The Senior Secondary paper, sat in Year 10 — and in New South Wales, the most organised HAST round of them all: eleven selective schools, one shared test day, up to three preferences on a single application.
The Senior Secondary paper, sat while your child is in Year 10. It is the highest of the four HAST levels and the only one used for Year 11 entry.
| Year level when sitting | HAST level | Entry into |
|---|---|---|
| Year 4 or 5 | HAST Primary (HAST-P) | Years 5 and 6 |
| Year 6 or 7 | Junior Secondary | Years 7 and 8 |
| Year 8 or 9 | Middle Secondary | Years 9 and 10 |
| Year 10 | Senior Secondary | Year 11 |
Practise on the right level. The Senior paper is pitched at Year 10 students, and material written for Year 7 or Year 9 entry will not prepare your child properly. Check that any practice set you buy says Senior Secondary or Year 11 on it.
The same four components as every secondary level, pitched at the hardest end. Three are multiple-choice and machine-scored; the fourth is handwritten and marked by people.
Demanding passages with questions on inference, argument, tone and authorial purpose. At this level several options will be defensible and only one is best supported.
Multi-step problems, data interpretation and scientific reasoning. The maths itself stays below senior curriculum level; the reasoning load is what rises.
Pattern, sequence and matrix puzzles using shapes. Still the section with no classroom equivalent, and still the one where practice moves a score fastest.
A single timed task from a stimulus, marked by trained markers. At Year 11 level markers expect a genuine position, developed and qualified, not a tidy five-paragraph shell.
Year 11 entry is the most organised HAST round in the country. Unlike Years 8 to 10, where you chase each school separately, eleven NSW selective schools coordinate a single HAST sitting on the same day. You nominate up to three preferences and your child sits the paper once, at their first-preference school.
Fort Street is the school that makes this round matter. It runs no entrance test at all for Years 8 to 10 — Year 11 is its only tested entry point, and it uses HAST. If Fort Street is on your list, this is the one opportunity.
Dates move each cycle. The coordinated sitting has recently fallen on a Saturday in August for entry the following year, but confirm the current date and closing deadline with your first-preference school rather than relying on a date you read online.
NSW Year 7 entry runs through one central department test. Year 11 does not — the Department of Education states that each selective school manages its own vacancies, assessments and placement decisions.
Rank them in preference order. Your child sits the paper once, at the first-preference school, and the result is shared across the schools you nominated.
One HAST sitting on the coordinated day, in Year 10, covering all four sections.
Schools weigh the HAST result alongside recent school reports, and several add an interview before deciding. Caringbah, for example, states the principal determines Year 11 numbers on HAST performance, school reports and an interview.
Your Year 10 reports are part of the application. This is the biggest practical difference from Year 7 entry, where the test is nearly everything. A strong HAST result sitting on top of a weak Year 10 report is a much harder case, so preparation should never come at the cost of school marks in the year that counts.
Preparing for the wrong test is the most expensive mistake at this level, and the NSW picture is genuinely mixed. Check what each school on your list actually requires.
James Ruse Agricultural, North Sydney Boys, North Sydney Girls and Baulkham Hills all run Edutest rather than HAST. A family applying across both groups may need to prepare for two different papers.
Chatswood High School used HAST previously but its current selective stream page names Edutest as the external provider. Older pages still reference HAST, so confirm with the school directly.
Two more exclusions worth knowing. Blacktown Girls High School runs HAST for Years 8 to 10 only — Year 11 is not offered. Gorokan High School likewise uses ACER testing for Years 8 to 10. Neither is a Year 11 pathway.
Outside New South Wales, Year 11 HAST entry effectively does not exist. No school in Queensland, Victoria, South Australia or Western Australia publishes a Year 11 entry point tested by HAST. Point Cook Senior Secondary College in Victoria is the only senior-level school on ACER’s register there, and it states plainly that it cannot accept applications for students in Years 11 and 12. Interstate families looking at Year 11 should be asking about independent school scholarships, which generally use the ACER Scholarship Test rather than HAST.
More than at Years 8 to 10 in some schools, but this is genuinely school-specific and worth asking about directly.
Some schools allocate an additional block of Year 11 places rather than simply backfilling departures. St George Girls, for instance, publishes that Years 8 to 10 vacancies occur only when a current student leaves, while for Year 11 up to eighteen additional places may be offered.
Girraween is the counter-example: it creates an extra class at Year 10, so that is its largest intake, and Years 8, 9 and 11 depend on students leaving. Do not assume Year 11 is always the bigger door.
Ask each school one question: how many places do you expect to offer at Year 11 this cycle, and is that an additional allocation or replacement of departing students? The answer should shape your preference order more than any league table will.
Machine-scored, and reported against a high-ability reference group rather than the general population. At Senior level that group is already highly selected, so a mid-range result is not a weak one.
Judged on whether the response is appropriate to the theme it was given, structure and creativity, and grammar, punctuation, spelling and vocabulary.
The test is one of three inputs. HAST result, school reports and often an interview together decide a Year 11 place. ACER marks and reports; each school sets its own threshold and weighting, and there is no published national cut-off.
Year 10 is a demanding year in its own right. The plan has to be light, consistent, and never at the expense of the reports that form part of the application.
Before any study, and on the correct level. A Junior or Middle paper will flatter the result and point you at the wrong weaknesses.
Still the section with no classroom equivalent, so it still has the steepest early gains. Twenty focused minutes a few times a week is enough.
At this level markers want a position that is developed and qualified. Spend two minutes planning the argument, including the counter-case, before writing a word.
Same start time, no pausing the clock. Move the last two or three onto paper, since the real sitting is paper-based.
It is part of the application at nearly every school in the cluster. Preparation that costs your child their Year 10 marks works against the very thing it is meant to achieve.
Several schools interview Year 11 applicants. Practise talking about why this school, which subjects your child intends to take, and what they want from their final two years.
A reasoning test cannot be crammed, so our material is built around the two things that actually move a score: repeated exposure to the question styles, and honest feedback on where the marks are being lost.
Papers pitched at the Senior Secondary paper your child will actually sit — not the Junior or Middle sets used for earlier entry points.
Reading Comprehension, Mathematical and Scientific Reasoning, Abstract Reasoning and Written Expression, at the difficulty this level demands.
Every set is built to be sat under the clock, because pacing is what separates students who know the material from students who finish the paper.
Discursive writing from a verbal stimulus and creative or narrative writing from a visual one, styled on the ACER format.
An actual marked response with highlighted passages and comments in the margin, returned within three to four working days.
Sectional results across several attempts show a trend rather than a single number, so limited Year 10 study time goes where it counts.
Written for the Senior Secondary level, covering all four sections under real exam timing.
Whatever stage you are at — checking which test your child needs, sampling a paper, or working through full timed practice — the right starting point is here.
The Senior Secondary paper, sat while your child is in Year 10. It is the highest of the four levels and the only one used for Year 11 entry.
Yes. Eleven NSW selective schools coordinate a single sitting on the same day. Your child sits the paper once, at their first-preference school, and the result is available to the schools nominated on the application.
Caringbah, Fort Street, Girraween, Gosford, Hornsby Girls, Hurlstone Agricultural, Macquarie Fields, NBSC Manly, Penrith, St George Girls and Sydney Technical. Fort Street uses it for Year 11 only — it runs no entrance test for Years 8 to 10.
James Ruse, North Sydney Boys, North Sydney Girls and Baulkham Hills use Edutest. Chatswood has moved to Edutest as well. Blacktown Girls and Gorokan run HAST for Years 8 to 10 only, not Year 11.
At some schools, yes. St George Girls publishes that up to eighteen additional Year 11 places may be offered, whereas Years 8 to 10 depend on students leaving. But Girraween creates its extra class at Year 10 instead, so ask each school directly.
Yes, more than at Year 7. Schools weigh the HAST result alongside recent school reports, and several interview Year 11 applicants before deciding.
Effectively no. No school in Queensland, Victoria, South Australia or Western Australia publishes a Year 11 entry point tested by HAST. Interstate families should look at independent school scholarships, which generally use the ACER Scholarship Test instead.
Generally not. Most selective schools state plainly that they do not accept enrolments into Year 12, which makes Year 11 the final entry point.
Year 11 is the last entry point into a NSW selective school. Give your child the advantage of having already sat the paper, under time, on the right level.
