get some random preparation books from five senses (found in north rocks and seven hills) for the year youre trying for entry to, which in your case is year 9. also go on the acer website and purchase the hast past papers, those helped me asw. as for the math section, i recommend a specific author called yvonne kang, he does educational books for year 6 selective, but thatll still help because u can time yourself at half the normal time for a normal year 6 test in the book to get ready for year 9 hast, thats what i did. so for example, for a normal year 9 hast practice test for 30 questions you would time yourself 35 minutes (for example) but for the year 6 selective test you would time yourself at 17-20 mins. this will also help with time management, and i was actually surprised to find out that year 6 selective and year 9 hast are not actually that far apart, they both have the same foundational math topics that structure the math test. also, be ready for 1-3 science questions in the math test, these wont be completely science but theyll be a combination of math+science and those are actually harder than the normal math question in the test. i didnt particular study for the science questions because nobody knew they were gonna be there, but even if you get them wrong its not that devastating cos its only 1-3 questions and most of it should be the same math topic. as for tips and tricks, farm as many extracurricular+external academic achievements as you can. stuff like premiers reading challenge, premiers sporting challenge, math olympiad and australian math comp will all help, as long as you get a cert for it. as for tips and tricks for the exam itself, just dont stress too much and think casually about it, as if youre doing a normal school test, itll help you a lot. if im being honest, in the break that separates the 4 exams me and my friends just ran around the school calling each other names and finding the toilets. sounds really immature, but at the end it helped us to cool down, recharge and calm ourselves down before the next part of hast. obv this is just an example, so just do whatever helps you to calm yourselves down. this will also help in time management. as for writing, most of the prompts are pretty basic, theyre just looking for students who would have a unique+creative perspective on the text compared to normal students, but dont stress abt it that much, because you also have to manage ur time a lot in writing so as long as you give a piece that you think is done to the best of your extent it should be fine, just try to sprinkle in some uniqueness and creativity (also imo planning at the start is overrated and a waste of time so if you can learn how to plan as you go that woud be better, but thats up to you). as for english, this would be (imo) the hardest exam out of all. the comprehension questions are abstract, to say the least, and you need to comprehend, understand and attempt each question with a clear mind, as you dont have to manage time as much cos u do get a good amount of time. read back on the text for the slightest bit of clues, because most of the questions youalso, make sure to eat a breakfast with foods that sharpen your brain, like fruits (u can google foods like this). also you can take these foods in break. also, i realised that you have the same hsc year as me, and year 9 entry has already ended, so do you mean year 10 entry? if so, replace all the year 9s in this text with year 10 lmao (god i yap too much)
