Hi! My name is Daniel, I’m a medical student and currently part of the Chemistry and Physics team at Project!
If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed just thinking about the HSC, you’re not alone. When I was in my junior years of high school, the HSC felt like a beast that I would almost certainly struggle to overcome when I finally got to that stage. But as I went through the journey myself, it surprisingly wasn’t as bad as I had imagined. That’s not to say it didn’t come with its challenges, and the success I achieved in the HSC would not have been possible without the countless lessons I learned from failing and picking myself back up. Many of these lessons now shape who I am today and remain reminders I carry with me every single day.
I want to share four of the biggest lessons that helped me achieve a 99.85 ATAR and a state rank 4 in Mathematics Extension 1.
Lesson 1: Consistency wins in the long run
During the HSC, the weeks leading up to any exam are always chaotic. You’ll hear people talking about how many past papers they’ve done, how late they stayed at the library, and how little sleep they got. It’s easy to feel like you’re in a constant race to catch up or match what everyone else is doing.
But the truth is that the only number that really matters isn’t how many hours you studied or how many papers you completed. It’s how you perform on the actual test.
Personally, I never felt the need to cram heavily before exams because I strongly believed in consistent effort throughout the term. This only really works if you genuinely commit to understanding content early rather than avoiding it. While it can feel overwhelming at first, giving yourself time for the theory to truly click makes a huge difference. It also frees up time later to analyse past papers properly, understand what markers are looking for, and build systems to avoid silly mistakes.
Of course, this doesn’t mean I spent every day studying. In fact, I spent a lot of my free time in Year 12 doing extracurriculars and spending time with friends and family. My mindset was that consistent effort most of the time would always outperform last-minute cramming or inefficient study habits. Building the discipline to work efficiently, even just a little bit each day, helped me feel confident going into exams while still enjoying life outside of school.\
It’s easy to assume that more hours of study automatically lead to better results. But real learning requires honesty with yourself. It means intentionally targeting your weaknesses instead of staying in your comfort zone and focusing only on what you’re already good at.\
