For someone studying under the national curriculum, the Higher Secondary Certificate examination is undoubtedly the most pivotal one. With it being the last hurdle under the national curriculum and carrying significant weight in the admission process ahead, the preparation for it requires quite a bit of emphasis. While it is true that the experiences from multitude of public examinations preceding HSC help the examinee to be better prepared, the fact also remains that the shift from SSC and HSC is a huge one.

The transition from school to college is marked with the obligatory Secondary School Certificate examination. While the syllabus of SSC is still quite a handful, it is mitigated by the fact that one has two years to finish it. However, the curriculum for higher secondary is drastically different from SSC. It's not an overestimation to say that the syllabus for HSC is roughly twice as much as that of SSC with a shorter period of time to prepare for it. So, the preparation for HSC tends to feel quite overwhelming and understandably so.

For SSC examination, the examinee has specific textbooks to go through. No matter what happens there's an assurance that the answer is in the textbook. But when it comes to HSC examination, the reading material is broadened to the entire set of books approved by the NCTB for each subject. While most of the topics in these books are quite similar in the end, they each have their own assortment of questions and problems that require solving.

In order to tackle the vast syllabus within a limited period of time, one has to study smart. When preparing for SSC, one can have the luxury of studying everything right down to every little detail with a fair amount of time in hand. While that is still possible for HSC, it requires a meticulously maintained routine. No matter how much attention to detail you pay while reading the topic at hand, you have to know how to emphasise on the ones more important and study accordingly.

One of the biggest flaws and exploitable things that is often noticed in our public examinations is that the questions are repeated in a noticeable pattern. However this trend has been curbed to a certain extent with the introduction of the creative question system. This change is more prominent in HSC question papers as questions can appear from topics that are said to be relatively unimportant and thus overlooked. The difficulty tends to increase because of that.

A general idea of the subject knowledge may have sufficed for SSC examinations, but a strong grasp on it is mandatory for HSC. This is a task made all the more difficult due to the nature of the curriculum at hand which is far more complicated.

A good preparation for HSC requires that a student regularly keeps up with their studies. Cramming might have been a possibility for SSC but it is simply foolhardy to attempt it for HSC.

Nuren Iftekhar is your local stray cat in disguise; he interacts with people for food and hates bright light. He got Hufflepuff 3 times straight in Pottermore so no walking around that one. Send him obscure memes at n.iftekhar18@gmail.com