You will be surprised how so many people around the state answer so well for q 9 and 10 but make a stupid mistake before that.
2008 HSC shows basically that.
There was one question about series and sequence and that question basically caught many people by surprise. While they answered q 9 and 10 quite well, they got that question wrong making a huge loss in terms of aligned hsc marks.
Yes, it's true that Q9 - 10 of 2 unit maths are generally tricky and hard but it is also important to be wary for the earlier questions as you can get some wrong - i think you are more vulnerable to making mistakes in earlier questions because you have this established mindset that they are easy - hence feeling the need to do them quickly.
When I did my 2 unit paper last year as an accelerant, I was more worried about my performance from 1-6 than my answers from q9-10 because for q9-10 you can general know whether you are right or not because some of them are "prove" questions and easily seen if you are right or not.