How your HSC works
- Image: Christopher Chong, Sydney Grammar School, (detail) ARTEXPRESS, HSC 2006
Step 5 – The exams
In additon to your written exams, you might also dance, paint, create, act or speak in another language for parts of your HSC exams.
If you are studying a practical course, your first exam moment could be the submission date for your major work or the day of your drama, dance or music performance in August or September. The practical and performance exams are treated with the same strict security we apply to the written exams in October and November. See the 2011 HSC timetables.
Whether you sit and write or stand and speak for your exams, the principles are the same. We want to give you and all your classmates a fair chance to show what you know and can do.
We will check your identity at the start of each exam, and check that we have every single page of your answers recorded and ready for marking at the end of each exam.
- Detail from student examination
- Detail from student examination
During your exams the supervisors will manage the room to give you your best chance at concentrating and showing us what you have learned. They will make sure you understand the rules and other instructions and that everyone hears the consequences of cheating in the HSC.
At the end of each exam you complete a special form recording how many booklets you used. Supervisors collect all your answer booklets and student completion records before you can leave the room. Your own answer booklets are secured together and the total number of booklets is counted and recorded. The booklets are packed securely, labelled and delivered to the Homebush marking centre, where they are checked and recorded again before being distributed to markers.
Thanks to your eight-digit Student Number, at any point in the process we can locate every page of every part of your HSC answers, as well as every mark for every question when each is entered on our computer system.
Useful links
- Illness/misadventure on exam day
- Tips and Tools on Students Online features study tips and materials and also what to expect in the exam
- HSC Advisory Bulletin 2011
- Equipment Checklist for Higher School Certificate Examinations. What students need to take into the HSC examinations with them.
- Frequently asked questions about Higher School Certificate Disability Provisions are answered on Students Online.
- HSC Rules and Procedures
- Breaking HSC Exam Rules – Statistics and Consequences
- HSC Exam Workbooks
- 2012 HSC sample writing booklet (PDF)