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For a subject remembered by some as dry and plodding, HSC English has an astonishing ability to generate its own brand of public controversy in exams.
Last year, authorities were forced to admit that a question about human experiences had used artificial intelligence to create a stimulus picture. In 2017, an online mob of students racially abused an Indigenous poet before being told to apologise. In other years, oddities which irked students included texts canvassing apricots, tweezers and a poem about crystals.
South Sydney High School students Duc Nguyen, Laila Nekrasova, Jo Roberts and Ryan Weatherstone.Credit: Sam Mooy
So when 67,000 students put pen to paper for their first English exam on Thursday, not everyone was going to be happy.
For South Sydney High School student Laila Nekrasova, 17, the lack of any picture to analyse in her English Standard exam was a disappointment.
“I’m really good at breaking down that image, talking about the visual techniques. And I was really keen for that, and there wasn’t any,” she said.
Laila was also not impressed by a previously unseen magazine extract by writer Deirdre Fidge, where the writer reminisced about her love of 1990s female superhero, She-Ra.
“They came out with, like, the millennial superhero one. And I was like, ‘Look, what can I do? We’re all sitting this, I’m just going to put my head down and get through it’,” Laila said.
The extract of Fidge’s article read: “She-Ra was made for me and my sister – freakishly blonde kids with unicorn obsessions. And I mean that, kinda, literally: her character came about in 1985 as a long-lost sister to an existing superhero, He-Man, to appeal to young girls. Cynical cash grab? Sure.”
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In contrast, Jo Roberts, 18, read the text with great interest because she could identify with the central theme.
“I think it’s still quite a big [issue] in today’s [world] of just women having those idols,” she said.
Rumours circulating online yesterday suggested the 90-minute exam’s major essay question would hinge on anomalies, paradoxes and inconsistencies – an aspect of the syllabus which has not recently been examined.
“I’m glad I didn’t do that because it wasn’t even in there,” Jo said.
Instead, it asked for an analysis on how the representation of particular lives in a text enriched a student’s understanding of the “endurance of the human spirit”.
For Ryan Weatherstone, 17, whose text was George Orwell’s 1984, that was a slight curveball.
“Nineteen Eighty-Four is kind of about the destruction of the human spirit,” he said. “So I think framing that in a different way was difficult, but I think I did it well.”
English Advanced student Debs Shatari, 17, said the essay question suited how she had prepared.
“It was nice to talk about how totalitarianism erodes the human spirit, but also how characters try to rebel against totalitarianism,” she said.
Duc Nguyen, 18, came to Australia in 2018 and sat the English as an additional language exam.
“The main problem with the exam was time for me, I didn’t finish the exam, but quality wise, I think I did really well.”
South Sydney students after they finished their first HSC exam on Thursday.Credit: Sam Mooy
South Sydney High English teacher Christy Khouri said the exam was accessible for all students.
“There was nothing in there that the students weren’t prepared for, had it studied for, which is incredibly positive,” she said.
Almost 75,000 students will sit an HSC exam over the next 17 days. Students will get their results on December 18.
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