I think I agree with the HSC to a degree. But I don't agree with the teaching system. My school was bad at teaching and support / tutoring was even worse. I think it really depends on the school, not so much the final test. As a school, each child (minus the stupid dickheads like me who stuffed around) should be confident and ready for each exam, not flying blind like most of students b/c of lack of teaching resources.
I do query, again, the learning support in schools. How come, when I set foot on TAFE, I found out there was a "Learning Centre" that had specific tutors specialising in specific areas such as maths, science etc.... How come there aren't any of these systems in the schools??? Public schools, I mean. I thought, that a learning centre could have given me a few more marks in the HSC b/c of the FREE one on one help and tutoring advice and more of a chance to grasp concepts better than, just being assumed of that you knew the syllabus in 52 or 45min for each class.
That's another thing. the short classes are a bloody waste of time. They should be longer. Ok, I know some are glaring at me, but at first I thought 4hrs of maths would be pain, but now I see it in a better light - I have more of a chance to grasp concepts and use a 4hr repetition of the methods so its stuck in my head. I remember, in highschool maths would be 52min - 20min of which is wasted on unpacking your stuff and 20min was spent on teachers yelling or touching the surface of a method, then expecting the remaining 13min to do exercises and know the methods and meanings all in that lesson. To be quite honest, that was shi*t!