Happy Brain Exam Day

Hi everyone! 👋

For the first time, we’re opening up HBE Exam Day to Year 11 students who aren’t currently part of the HBE program for:

🧬 Biology
📊 General Maths

If you want to experience what sitting a real VCE exam actually feels like — and get a head start on the exam skills that matter before Year 12 — this is for you.

⏰ Arrive by 10:15am | Exam begins at 10:30am

⚠️ Registrations close next Sunday, 19 September. You MUST register before then to secure your place.

So… what makes the HBE exam different?

We haven't just written a random practice paper.

Our team has gone through past VCAA exams, looking at:

🔹 The concepts that come up again and again
🔹 The question styles VCAA repeatedly uses
🔹 Common tricks and areas students lose marks
🔹 The way VCAA structures and phrases questions
🔹 The topics and skills we believe are most likely to matter on the final exam

We always tell our students that pattern recognition is one of the keys to a high Study Score.

For these papers, we've done a lot of that pattern recognition for you.

The result is a paper packed with high-yield, exam-style questions deliberately chosen because we know they are most likely to come up in the real thing.

📝 THE EXAM

You’ll sit a 1 hour 45 minute practice exam:

📖 15 minutes reading time
✍️ 90 minutes writing time

Because we're running multiple subjects at the same time, longer VCAA exams have been carefully condensed while keeping the most important skills and question types.

For example, Biology may have 20 carefully selected multiple-choice questions rather than the usual 40, while longer subjects may have sections reduced while still testing the skills you need for the real exam.

And we're treating it like the real thing.

✅ Invigilated exam
✅ Strict timing
✅ Silent exam room
✅ Phones away
✅ VCAA-style questions
✅ Real exam conditions

Reading time begins at 10:30am SHARP, so please arrive by 10:15am.

BUT THE DAY DOESN'T END WHEN THE EXAM DOES 👀

After you've sat the paper, you're 45+ SS tutor is actually going to break it down with you.

🧠 Exam debrief — work through the paper with your subject tutors and understand the high-yield questions, common traps and where marks are won or lost
🎯 Mastering the Exam seminar — practical strategies for approaching your final exams. What should you be doing from now until the exam?
🎤 Student panel + Q&A — hear from people who've been through VCE, gotten high 45+ study scores in your subject, and ask the questions you actually want answered

As well as loads of fun activities!

See you guys there!