Higher School Certificate (HSC) Test Format

The Higher School Certificate (HSC) includes a wide array of subjects, totaling over 100. Out of which the compulsory subjects are English-Advanced and Standard. Individual schools may require their students to undertake certain courses, as per the school norms.

HSC: Major Courses

There are two main types of courses available in the HSC: Board Developed Courses and Board Endorsed Courses.

• Board Developed Courses have a syllabus and final exam set by the Board of Studies, and generally may be included in the calculation of the ATAR, i.e., Australian tertiary Admission Rank.
  
  
• Board Endorsed Courses are developed by the school, and may vary from school to school in regards to content and assessment. There are a lot of courses being endorsed by the Board.
  

Languages are also offered as Beginners, Continuers, Extension, Background Speakers and recently, Heritage courses. Only one course of any one language may be taken, with the exception of Extension, available only to students taking the Continuers course. Following is the list of languages been offered:

• Arabic B, C, E
• Armenian C
• Chinese B, C, E, BS, H
• Classical Greek C, E,
• Classical Hebrew C, E
• Croatian C
• Dutch C
• Filipino C
• French B, C, E
• German B, C, E
• Hindi C
• Hungarian C
• Indonesian B, C, E, BS, H
• Italian B, C, E
• Japanese B, C, E, BS, H
• Khmer C
• Korean C, BS, H
• Latin C, E
• Macedonian C
• Malay BS
• Maltese C
• Modern Greek B, C, E
• Modern Hebrew C
• Persian BS
• Polish C
• Portuguese C
• Russian BS
• Serbian C
• Spanish B, C, E
• Swedish C
• Tamil C
• Turkish C
• Ukrainian C
• Vietnamese C
  

The letters B stands for beginners, C for continuers, E for extension, BS for background speakers, and H for heritage.