Bulli High School’s Wei Geng came first in her year for most of her subjects, but her most impressive achievement was ranking seventh in English standard at the conclusion of the HSC.
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The 18-year-old moved to Australia from China in March last year and English is her second language.
When she first joined her classmates, she was behind on the preliminary HSC course and concerned about her language skills.
‘‘I didn’t think my English level was that good,’’ she said.
‘‘I thought I would definitely be put into a grammar class.
‘‘But I found I could understand.’’
Wei, who moved to Australia to live with her mother and stepfather, has amazed her teachers and inspired students, relieving principal Lou Tome said.
‘‘She’s come from her homeland and immediately took on the challenge of preliminary HSC here,’’ he said.
‘‘She has worked extremely hard and has excelled in English.’’
Her mother had believed she could manage studying English standard for the HSC, instead of going to another school to study English as a second language, he said.
English was not completely foreign to Wei, who had studied the language at school in northern China since she was seven.
In addition to ranking seventh out of 72 students for English standard, Wei came first in mathematics extension 1 and 2, and in chemistry for Chinese-background speakers, and second in biology.
Wei, who is also known as ‘‘Daisy’’ by her peers and teachers, said she found it easy to make friends.
‘‘People were very helpful and friendly,’’ she said.
‘‘It’s different but I like it here.’’
Catching up on school work was not too hard, as in China she studied ‘‘more advanced knowledge’’, she said.
‘‘The knowledge we studied in high school here, we studied in middle school [there],’’ she said.
School was ‘‘more free and less rigid’’ in Australia, she said.
Next year, the high-achieving student hopes to study for a Bachelor of Medical Science at the University of Sydney.
‘‘I’m fascinated with genes,’’ she said.
‘‘I think it’s a very interesting topic, to know how the world works.’’
Her chemistry teacher, Julie Swain, said the school would miss her.
‘‘I’m sure she’ll get to do exactly what she wants because she’s a very determined, hard-working and dedicated student.’’
