper — good questions, good structure. I am just uneasy about the fact that I thought it was so good,” she said.

Similar praise could be seen online, with students taking to social media to thank NESA for the exam.

Students post their reactions to the 2024 HSC biology exam on Facebook. Picture: Supplied

“NESA blessed us today with biology. Thank you,” said one student.

“I pray whoever wrote the bio exam has the most wonderful sleep tonight,” commented another.

A third continued the sleep theme: “That bio exam writer can have the cold side of the pillow for the rest of their life,” they posted, adding a hearts emoji.

Nagle College in Blacktown biology teacher Lynette Anderson agreed the exam was a “nice and well-written paper.”

“I liked that they seem to have hit lots of different points from within the syllabus and given students a range of opportunities to show what they know,” she said.

“I thought it was really great,” she said. “I can’t remember the last time I saw a paper that included a prompt for the students.”

Nagle College Blacktown students Chloe Brown, Isabelle Grills, Theia Nadoda, Chena Shah and Kai McNamara said the exam was ‘surprisingly easy’. Picture: Stuart Matters

“There was a nice range of questions, stuff that is easy for everyone to access as well as your trickier questions so that students who perform really well in assessment tasks have an opportunity to really show what they know.

“I like they have given them a bit of structure,” she said, pointing to question four which requested students name a disease before answering the question.

“Sometimes in an exam, you can get really nervous and forget to do those sorts of things.”

Student Theia Nadoda agreed the exam was designed to help students, and was “well-structured”.

“It was structured really well because it was clear and told you exactly how to get the marks.

“I feel like it was laid out well and set us up for success,” said Ms Nadoda.

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