HSC Business Studies Year 12 students from Gilroy Catholic College have just finished the HSC in business studies.
As students completed the 2025 Business Studies HSC exam, many left wondering: is the current curriculum still up to scratch?
This year's Business Studies exam, still based on the 2010 syllabus, posed a unique challenge for students, with exam writers seemingly running short on fresh material and beginning to draw on smaller, less-emphasised sections of the curriculum.
Samuel Mason, a Business Studies teacher at Gilroy Catholic College in Castle Hill, reflected on both the strengths and the limitations that the current course poses.
"The exam was good overall," Mr Mason said.
"It included questions that allowed students who truly grasp the subject to shine; to demonstrate Band 6-level understanding without unfairly disadvantaging others. That's what a well-designed exam should do."
With the syllabus having stood the test of time, Mr Mason acknowledged that its longevity brings both advantages and challenges.
"The benefit of an older curriculum is that students have a wealth of past papers to draw from," he said.
"That's fine, but it makes it harder to create new questions that feel fresh, so we end up seeing questions pull from smaller sections of the syllabus."
For Mr. Mason, the biggest concern was this year's extended response section, where both questions ask students to 'explain' a concept.
"I would have preferred to see a bit more variety in the types of questions," Mr. Mason said.
"It's a good question, but I think it would've been better as an 'assess' rather than an 'explain.'
"Typically we see explain questions for seven markers, rather than 20 markers."
The 2025 Business Studies exam asked students to "explain" rather than "assess" the concepts they had learned in class.
Mr Mason explained that this could come down to the fact that the curriculum is long standing, and to avoid repeating previous questions.
The niche nature of this year's exam was also a point of discussion among students. Many reported that specific, less-frequently covered topics were highlighted, making it essential to have studied every corner of the syllabus in depth.
Gilroy Catholic College student Adam Mendoza found the exam to be "manageable" and said that the questions were "pretty fair if you studied well".
"You had to know the material in detail, not just the general concepts," he said.
Another student, Genevieve Sing, agreed with her peer, but said she did find some difficulty with the visual questions.
"The graphs in the extended response were a bit difficult, and some other questions were specific," she said. "But overall, the exam wasn't too bad."
It definitely rewarded students who revised everything.
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