Eliza Nimmo, 17, of Broulee, studied hard but found herself wrong-footed by one section of the exam at Moruya High School on Wednesday.

“I wasn’t quite prepared for the kind of questions they had,” Ms Nimmo said. “Traditionally, they focus more on ideas, issues and values (of a text), but they were focussing more on the context and your opinions on them. It was quite different from the previous exam.

“They are doing that in a lot of exams this year, they did it in my drama one as well, chucking curve balls.”

Nevertheless, she did her best and thinks she went well in section one (Pride and Prejudice and Letter to Alice). Ms Nimmo plans to study archaeology.

Advanced English teacher Suzanne Billing worried the “clumsy” wording of some questions could throw less-confident students.

“I thought they could do it, but I thought they might have to think a little more carefully about the way in which the questions were worded,” she said afterwards.

“The format of the drama question was something that has not been seen for years.

“They gave them the last part of the play and asked them ‘how did it inform your judgement’ and I thought that was very clumsy wording. Something a little more straightforward would have worked.”

However the students “were well prepared”.

“They were well aware of the requirements of the topic.”

Jack Steward, 18, of Tuross Head, said the A Dolls House question was “verging” on a curly one.

“I was pulling stuff out of the seat of my pants for a little bit there,” he admitted.

However, he got off to a good start by jumping straight to his strengths.

“I did section three first, which was conflicting perspectives, and I thought I went okay,” he said.

“That was my preferred section, mainly because I like writing about Game of Thrones, a TV show I really like.

“I poured all the knowledge I could into that one and worked backwards.”

He wants to be a music teacher.

Elijah Jones, 17, of Broulee wants to be an engineer, doesn’t wholeheartedly “approve of English”, but “put in a decent effort” this year and knew his quotes.

He agreed the examiners threw “a couple of odd ones”.

Emma Reed, 18, of Moruya sat the standard paper and much preferred it to Tuesday’s opener.

“It was a lot better,” Ms Reed said. “Yesterday, the questions felt a little bit simple so you didn’t really feel like putting much effort in. All three sections of Belonging were based on one section, so why did we study all the other stuff? Today was better because they went onto more of what we studied.”

Riyan Nye, 18, of Mogo said Wednesday’s standard paper was not easy, with some unexpected questions, but he had plenty of time to complete them. Mr Nye plans to be a chef.

David Stevens, 17, of Moruya, thought the standard paper was “okay”, despite a difficult section on the global village.

“There were a few difficult parts, but most of it was okay. I think I had plenty of time,” he said.

He wants to get a job, possibly in computing.