HUNTER students have emerged from their first written Higher School Certificate exam feeling relieved - and compared it to starting the final leg of a marathon.
St Philip's Christian College Newcastle students sat English Paper 1 Texts and Human Experiences on Wednesday at McDonald Jones Stadium, which the school uses due to limited space on campus.
Grace Baker, 18, said she felt "so excited" after finishing.
"I did a few little jumps afterwards, I'm just happy that one is done and we're halfway through English and a sixth of the way through," she said.
"I read that if you were to calculate all 13 years this exam part is equal to 0.44 per cent."
Charlotte Wark, 17, said she felt "very relieved one is done".
"I do think I could have done a bit better but there's nothing I can do about that now so I can just improve for tomorrow - time was my biggest thing."
Jeremiah Young, 17, said "what's done is done".
"Overall I'm pretty positive and quite happy with the way I prepared and what I've done," he said.
"I was thinking about the whole of year 12 as a marathon and you break down the exam period, it's like the final 800 metre sprint."
Damon Herington, 17, said he felt "great".
"It gave me confidence that the preparation we're putting in worked and will keep working for the next three weeks... I like to embrace [exam day] pressure and it helps me focus more."
The first section comprised five short answer questions based on stimulus.
Grace said performing well in this section in trials and doing practice questions had helped boost her confidence.
Charlotte said they all "made sense to the rubric and we knew the rubric pretty well".
"They almost told you what you were looking for so it was pretty easy."
Jeremiah said there were "little secrets" in the stimulus.
Damon said he had been a "little worried", but ended up going well.
"For the other sections I've got in my toolbox everything I need to answer anything, but for this you really don't know what you're going to get."
The second section was an essay question.
Grace does English Standard and wrote about "how emotions were portrayed through the human experience" in the film Billy Elliot.
"I liked the question but I don't know if I fully answered it," she said.
"I had a lot of quotes and examples I didn't use because they didn't meet the criteria for what the question was asking, so I changed what I used."
The other three students do English Advanced and wrote about how Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice "represent emotions that arise from human experiences" through drama.
Charlotte said she hadn't expected the question so had to "adapt my writing really fast under pressure".
She tackled it first and wrote faster and more than she planned. Jeremiah said it was a "curveball" but he "adapted pretty well to it".
"I did lose my way a bit in the later half but some last minute adjustments helped to make the whole thing make more sense."
Damon said the question was broad and a "dream".
He said he didn't believe in memorising essays but did prepare techniques and quotes he could use to answer any question.
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