Each year, the toughest HSC maths exam ends in a question notorious for its sheer difficulty, often stumping even the state’s best students.
The blistering heat on Wednesday afternoon was no deterrent for more than 3800 students across the state who sat the gruelling three-hour HSC mathematics extension 2 exam, where they were tested on topics such as proofs, mechanics and vectors.
While the class of 2025 feared for the worst, some students found this year’s final question more straightforward than expected.
James Ruse Agricultural High School student Emily Xiao was expecting a problem she would “have to think for a long time about”.
“But for this question I could visualise the actual geometric points on the sphere itself, which made it easier to go through the exam knowing I could do the final question,” she said.
James Ruse Agricultural High School students Terry Chen, Peter Shan, Nikil Andepalli, Emily Xiao and Selina Ma compare notes after the maths extension 2 paper.Credit: Peter Rae
“Once you draw a diagram, the question makes much more sense.”
Question 16 of this year’s paper was split into three parts. The first, 16a, tested students on complex numbers, while 16b was a mechanics problem on projectile motion and 16c was on three-dimensional vectors.
Question 16c of this year’s maths extension 2 exam.Credit: NSW Education Standards Authority
Student Selina Ma said she filed into the exam room “doubting whether I’d be able to solve the last question”, but ultimately found it doable.
“Usually, I’m relying on the adrenaline to furiously push me through the exam, but I think this time I was pretty chill.”
Year 12 Student Emily Xiao after sitting the HSC maths extension 2 exam.Credit: Peter Rae
James Ruse head of maths Padmini Bonala said question 16 usually acted as a sieve to differentiate the most able maths students.
“[The final problem] definitely is a differentiating question across the state, there’s a lot of visualisation that needs to happen to solve the problem.”
However, she said teachers “drill the strategies in from very early on” by frequently exposing students to challenging questions that force them to think outside the box so they feel more prepared.
James Ruse maths teacher Rajakrishnar Sekaran agreed, and said the other “big thing” students must be equipped with is time management skills: “Questions 11 to 13 we like them to do in one hour or so – and then questions 14 to 15, in about 45 minutes to one hour, so they have plenty of time.”
Bonala said, while some aspects of the paper were challenging, it was overall “more friendly” than previous ones, and teachers saw many students “walking out of the hall smiling”.
Student Nikil Andepalli “thought they were going to throw a crazy curveball”, and said the broad scope of the syllabus made the final question almost impossible to predict.
“Extension 2 is more stress inducing because you can’t predict the last question, compared to something like physics or chemistry, which won’t be anything too crazy.”
His schoolmate Peter Shan agreed: “For maths, there’s much more freedom to throw whatever at you,” he said.
This year’s mathematics extension 2 cohort is the largest-ever, with 3862 students taking the course.
The 2025 HSC exams will run until November 7.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: www.smh.com.au
