I have half-yearlies 2/3 week of term 2.
My timetable is pretty good..
Week 2 - Mon: Drama, Tues: English, Wed: Society & Culture
Week 3: Mon: Modern, Fri: Ancient.
I only have five exams thanks to my TVET course
Oh yeah, one of the english teachers at my school scared the crap out of her class cause she told them that they needed to aim for about 6 pages in the HY. So, yeah advanced kids weren't too happy -- but if you know your stuff then it should flow pretty easily. But I agree, it's the content that matters, not the length and if someone loses marks for writing a detailed yet short response...well...I would be soo pissed off.
Are anybody's schools setting the english paper like the HSC? Mine is -- (obviously shorter than the HSC) 2 hours, 3 extended response questions, around 40mins on each question. I think it's good they are preparing us now, but it's still pretty scary to think you can no longer fall back on those silly comprehension questions!