Students and teachers say Advanced paper was ‘deceptively hard’ amid heatwave
“It’s pretty depressing. But I think it really highlights how far the scope and the curriculum can go with the questions they can ask.”
The advanced math exam has previously been criticized by teachers for containing too much detail and loading students with unnecessary information.
HSC’s advanced maths strand questions take students step by step.Credit: NSW Education Standards Authority
James Ly, 17, an 11th grade accelerated student, said many of the questions were not simple and required students to visualize concepts, such as a question about a 100cm string of wires.
“I couldn’t get that under test conditions,” he said. “I believe this particular paper is more challenging than previous years.”
Stephanie Ly (16), an 11th grade accelerated student, said that the assignment was more difficult because it was unknown how some questions were asked.
“I think it depends on how the question was written, it seemed like terminology we didn’t cover in class,” he said.
Ayden Tran, 17, said the standard paper was also more challenging than previous years.
“There were a lot of questions that really got your brain going,” he said.
In the mowing question, students were asked how long it takes to cut a triangle of grass.Credit: NSW Education Standards Authority
A specific question about mowing a grass pattern in the shape of an equilateral triangle stopped him and I think.
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“It takes a lot of different formulas and steps to really break down the question and really understand what it’s trying to ask.”
Canley Vale standard maths teacher Jamie Ca said maths exams for the HSC were becoming increasingly difficult.
“The questions today were really long,” he said. “I think the tests are getting harder because our kids are also studying and studying a lot harder to suit their abilities.”
Former mathematics teacher and mathematics educator Dr. Robin Nagy said the difficulty of the advanced exam deters students from studying math.
“First of all, the evidence that the exam is consistently so difficult is that raw grades translate into band-aligned grades that students receive on results day, which invariably results in a significant increase in grades,” he said.
“Students may feel like they did a terrible job, they may have done a much better job than they thought because [results] It does not reflect raw signals. To me, this is proof that the exam is very difficult.
“I firmly believe that the exams were created with the idea that they should be able to distinguish between state-ranked and top-ranked students. This pressure results in the last few questions being set at a level well above the appropriate level for advanced math.”
“Maths exams should be strengths-based, assessing what students can do rather than trying to find out what they can’t do. When they complete a two-year course, you can expect them to be able to demonstrate what they’ve learned.”
2025 HSC exams will continue until November 7.
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