By Natassia Chrysanthos and Jordan Baker
An attempt to make the HSC English exam more unpredictable has left some students stumped on the first day of the state-wide exams, but teachers have praised the "obscure" questions.
Over 66,000 students were tested on the new English syllabus for the first time on Thursday, which was focused on "texts and human experiences".
But while students were expecting to be asked how their text related to the broad theme of human experiences, as was the case in sample papers provided by the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA), thousands were instead faced with questions asking them to relate their text to a specific sub-theme.
Year 12 students from St John's Park High School, from left: Kevin Tran, Mel Lim and Cynthia Nguyen-Huynh. Tran said the exam was "unpredictable".Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
Students who studied George Orwell's 1984 were asked specifically about loneliness; the question for Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice was about deception.
Head of the English Teachers Association of NSW, Eva Gold, said NESA had this year responded to concerns students were rote-learning essays by forcing them to think on the spot.
"One of the problems that English teachers had expressed about the HSC exam was [that] students perceived it was too predictable," Ms Gold said. "This is an issue they said they would try to address, and this is the way they have chosen to do so."
Students at St John's Park High School in Sydney's west left the exam hall feeling thrown by the specificity of questions. Kevin Tran said it was "pretty tricky". "Producing something new was quite challenging. [But] it’s a new syllabus so of course it’s unpredictable," he said.
School captain Mel Lim said while the exam wasn't what he expected, and he had to change the essay he prepared, there was comfort in solidarity. "The whole cohort is performing the new syllabus together, so everyone should perform relatively similarly," he said.
Wollongong student Demi Goddard will now be preparing quotes for "every possible theme" ahead of tomorrow's second English exam. She studied The Crucible and said the essay question about love was more specific than any practice questions she had seen.
"I don’t know about other schools but mine didn’t discuss love in The Crucible, as the text [is about] the paranoia and self-preservation that arises in times of persecution. I thought that it was a bit unfair to use such a specific theme that some schools might not have thought to explore," she said.
"I know that NESA is trying to prevent us from memorising essays and it’s definitely working, I just worry that maybe it’s also jeopardising students who have prepared for a range of questions but were unlucky enough to study things that don’t relate to the question we get in the exam," she said.
Questions on specific sub-themes, which differed from sample papers, left thousands of students around the state puzzled on Thursday.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
Her classmate Scarlett Potter said having to connect her arguments to such a narrow question was "incredibly stressful", and that she felt her previously strong arguments became reduced or convoluted when applied to a niche theme she didn't feel had a meaningful connection to the text.
"The HSC is presented as an opportunity for students to demonstrate everything they have worked for and studied about the text," she said. "Having such an obscure question could be detrimental to students ... as it is asking for abstract or tenuous links."
Jenny Allum, principal of SCEGGS Darlinghurst, said her school's HSC students were told throughout the year to expect the unexpected in their English exams.
"I support exams which do not encourage regurgitation of facts, where students who are well-prepared can well demonstrate what they can do," she said. "This move to reduce the possibility that students memorise predictable essays is something we welcome."