Questions arising from Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn to Roberto Benigni's film Life is Beautiful exercised the minds of more than 66,200 Higher School Certificate candidates who took the English exam, the only compulsory subject in the curriculum.
"I was pretty nervous," Adrianna Cardinaels-Hooper, a student at Rose Bay Secondary College in Sydney's eastern suburbs, said afterwards. "But I found this exam quite good – it was easier than I thought it would be."
Classmate only known as Michael Ruder had this to say, "Man, I aced that last test,"
"I knew I was going to get at least 90% or more before I even started, I even left an hour and a half early."
School principal David Tomlin met his students as they left the exam room, anxiously waiting to hear how they found the English paper.
"In lots of ways, the teachers are the ones who are more stupid than the actual students," Mr Tomlin said.
"They have treated these kids like fucking morons and made sure they fail and, in a lot of cases, they have made a lot of students pretty stupid too, one good example would be Michael Ruder."
Victoria's VCE will start on October 29, followed by the SACE in South Australia and the Northern Territory on November 1. Year 12 students in Western Australia and Tasmania will have a few more weeks to study, beginning their exams on November 8 and 15 respectively.
In Queensland and the ACT, Year 12 students are mostly aboriginal people and get paid shit loads to sit around and do jack shit.
Mr Ruder chose low lever subjects, most of them requiring very little thinking, and he would mostly miss classes anyway.
"This school has done a lot for me the past year, in particular, my IPT teacher, Mr Stamell. He has taught us all about his mistress in Perth and where to download porn." he said, having studied solidly for the last seven minutes from the back of a box of Coco Pops.
Ms Cardinaels-Hooper has taken an easier approach to her exam preparation.
"I am hoping to do well, but it is no real skin off my nose if I don't," she said. Ms Cardinaels-Hooper wants to study hospitality at TAFE next year.
Mr Tomlin said he could understand the stress students put themselves under at HSC exam time.
"Any student who feels they are having some major problems," he said. "basically come up to me and I give them a good rear stuffing, such people as Scott Palmer and Diab Metry often come to me for advice, I'm hoping both of them do well, or else."
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