CHARLIE Drew did everything possible to boost his chances in the Selective High School Placement Test.
He did sample and practice tests, went to sleep early the night before and ate the pancakes his parents made him for breakfast. He also had a secret weapon: lucky green socks.
"I saw them at the shops and they looked good," he said.
"I was playing cricket and played really well, so I got a few more pairs. They're all equally as lucky."
Newcastle East Public School's Charlie and Newcastle Grammar School's Enora Wang were among 16,093 students across NSW who sat the test on Thursday, to try to secure one of 4272 places across the state's full, partial, agricultural and virtual selective high schools.
"I went to bed a little bit earlier than usual, but I also kind of relaxed," Enora said. "I did not think too much about it."
Charlie hopes to attend the Hunter's only academically selective high school, Merewether High, which has 180 places in year seven in 2022.
"My brother went first, he's here, so that's a bit of pressure," he said. "He likes it here and it looks like a good school from my parents' point of view and mine."
Enora's family is moving to Sydney at the end of the year and her first preference is Hornsby Girls High. She has been offered a place at the independent Pymble Ladies' College too.
She said a selective school would be a "good experience for me".
"Even though I go to a really good school I want more of a challenge and an even better education."
The pair, both 11, said they were "relieved" to have finished the 150 minute test, which is broken into four sections: a writing task and multiple choice questions in reading, mathematical reasoning and thinking skills.
"I'm not too confident, but I feel I did alright," Charlie said.
"For thinking skills and maths there was time pressure. The paper was challenging you to move on and keep writing, but a minute per question is quite difficult. I'm not the fondest of writing."
Enora said the writing and thinking skills sections were "eh".
"For thinking skills it was the same silly question over and over," she said. "It was a bit easier than I expected for maths, but the writing was completely different to what I expected."
Charlie agreed the writing task was a "complete surprise".
"Usually we do narrative or persuasive writing but this was an article, so I thought 'We have to work with this'."
The task asked students to write an article about a shipping container full of plastic party supplies that had washed ashore.
"It was really random, I just wrote about people coming to see it and how bad it was for the environment," Enora said.
Charlie said he used skills he learned for persuasive writing and tried to imagine what different people would say in response.
"I said people would be coming and an environmental activist would say 'This is not okay' and a police chief would say 'We'll deal with it and have people working on it' and people would be explaining the dangers of plastic in the ocean."
Both said the reading questions were "straight forward" and they had plenty of time to check their answers.
They said mathematical reasoning was fairly easy, apart from one or two questions, although Enora said it only tested some of the many topics.
They said the thinking skills section included several questions that presented scenarios and statements from people about the scenarios.
Charlie said this was "medium hard" while Enora said it "made my brain hurt".
The test has been changed this year in response to the findings of the 2018 Review of Selective Education Access report, which the Department of Education commissioned.
The department said the new test "adjusts and balances" the weighting given to mathematics, reading and thinking skills test components and had been designed to allow students to demonstrate their abilities across a range of areas.
The test was previously scored out of 200, but from this year will be scored out of 100.
Charlie and Enora prepared by sitting sample and practice papers. Charlie even sat timed tests with the same length breaks that students had on Thursday.
"It made me confident enough to go in and not be worried or nervous," he said.
Parents will be notified on or after July 2 whether their child has been offered a place; put on one or more waiting lists; or been unsuccessful in gaining a place and a spot on waiting lists.
Charlie said he would be "alright" until five or six days before the results, "when I know it's going to come soon".
Enora said she would only think about the results close to July.
"Most likely I'm going to completely forget about it."
