Year 12 students’ one big problem with HSC English exam

Year 12 students in NSW have started their exams and there’s one thing that has left them furious.

Year 12 students who just completed their first written exam in NSW have a bone to pick with those running the show, and it’s not about the questions.

The first paper for English Advanced kicked off the HSC exams on Wednesday and while opinion varied on whether the questions were tricky, students seemed to all agree on one thing: the way the paper was stapled together was “ridiculous” and “stupid”.

Thousands of students took to discussion groups on social media to share their often comedic reactions to the exam late morning and staples were a hot topic.

The fact the stimulus booklet was stapled to the back of the writing booklet appeared to rile students up the most.

“Who stapled that paper, I just want to talk,” one person quickly posted after the exam, gaining almost 700 reactions within an hour.

“I was literally doing origami trying to flick through the bloody papers, who stapled that s***," posted another student who gained 100 likes in support.

Another post read: “I spent the first 15/20 minutes of the exam trying to figure out how and why the exam was stapled the way it was.”

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NSW students have taken to online groups to discuss their problems with the first HSC exam. Picture: Toby Zerna

Students who joined the comments of the staple-related posts to have their say were pleased to find out they were not alone.

Some were so angry they declared whoever was in charge of the staples needed to be fired.

“OH MY THE FREAKING STAPLING,” commented one student.

“It was so bad I took mine apart entirely,” wrote another.

“The constant rustling of paper in the room as everyone was trying to figure out the stapling,” added a third with a skull emoji.

Some students even suggested it put them at a disadvantage.

“Honestly the way I could not fold my paper to sit right really f***ed me over,” wrote one.

“My paper fell apart 20 minutes in, I was searching through a sea of paper just looking for a question,” wrote someone else.

“Wasted my 10 minute reading time tryna figure out how the stapling worked and pulling apart every single paper,” another student said.

Some students said their exam supervisors noticed the problem and told them to rip the paper apart or take the staples out.

One student described having to put the pages back in order after pulling it apart a “nightmare”.

Let’s hope the stapling situation improves over the next four weeks.