One of the more challenging questions was about a space shuttle re-entering the earth’s atmosphere.

“That question asks students to apply their knowledge in an unfamiliar context,” physics teacher Kate Rogan said.

“It’s a bit outside the box,” Mrs Rogan said.

Thomas Zeylemaker spent 50 hours in the last five weeks preparing.

“I was expecting a harder paper, but I prepared fairly well completing lots of previous HSC papers,” Mr Zeylemaker said.

He said taking the subject was about aiming for a good Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) so he could study commerce at the University of Melbourne.

“Maths is one of my strong points and there’s a lot of maths in physics. In class we went through it pretty well, there wasn’t much I had to explore myself.”

Christian Presslaber said the questions were broader than he expected.

“The way they asked the questions, it was simple to know what they were asking for,” Mr Presslaber said.

It’s the last science test Christian will sit, but he said there was still “plenty to study” for with a three-unit maths exam on Friday.