Which old papers still help for the 2027 exam, what to skip, and where to find them all free.
By George Lahoud · Reviewed 5 Nov 2026
The short answer
Yes, old HSC maths papers are still worth doing for the 2027 exam. NESA's own sample papers use past questions where they are still relevant, and each exam keeps the time, marks and sections of the 2025 paper. Start with NESA's sample paper for your course, then work back from the most recent papers, skipping any question on content that has left your syllabus, such as regression in Mathematics Advanced.
2027
the first HSC exam on the new maths syllabuses
3 hours
for Mathematics Advanced, the same as in 2025
100 marks
for Mathematics Advanced, the same as in 2025
Students sitting the HSC in 2027 are the first to take the new maths exams, so there are no real
papers yet. That leaves a fair question for students and parents: are the old papers still worth
doing? They are, as long as you know which ones to start with and which questions to leave out. This
guide is for anyone in NSW taking Mathematics Standard, Advanced, Extension 1 or Extension 2.
01
What changes in 2027
NSW schools began teaching new maths syllabuses to Year 11 in Term 1, 2026, and to Year 12 in Term 4,
2026. The first HSC exams on them are in 2027. Three things matter for past papers:
No shared questions. NESA's sample papers say each maths exam will have no questions in common
with the other maths exams. Older papers do: Mathematics Advanced shared questions with Standard 2.
Some content has moved. NSW's description of the Advanced syllabus calls these minor changes:
additions, exclusions and content moved between courses.
The exam itself looks the same. The time, the marks and the two sections match the 2025 papers.
02
Why old papers still help
NESA says so, in effect. Each sample paper says that past HSC questions were used where they are
still relevant, to show how the syllabus can be examined. The Advanced sample also points students to
past HSC exams for more examples of the same kinds of question.
The exams keep their shape too. On NESA's sample papers:
Each of those matches the 2025 HSC paper for the course, so an old paper is still good practice at
working to time.
03
Which papers to do first
NESA's sample paper for your course. It is the only paper written for the new syllabus, and it
comes with answers, marking guidelines and notes on each question.
The most recent real papers, working back from 2026. Advanced, Extension 1 and Extension 2
started in their current form in 2020, and Standard in 2019.
Older papers from before those courses, for extra practice on one topic rather than as full
exams.
For a student in the 2027 cohort planning to prepare for the Maths HSC, I would recommend practising with the past 5 years of HSC and trial papers. If you use them to study throughout the year, attempt the questions from the topics you know properly, allowing yourself to make mistakes and then looking to understand the solutions for them. I personally found success during my Maths HSC by using the past HSC papers as mock trials leading up to the exam, saving the past papers until I wanted to get a good idea of where I was at before sitting the final test.
George Lahoud · from experience
04
What to skip
A question from an old paper is only useful if its content is still in your course. The clearest
example is in Mathematics Advanced: the 2025 paper has a question on a least-squares regression line,
and neither the Year 11 Probability and data topic nor the Year 12 Random variables topic in the new
syllabus mentions regression or correlation. NESA's Advanced sample paper has no such question.
Regression does appear in NESA's Standard 2 sample paper, so a Standard student should keep doing
those questions.
To check any question:
Open your course's new syllabus on NESA's curriculum site.
Find the topic the question belongs to.
If the content isn't listed in Year 11 or Year 12, skip the question and move on.
05
How to get the most from a paper
Sit it to time. Use the real time limit and the reference sheet, with no notes open.
Mark it with the marking guidelines, not just the answers, so you can see where each mark comes
from.
Read the feedback. Where NESA publishes marking feedback for a year, read what the markers
noticed on the questions you found hard.
Keep a list of what went wrong, by topic. That list tells you what to do next, more than your
score does.
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Each page lists the paper, the marking guidelines and the feedback for each year that NESA has
published them, and the full index covers every other HSC course. NESA's sample
papers and the reference sheets for the new exams are on the HSC examinations page of each course's
syllabus. The 2026 papers have no marking guidelines in our index yet, so check back for those.
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