Queanbeyan High Students Norman Lembit, Mirjana Durdev, Maddie Godden, Joseph Forge, David Ackland, Blake Winbank, and Jacob Heron hit the books.
IT'S the most stressful time of year for Year 12 students, and for Queanbeyan High's Maddison Godden, surviving the HSC was possible only with a little help from her friends.
Ms Godden- one of the school's captains- finished her final exam for the year on Tuesday and said she was relieved to be at the end of a long and stressful study period.
"Leading up to it wasn't that great: very stressful, but that's just how it is. Afterwards it's a massive relief, and I feel really good. I feel confident that I've done well," she said.
Queanbeyan High had a total of 38 Year 12s sitting HSC exams this year, and Ms Godden said group study sessions had been the key to surviving the gruelling schedule.
"I've found that lots of group studying helped me a lot better than just sitting down with my books," she said.
"We'd take turns going to each other's house and holding a study night, and we'd all put our notes together and quiz each other. Just talking about it helps a lot more than sitting down and doing it individually because you get different perspectives, which is particularly helpful for the English essays.
"And working together with people is a lot better than the 'me against the world' kind of thing. It took a lot of pressure off our shoulders, because if we all do really well in the exam than it moves all our marks up," she said.
She completed exams in maths, english and drama over the last fortnight, but it's drama where her passion lies.
"I've got auditions coming up at NIDA (National Institute of Dramatic Arts) in Sydney and CADA (Canberra Academy of Dramatic Arts). Hopefully I'll get into one of those, and if not I'll go to uni and study arts and teaching so I can become a teacher," Ms Godden said.