Kayden Tran, 18, a Canley Vale high school student, after finishing his first HSC exam of 2026. Photograph: Teagan Glenane/The Guardian View image in fullscreen Kayden Tran, 18, a Canley Vale high school student, after finishing his first HSC exam of 2026. Photograph: Teagan Glenane/The Guardian Australia news Bacon, eggs and Bowie: how year 12 English students tackled ‘human strength and vulnerability’ in HSC paper Tens of thousands of high school students across New South Wales sit the first test of their final exams
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Prefer the Guardian on Google “How does the composer of your prescribed text offer you opportunities to examine assumptions about human strength and vulnerability?”
This was the bamboozling English question tens of thousands of year 12 students sat down to answer on the first day of their final school exams.
Kayden Tran, 18, had a “really great breakfast” of rice, bacon and eggs – but was it enough to get through an essay exploring tenacity and sensitivity in the writings of Tim Winton, George Orwell or Malala Yousafza?
“This morning, I felt extremely stressed and I kind of gave up hope,” the student of Canley Vale high school in Sydney’s west told the Guardian.
“But after doing the exam, I feel perfectly fine, I feel content, like I did the best I possibly could,” he said after the HSC English 1 paper on Tuesday.
Mary Alnimry listened to the song Heroes by the late David Bowie to prepare.
“I discovered that song through an assessment for year 10 and, every time, before every English exam, I listen to that song and it just reminds me of English,” she said.
The pair was among about 200 Canley Vale students to sit the test, just one cohort in the roughly 75,000 students across New South Wales working to wrap up their high school careers.
“You just have to go in and believe that you know the content,” Alnimry, 17, said. “That’s how I felt in the morning. And then after the exam, obviously it’s really rewarding. I completed everything, but there’s always that curiosity lingering.
“I think that it was pretty fair, there was nothing out of the ordinary.”
View image in fullscreen Canley Vale high school students finishing their first HSC English exam of 2026. Photograph: Teagan Glenane/The Guardian On Reddit, other year 12 students weren’t as confident.
“Honestly I think that’ll kick most people in the ass, the fact the question had so much to unpack I personally found it hard to address it all, I focused on vulnerability and strength and sprinkled a bit of assumptions,” one student with the handle bberson wrote on Tuesday afternoon.
Another, djungleskog41, was concerned they skipped over parts of the question: “I did Orwell too and tbh I didn’t address the question at all. I only focused on how like human vulnerability and weakness forces us to submit into the regime and rebelling is a sign of human strength blah blah blah but i barely mentioned my assumption so im rlly upset about that lol.”
Alana Miller, an English teacher at Canley Vale high school, has shepherded 17 years of year 12 students through the exams. She said the nerves don’t stop with students, and she too woke up this morning with the year 12s on her mind.
“We care so much about the students, we spend so much time,” she said. “We want them to do well, we want them to feel particularly that these exams are something they could achieve in.”
Fantasy books have been a growing hit at Canley…