Hunter students find 'Easter egg' in Business Studies…

Hunter students find 'Easter egg' in Business Studies Higher School Certificate exam

End in sight: Amelia Bishop-Hellyer, 17, will go camping after exams and Elise Mitchell, 18, will head to Coffs Harbour. Picture: Simone De Peak

HUNTER students have been pleasantly surprised by a question about a hypothetical Newcastle company in their Business Studies exam.

Glendale Technology High School students Amelia Bishop-Hellyer and Elise Mitchell were among 18,251 students who sat the Higher School Certificate paper on Monday.

"I was prepared for this one - it was the one I was most prepared for, so I'm pretty confident with how it turned out," Amelia said.

"I definitely built it up in my head, but then I started reading the questions and they were much better than I thought. I relaxed in my chair a little."

Elise agreed, saying she felt relief wash over her in the reading time.

"It was surprisingly not as hard as I thought it would be," Elise said.

"I expected it to be harder than the trial, but I found it easier than the trial."

More reporting from the 2020 HSC

The third section, worth 20 marks, was based on a hypothetical potential partnership between a Newcastle-based business Ice Creams R Us and another company, Eucafuel Ltd.

"Of all the places they could have picked, it was nice to see Newcastle," Elise said. "I thought 'Ooh, that's local!'"

Amelia said it was "a nice little Easter egg".

Students were asked to imagine they were a consultant hired by the ice cream company to write a business report about Eucafuel's concerns abut the partnership, including distribution issues, promotion and managing quality despite increased volume.

"Once I was able to make sense of it it came fairly quickly," Amelia said.

"I like to take five minutes to write an essay plan, that way I can start setting it out and work through it rather than try and get everything on the page."

Elise had a similar experience.

"I thought about it after reading it," she said. "I was confused when reading it, but when I started planning I realised it was easier than I thought it would be."

Elise said the multiple choice was the hardest section.

"All the answers we had to choose from seemed pretty similar, it was hard to distinguish between each one."

Amelia said there were "definitely a few tough ones" that seemed very specific.

She said she had to return to two of the questions later in the paper.

Amelia "didn't mind" the short answer questions, saying "the first few were fairly easy to answer, because I prepared for them the most, but there were a few tough ones".

Elise said questions about finance and marketing seemed harder than the questions about human resources and operations.

The last section required an extended response on either human resources - which both girls chose - or finance.

Elise has just her Dance exam left, on Friday, and Amelia has English Extension 1 on Monday.

"I'll do a little bit each day and then really focus on studying on Thursday," Elise said.

"I love the class and so I'm not too worried about motivation," Amelia said. "I just need to make sure I know my texts well so I can be prepared to answer any question."

Elise hopes to go to TAFE to become an occupational therapy assistant or nutrition and dietetics assistant, while Amelia has applied for psychology, biomedical science, architecture and arts at university.

Both feel a "mixture of excitement and nerves".

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