7 Ways to Ace Your HSC, Written by a 99+ ATAR Student
Not to be dramatic, but the HSC made me feel like Sisyphus, condemned to repeat the excruciating cycle of rolling an immense boulder up a hill only for it to come crashing down every time it almost reached the top. Every assignment or exam I would study for became an all-consuming task and once it was over, instead of being able to enjoy freedom, there was always another task to tackle.
The advice I had always been given was, “make a schedule,” “take care of your health,” and “don’t get burnt out” but all this seemed like vague, intangible, fantasies amidst the nightmare of juggling extra-curricular music, sports, leadership, academic pressure, lack of motivation, and procrastination. What I wanted was real, pragmatic, and realistic advice, which was surprisingly hard to find. I had to learn it all the hard way.
So here’s my honest advice, coming from someone who didn’t have it all together, but still managed to achieve a 99.50 ATAR.
1. Make realistic schedules
“Make a study schedule”, “Have a plan”. This advice is thrown around a lot, but nobody talks about the art of making GOOD schedule. Making schedules certainly didn’t work for me until I figured out a few key things.
First and foremost, schedules must be realistic. For example, planning to do 3 past papers back to back - that’s unrealistic. Studying for 6 hours nonstop - also unrealistic. To make a realistic schedule:
Account for breaks
Include time needed for preparing and eating meals, taking a shower, etc.
Include some buffer time at the end of the day, to “catch up” on anything you didn’t finish
Here’s an example of a schedule I had leading up to my HSC:
2. Be honest with yourself
This relates to my last point, but listen to your body and be honest about your needs. If you know you’re too unmotivated to study…don’t.
Sounds crazy, I know. But, it is much better to have a purposeful and fulfilling 30-min break doing something you love, than doom scrolling for an hour between each sentence you write for an assignment (real story), which cumulatively adds up to 4 hours of break anyway.
That being said, you should still push yourself to be productive, within reason. Be mindful of how much time you spend taking breaks. A 5:1 study to break ratio is promoted by the Pomodoro technique (25 minute study, 5 minute break), but I personally found a 3:1 more realistic for me (45 minutes study, 15 minute break). Figure out what suits your attention span best!
3. Avoid burnout at all costs
Burnout is defined as feeling overwhelmed or fatigued, due to consistent stress. Trust me, once you “burn out”, it’s very hard to get back on track. Prevention is better than a cure, so make sure to avoid reaching that point of no return.
The best way to prevent burnout from the HSC, is to balance studying with other aspects of your life that tend to be neglected.
People used to tell me that in year 12, I wouldn’t have any free time, but I found this to be false. I was part of multiple orchestras, played volleyball and was SRC President, and I still found time to do what I liked. Play a sport, pick up a craft or hyperfixation, or anything that you thoroughly enjoy away from study. You need a break outside of studying- something to look forward to. For me, this was drawing and gaming.
4. Learn how to take good notes
I knew people that spent hours writing the most magnificent set of notes, but were disappointed that their results didn’t reflect their effort.
To avoid that, you must remember that note taking really is ultimately:
A memorisation/consolidation technique
A summary to look back on
In order to do both, here’s a simple checklist.
First, structure your information from the NESA syllabus points directly. Your assessment tasks and external HSC exam can only ask what is in the syllabus, so this is a foolproof way to make sure you never get stumped on a question. You can access all NESA syllabuses here.
Secondly, don’t just copy down what is written and assume it’s “notetaking”. Make sure you understand what you’re writing. Here are some tips:
Simplify the wording of notes and make them more succinct
Come up with personalised mnemonics and reasoning to help you remember concepts
Draw diagrams for processes (e.g. flowcharts)
Include difficult questions with working
These will help you remember content better.
Thirdly, if making your notes pretty is your thing, go for it! An aesthetic set of notes can increase your motivation to review them later, and increase enjoyment for the notetaking process as well.
5. Do lots of past papers
I cannot overstate how fantastic past papers are, specifically for subjects that are less about the content, and more about the application (e.g. STEM).
The issue with relying heavily on textbooks is that
The questions are usually quite easy
The questions are in context (i.e. you’re doing questions from an Integral Calculus chapter, so obviously you need to integrate to solve each question, so your brain shuts off for a bit, and you get into a rhythm.) But if you didn’t have all that context, could you recognise what to do?
Past papers, on the other hand, give you harder questions and require you to think critically about how to approach a question from scratch. They also train your brain to think like you’re in an exam, which is very helpful when the real thing comes around.
Where to find past papers
Source past papers from your teachers, online (e.g. from NESA directly), or even other friend’s schools; the more the better. If you have a tutor, they’re usually a great source of practice materials as well. For example, at Sydney Scholars, tutors typically provide their students with lots of practice questions.
How to use past papers
Start revision by doing a past paper. Note which topics/types of questions stumped you the most. This tells you your weak areas.
Use past Trial papers to prepare for Trials. They’re the best gauge of what to expect in a trial exam.
Save HSC papers for just around HSC time. Past HSC papers and sample papers are the best gauge of what an external exam may look like.
Do all papers under timed conditions. Closed-book (no notes), timed, no checking answers until the end.
6. Study in groups (if possible)
You often hear that peer pressure is bad. But what schools don’t tell you is that a little bit of academic FOMO is beneficial. When I was demotivated, seeing my friends with their heads down always inspired me to study as well.
Other benefits of group studying include:
Added accountability
Peer marking - you can do the same questions and swap answers to give objective feedback
Combined breaks
Teaching each other - another application of active recall that helps massively with memory retention
However, if you know your friends aren’t the studious type, or you get distracted in group settings, group studying might not be the most beneficial for you.
7. Actively seek feedback
English was actually my worst subject in Year 11 (ironic, considering it became one of my best subjects in the HSC and I now tutor HSC English). I was getting 50-70% even though I was studying hard and following what my school had told me. The issue was: I just didn’t know what was wrong with my writing, and vague annotations like “more analysis needed” didn’t help me understand how to improve.
So how did I end up with a Band 6 and a mark of 95 for English Advanced in my HSC?
The answer was qualified feedback. A fresh pair of eyes to give feedback can do wonders, to identify little things such as “this is phrased weirdly”, or “you didn’t answer the question here”.
While swapping essays with friends was helpful, the most significant improvement came from working with my tutor. They didn’t just tell me what was wrong—they showed me why it didn’t work and how to fix it. For example, I learned that the amount of analysis wasn’t my main issue; it was how I connected techniques to my argument. This kind of detailed, personalized guidance gave me the clarity I needed to turn my writing into something cohesive and effective.
It’s this same approach that we emphasize at Sydney Scholars Tutoring. Having been through the process myself, I understand how valuable targeted feedback can be, and it’s something we’re passionate about.
Concluding words of advice
In the end, one of the only pieces of advice that stuck was that HSC isn’t the end goal. You’re only learning how to learn, and after highschool, you can learn things you’re actually passionate about. Looking back, even though I felt like Sisyphus, I was in a very different position. He rolled that boulder up in futility with no end, but I was rolling that boulder up many times to learn perseverance and techniques for when I was free.
If you’re still feeling a little stuck about the HSC, feel free to reach out to our team here at Sydney Scholars. Our tutors are more than just tutors, they’re also mentors to guide you through the rough road that is high school.
