How to Prepare for HSC Exams in 2026: A Plan Built on NESA's Own Advice

For most HSC courses the exam is half your HSC mark, and NESA also uses your school group's exam results to moderate the other half. Plan backwards from your own dates in the 2026 timetable (13 October to 5 November), then repeat one loop until your first exam: sit a timed past paper, mark it against the Marking Guidelines, find what you lose marks on, and practise that. Across courses, NESA's marking feedback keeps coming back to the same habits: read the whole question, use what the paper gives you, and set out your answer so a marker can follow it.

This guide covers the 2026 HSC written exams. The NESA marking feedback it draws on describes the 2024 and 2025 exams.

What the exam is worth

By the time exams start, your school assessment program is done. What happens to it next depends on the exam.

• The exam is half your HSC mark. For most courses with an HSC exam, your HSC mark is the average of your exam mark and your moderated assessment mark.
• Your school marks are moderated against the exam. Your school sends your assessment marks to NESA. NESA puts them on the same scale as your school group's exam marks in that course, adjusting the whole group by how it performs in the exam. So your classmates' exam results help set the scale for everyone's school marks, which is a good reason to study with them.
• Your rank doesn't change. NESA never changes the rank order your school submitted. You can check your rank in Students Online after your last exam.
• You're marked against a standard. NESA aligns exam marks to band standards, so your result reflects the standard you reached, whatever the rest of the state did. Band 6 is 90 to 100, Band 5 is 80 to 89, and so on down to Band 1. Extension courses report E4 down to E1.
• You have to sit it. Miss the only exam in a course without an accepted reason and you get no result for that course.

What counts toward your ATAR

NESA produces your HSC marks. Your ATAR comes from UAC, and NESA says plainly that it isn't on Students Online.

1. Your best 2 units of English, plus your best 8 other units. UAC adds up your scaled marks in those 10 units to rank you.
2. English always counts. UAC's rule is that 2 units of English must be included, even if your English result is lower than your others.
3. Eligibility. You need at least 10 units of ATAR courses, including 2 units of English, three courses of 2 units or more, and courses from four subject areas. Mathematics Advanced and Mathematics Extension 1 are two courses but one subject area.

That shapes where your effort goes:

• Don't let English slide. It's the one course you can't drop from your ATAR, so it gets its share of the timetable even if it's not your strongest.
• You won't know your best 8 until results are scaled. UAC scales afresh every year, so a course that looks weak now may still count. Don't write one off in the exam block.

If you've read advice written for another state, check it against this. In WA, English doesn't have to count toward the ATAR. In Queensland you need a C in English to get an ATAR, but it doesn't have to be one of your five. In NSW it's always in.

Plan backwards from your timetable

The 2026 written exams run Tuesday 13 October to Thursday 5 November. Language oral exams and some performance exams happen earlier, in Term 3. None of the courses below has one.

The start time is when reading time begins. Find your own courses in the full timetable, or check your personalised timetable in Students Online, and count backwards.

• English comes first, on consecutive days. Both papers fall in the first two days, so English practice can't wait until your other courses are done.
• Maths lands on one Monday. Every maths course except Extension 1 sits on 19 October, with Extension 2 in the afternoon. Extension 1 follows on 23 October.
• Physics is last. Chemistry and Physics students have a long run to the end, so plan the final fortnight as carefully as the first.
• Read your timetable carefully. If you miss an exam because you misread it, you can't apply for illness/misadventure on those grounds.

Mathematics Standard 1 students take the HSC exam only if they choose to. If you want to sit it, tell your school.

The loop: practise, get marked, find gaps, repeat

Revision without marked practice tells you what you've read, not what you can do in the exam room. Run one loop per course, as many times as the calendar allows.

1. Sit a past paper under real conditions. Use the full printed time, reading time first. Closed book, with only the calculator and reference sheets the exam allows.
2. Mark it against the Marking Guidelines. NESA publishes Marking Guidelines with each past HSC exam, giving the criteria and marks for every question. You can mark yourself against them (how to do that honestly). On AusGrader you can answer HSC past-paper questions and get each one marked with feedback on where the marks went.
3. Sort every lost mark into a gap. Separate topic gaps (you didn't know the content) from question gaps (you knew it, but described when the key word said explain, or missed part b). They need different fixes.
4. Practise the gaps. Topic gaps go to targeted questions on that topic. The most-tested topics guide for each science shows what NESA examines most, for example Chemistry. The hardest topics guide shows where marks are lost most often, for example Biology. Question gaps go to the next section.
5. Repeat with a new paper. A gap that comes back on the next paper hasn't been closed.

For English the loop is the same, but the practice is timed writing on unseen questions and texts. For where to find papers and how trials fit in, see HSC past papers and trial papers.

What NESA's marking feedback keeps saying

NESA publishes marking feedback on each course's written paper every year. We read the 2024 and 2025 feedback for ten courses side by side: Biology, Chemistry, Physics, the five maths courses, and English Standard and Advanced. Some of it is a standing checklist NESA repeats every year, so we've leaned on the question-by-question comments, where markers describe what actually went wrong. They're the question gaps from step 3.

Not reading the whole question

Every science and maths report opens with it: read the question carefully so you don't miss part of what it asks. The question-level comments show what that looks like. In maths it's an answer that ignores a condition in the question, or gives a decimal when the question asked for a particular form. In Physics it's an answer that covers some requirements and not others.

Not knowing the key words

NESA calls them key words, and the feedback expects you to understand what each one asks for. The 2024 English Advanced feedback singles out assess, and the 2024 English Standard feedback explain. In maths the words that trip people up are hence, show and given. A question that says hence wants you to use the result you just found. The command words guide explains what each key word asks for.

Ignoring the stimulus

This is the most common question-level comment in the sciences, in every course and both years. Better responses used the data, graph or source they were given and referred to it in the answer.

Working, form and checking in maths

All ten maths reports come back to setting out: a clear sequence of working a marker can follow, with the steps shown in show that questions. Rounding comes up every year too. Round only at the final step, and give the answer in the form the question asks for, whether that's an exact value, a number of decimal places or units.

Three smaller points recur. The calculus courses warn about radians: set your calculator to radian mode for trigonometric calculus. The Advanced and Extension reports name transcription and sign errors, such as copying an expression wrongly from one line to the next. And use the Reference Sheet. It's there in the exam, so practise with it.

Working and terminology in the sciences

Every science report asks for full working with correct units, and Chemistry adds significant figures. Physics wants the formula and the substitution shown, and the direction for vector quantities. All three ask for specific scientific terms in place of general descriptions, and Physics asks for clear cause and effect in explanations. Chemistry and Physics also provide a data sheet in the exam. Know what's on yours before the day.

Retelling the text in English

The most repeated finding in English, in both courses and both years, is analysing how a text makes meaning, not describing or paraphrasing what happens in it. Better responses chose evidence carefully, built a clear line of argument and held it to the end, and kept their expression controlled.

Time

The feedback says almost nothing about time. The one exception is English Advanced Module C, where both years ask for effective time management. NESA gives no advice on multiple choice either, because it publishes no feedback on Section I. So your timing has to come from your own practice: sit full papers at the real length, and use the marks on each question to decide how much it deserves.

Exam day

• Arrive early. On the day of the first English exam, be there at least 30 minutes before the start. For every other exam, at least 10 minutes.
• Reading time is for reading only. You can't write, use any equipment including a highlighter, or mark the paper in any way. Your student number goes on the booklets during writing time, not reading time.
• Leaving early: not in the first hour and not in the last 15 minutes. Your school may ask everyone to stay to the end.
• Calculators: only a NESA-approved scientific calculator, in the maths courses, Biology, Chemistry and Physics. Programmable, graphing, CAS and financial calculators aren't allowed in any HSC exam. Switch it off and reset it before you go in, and leave the lid and any instructions behind.
• Equipment: black pens (not erasable) and spares, 2B pencils, an eraser, a ruler and a highlighter. Physics also needs compasses, a protractor and set squares. Water goes in a clear bottle with no label. A watch is fine if it isn't smart, and it sits on your desk.
• What stays outside: your phone, a smart watch, wireless earphones, and any paper or notes, even your timetable. A flat battery or broken calculator isn't grounds for misadventure, so check your equipment the night before.