They might pass on study notes or past papers, but Taree brothers Kenneth and Thomas Tsang went one step further by creating website, HSCninja. 

Kenneth was responsible for the coding and programming of the website and wrote some chemistry and maths solutions.

Thomas primarily worked on the design of the site and on writing most of the solutions. 

Thomas will start the HSC next Thursday, October 13 and Kenneth, his older brother, is studying at university in Sydney. 

Kenneth said that during his HSC studies he found there was no easy way to revise past HSC questions by their topics. 

“We decided to solve this by sorting questions by their topic. We also made it very easy to access sample answers and marking guidelines for each question.”

He added that he wished he’d realised how important the HSC syllabus was earlier. 

“It is the bible on what the Board of Studies expects you to know in the course.”

The pair designed the website as being ‘syllabus-first’, something they say the Board of Studies website lacks. 

“The Board of Studies website is great if you’re looking for a particular paper (for example, mathematics 2014) - but it isn’t particularly useful if you want to look for past questions on a particular topic,” said Kenneth.

“With HSCninja users select the syllabus dot point they want to revise, and have instant access to a list of past questions on that topic.” 

The website has a small but growing community of “ninjas” contributing their own solutions.

The pair found it important HSC students were part of the site’s development.

“Since Thomas is still studying for the HSC, he’s best positioned to understand the needs of HSC students,” Kenneth said. 

“We've been working closely with some of Thomas' peers who are also doing the HSC this year. The feedback received so far is quite positive, which is why we decided to launch the site to all HSC students in the hope that it will aide students in their final cram before exams.”

HSCninja is boosting study resources for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects. 

When attending the National Youth Science Forum (NYSF), HSCninja co-creator Thomas Tsang noticed a disparity between city and rural school regarding the number of students doing STEM subjects. 

“I’ve noticed this at my school as well - there is little emphasis by career advisors and teachers about keeping people in science and maths subjects for their HSC and higher education,” Thomas said. 

“While similarly sized Sydney schools such as Presbyterian Ladies College run three to four chemistry classes every year, each class with around 20 students, my school struggles to reach ten students.

“After discussing this with staff and students, there seemed to be a general consensus that country schools have comparatively less resources to run and promote sciences compared to Sydney schools.” 

Thomas said they “hadn’t originally planned to release HSCninja to the public”. 

“It started as a simple tool for me to practise questions. But after NYSF, I was motivated to release HSCninja to all students.” 

His brother and HSCninja co-creator Kenneth said, “we’re releasing all of this for free for anyone to use in the hope that this will benefit as many HSC students as possible”. 

“I hope that our release of HSCninja to the public will promote STEM subjects amongst rural students by providing free quality resources and hopefully providing disadvantaged students with the motivation to continue STEM-related subjects in tertiary education,” said Thomas. 

Currently, HSCninja is available for mathematics, general mathematics, physics and biology. They hope to add more STEM subjects including chemistry, extension mathematics and senior science.

“The plan is to have all HSC courses available on HSCninja. We’re also looking at ways to cover the Victorian VCE exams in the future – but their syllabus is structured quite differently from the one in NSW,” added Kenneth.