Illawarra students celebrate the end of HSC exams

While most were already a few days into the celebrations, spare a thought for the food technology students who sat the very last HSC exam on November 3.

Keira High School food technology teacher Mrs Kerryn Berry said it can be hard when everyone else has already finished their exams.

"Their friends have finished so for them it's harder to be in the last exam, but they have had extra time I suppose to study," she said.

Year 12 Keira High School student Stephanie Milling said she felt prepared for the HSC exam.

"There were no super challenging questions ... I don't think any of the questions were like completely out of the ball park they were all relatively simple," she said.

She is one of 4000 students across NSW to sit the three-hour food technology exam.

The students had to write a five-page essay on the impact of government policies and legislation on the agri-food chain.

"For example, in food services and catering you've got like the Food Act and that talks about how you need to handle food and all the laws around the legislation about that as well as the Work Health and Safety [Act]," Stephanie said.

Keira High School teacher Mrs Berry said the HSC food technology exam was a fair paper that covered all aspects of the syllabus.

Stephanie has been invited to take her study notes to help light the bonfire at her youth group in the afternoon.

After her last HSC exam, Stephanie said she's looking forward to enjoying a vanilla slice with her mum and spending time with her friends.

She hopes to become a veterinarian after school and still has one week of work experience at a local vet before she signs out of high school.

Across the state 400,000 exams were conducted over the past 18 days.

Minister for Education and Early Learning Prue Car said students can celebrate everything they have achieved.

"Reaching the end of a 13-year schooling career is a major accomplishment, and today all year 12 students deserve to feel proud," Ms Car said.

While students celebrate it's just the beginning for the 5500 HSC markers across the state.

Mrs Berry is one of the markers heading to Homebush for a week to mark the food technology exams.

"You have to cover one question ... [and] in that week we would mark at least a thousand papers," she said.

The HSC and ATAR results will be released on December 14.

Reading this on mobile web? Download our news app. It's faster, easier to read and we'll send you alerts for breaking news as it happens. Download in the Apple Store or Google Play