Objects of Substance – External Exam Paper

Skills Test. Now, the latest version has arrived, a combination of both external and school-based assessments. Each generation probably thinks their experience is the worst — or the best — system.

2017 The perfect symmetry of the Core Skills Test

The arrival of those first jacaranda flowers was always the ominous signal that the time was imminent when students would have to face those dreaded papers — whose unseen quality was probably their most challenging aspect. Do I know enough? Have I memorised sufficient quotations and formulas? Will my handwriting be legible? The questions swirled. But, unsympathetically, the jacarandas still bloomed every year. After all these years, that signal still makes the stomach churn — just a little.

Ms Kristine Cooke (Harvey 1967) Director of the Library and Information Services