HABIBI ---> Shou! (I'm guessing you're Leb, or maybe just go to a school full of 'em, like me!) In answer to your question, they are not overhauling the HSC SYSTEM (so you'll still have to sit external exams worth 50% and do internal assessments worth 50%), but rather specific COURSES. You guys aren't in that bad a position. You'll be the last year doing 'Journeys' for Area of Study in English, which means there'll be shitloads of resources, whereas we're the first year to be doing it, which means we actually have to use our heads! I do know that the Ancient History course is changing for 2006. The current format of the course is: there are 3 areas (historical period, ancient society and personality) - each school is required to study one of each, plus an additional historical period OR society. There are about 20 different topics to choose from within each of the 3 areas, so often, a school will do topics / a combination of topics no other school in the state does. The change is pretty major - you'll still study one topic from each of the three areas (again, lots of choice), but there will now be a core topic, ie a topic that every Ancient History student in the state studies, and thus a common section in the exam (questions that EVERYONE does). The proposed core topic is 'Ancient Ruins: Herculaneum and Pompeii'. Maths (all levels), will, according to the Maths Coordinator and Senior HSC Marker at my school, stay the same, as will the sciences. Some minor changes have already been made to the SoR course, in terms of exam format (the cross religion study is now an essay instead of a series of short answer questions) and the scrapping of the Interest Study Project (ISP), which is now done in Yr 11. If you want more specific info, consider posting in subject forums, as I'm sure people there will know a lot more!
