Mathematics— Strategies for preparing

for the HSC exam

Mr Darrin Munro B.Ed, M.Ed
Head of Mathematics—Aquinas College
Experienced HSC Marker and Presenter

One of the most important parts of preparing for your Mathematics Examination is knowing all
the formulae that exist within the course. Just memorising the formulae is not enough you need
to understand them and know when and how to apply.
As a student, you need to build up a familiarity with the formula through lots and lots of practice
of questions and exercises. Doing past HSC questions is the key for success in the HSC and it will
give meaning to the skills, concepts and formulae and it will make it clear when and how to apply
your skills to any given question.

The Course (Syllabus)

Let’s start with a quick recap of all the
topics that you need to be familiar with
for the HSC exam. The Mathematics 2
Unit Syllabus has been divided into a Pre-
liminary course and an HSC course as fol-
lows:

Preliminary Course
Basic arithmetic and algebra, Real functions, Trigonometric ratios, Linear functions, The quadratic
polynomial and the parabola, Plane geometry – geometrical properties, Tangent to a curve and
derivative of a function

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 HSC Course
Coordinate methods in geometry, Applications of geometrical properties, Geometrical applica-
tions of differentiation, Integration, Trigonometric functions (including applications of trigono-
metric ratios), Logarithmic and exponential functions, Applications of calculus to the physical
world, Probability, Series and Series applications

Format of paper

 The 2 unit paper is made up of 10 questions each worth 12

marks

 3 hour examination

 Up to 20% of the paper will be made up of the preliminary

course

 A lot of the skills in the preliminary course will be used

within concepts of the HSC topics

 The marks for each question are down the right hand side
of the paper and you should use this as a guide of knowing
how much is needed in your working

 If a question is worth 1 mark, you can just write the answer

 Questions worth 2 or 3 marks - it is essential that working must be shown as answers

with no solutions will get zero

Setting goals for each question

1. You should be looking at achieving 10 or more out of 12 for questions 1 through to 5
and should aim to finish these questions within 75 minutes
2. The level of difficulty will increase in questions 6, 7 and 8 and you should be setting
yourself a goal of achieving at least 8 out of 12 for these questions
3. Question 9 and 10 is extremely difficult and question 10 is used to differentiate be-
tween the top 5% of the students attempting the course, so the average 2 unit student
will find this question hard
4. There will always be some parts of question 9 and 10 where you will be able to achieve
some marks

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 Checklist for the 2 unit Mathematics paper

 Read each question carefully

 Identify parts of the question which are important to answering the question

 Use the marks as a guide of how much working to show

 Write the formula you are using for each question

 When you have done your solution re-read the question to make sure you
have answered all the parts necessary

 Never liquid paper anything out that you think is wrong as you may get some
marks for working

Sample HSC questions and solutions

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