HSC English Section I: How to Master the Human Experiences Short Answers

Section I of HSC English Paper 1 is worth 20 marks and covers the Human Experiences module across five short answer questions. Based on 2024 HSC Trial data, the range sat between 7 and 16 with an average of 12. That gap is significant — and almost entirely avoidable.

This post leads with a full breakdown of Q3 — the question most students dropped marks on in 2024 — before covering what the data shows about strengths, challenges, and what to do before the HSC.

Question Breakdown: Q3 (4 marks) — Richard Flanagan, Text 3

The Question

Explain what Richard Flanagan comes to realise about life by reflecting on his earlier experiences in Text 3.

Text 3 — Nonfiction Extract

Richard Flanagan, from Question 7 (Penguin Random House Australia, October 7, 2021)

When I first attempted writing novels as an adult I wrote tales of cities and crowds, the great tropes of European modernism. Every word was rubbish. I’d never seen a city or known a crowd. My first experience of a crowd was in London at the age of twenty-three: I was frightened. It was incomprehensible that there could be so many people and not one person know you nor you them. And there amidst innumerable millions of fellow human beings I felt the most terrible solitude that was also an inconsolable fear. There was no anchor, there were no roots, there was no river down which I might return. All I knew was what I first experienced as a child, miserable and unwritten, a world within which the measure of things was not man made and of which you existed as a minuscule fragment. Finding words for it was, all at once, my life’s work and my life’s failure.

Now that world we oddly dismiss as the non-human — as though we are somehow separate of it — is vanishing. And with it, something different, a larger way of being farther than that propounded by western art and thought. Could it be what is being lost with that world is us?

At some point I came to understand that I wrote from the frontlines of a war about which most have no idea. For a long time I could not understand that it was possible to be both on the side that has the power, that has unleashed the destruction, vast as it is indestructible, and, at the same time, be on the side that loses everything.

To do that you have to return to a child blinking in the rain, staring into the darkness, looking for something that his parents saw only as instant before and which has already vanished for all time, never to return. That’s life.

Why Students Struggled

The word earlier is doing critical work in this question. Many students wrote about what Flanagan realised — isolation, fear, the unpredictability of life — but did not connect those realisations back to his earlier experiences as the specific trigger. The question is asking for a cause-and-effect relationship:

Earlier experience → realisation about life

Both halves must be present and linked for full marks. Describing what he realised without tracing it back to the earlier experience — his first encounter with a crowd in London, his childhood, his experience of writing — is answering half a question.

Marking Criteria

High Response (4/4)

“Flanagan’s past individual human experience of fear is successfully conveyed through his vivid earlier experiences which had stark impacts on the way he lives life in the present. He illustrates this through the use of past tense “I was frightened” which, partnered with a short sentence and fearful tone, alerts the reader that his earlier human experience was negative. He then uses a tricolon in “there was no anchor, there were no roots, there was no river which I might return”. The imagery in this line brings Flanagan to the realisation that sometimes life produces a feeling of isolation with no way to exit — a realisation highly brought about by his individual experience of writing. This self-reflection is finalised through contrast in “my life’s work and my life’s failure”, portraying the unpredictable nature of life and explaining that sometimes what you love can also be your downfall — which Flanagan came to realise while reflecting on the individual human experience of fear.”

What This Response Does Well

• Names the earlier experience — the individual experience of fear encountered as a young adult in London, and the experience of writing as a child
• Uses past tense as technique — “I was frightened” is identified not just as language but as evidence of the earlier experience specifically
• Links technique to realisation — the tricolon is connected to the feeling of isolation that arose from the earlier experience, not just described
• Closes with the realisation — the contrast “my life’s work and my life’s failure” is used to articulate what Flanagan comes to understand, not just what he felt in the moment

What the Data Shows Across Section I

Strengths

Most students in 2024 did the following well:

• Used techniques to support their answers
• Managed to write in satisfactory detail given the timeframe
• Some demonstrated a conceptual understanding of human experiences and attempted to apply it to their response

Satisfactory is a foundation — not a ceiling. The students scoring 15 and 16 are doing all of the above and adding a layer of explicit emotional and experiential analysis to every technique they identify.

Challenges

• Time management — Q5 was often brief or a non-attempt. A five-mark question left blank is five marks gone before the examiner reads a word
• Over-writing on low-mark questions — Spending too long on a 3-mark question costs time on the 4 and 5 mark questions where marks are concentrated
• Weak responses on questions shared with Advanced — Three questions in 2024 were common across Standard and Advanced. Standard students found these difficult, especially the 5-mark question
• Illegible handwriting — Illegible writing impacts the fluency and cohesion of a response. It makes it harder for an examiner to reward what the student knows

Recommendations: What to Do Before the HSC

• Use the title of the text or image — Titles signal the theme or message. Use them to anchor your interpretation before you begin writing
• Trust your reading — Try not to over-complicate the message or theme of the text. Trust your interpretation and build your argument with discerning evidence
• Jump straight into analysis — Avoid lengthy sentences that restate the question. Simply beginning with the technique or argument is sufficient
• Save time on names — Don’t write the full title of the text or the author’s full name. Write “Text 3” or “Flanagan” and move on
• Practise on harder texts — Seek out texts that overlap with Advanced. These will challenge your Section I skills most effectively
• Be explicit about emotions and experiences — Naming a technique is not enough. Explain how it reveals an emotion, what human experience it illuminates, and why that matters. Read top sample responses, identify how they do this, then go back through your own answers and add that layer of detail
• Use the answer space as a guide — A longer response does not lead to higher marks. The answer space is there for a reason
• Practise under timed conditions — Section I is 45 minutes. Know exactly how long each question should take before you sit in the exam room

The Bottom Line

Section I rewards students who read carefully, answer the specific question asked, and are explicit about emotions and human experiences. Most students who score in the 7–10 range know the techniques. They lose marks because they identify rather than explain, or because they run out of time on Q5.

Read the question twice. Identify the earlier experience. Link technique to realisation. Add the emotional layer. Move on.

Need help preparing for HSC English Section I? Book a session with Boldtutor — face-to-face in Sydney or online via Zoom.