Author and authority and the new online exam in the 2024 HSC English Extension 2 syllabus

New syllabus (first HSC 2027). This page follows the English Extension 11-12 (2024) syllabus. If you are sitting the 2026 HSC, use the older Major Work and Reflection pages on this subject instead. See what's changed.

What changed for Extension 2

Under the 2017 syllabus, Extension 2 was a course in which you composed a Major Work and wrote a Reflection Statement about it. There was no written exam. From the 2027 HSC, the course keeps the Major Work but adds a second strand: a focus area called Author and authority, examined in a new online (computer-based) paper. The new specification lists no separate Reflection Statement, but, as the exam section below shows, you can still be asked to reflect.

The shape of the new course, as set out by NESA, is:

• Online exam, 40 marks. It is computer-based and runs for 1 hour 30 minutes plus 10 minutes of reading time. It has two questions and a maximum of three items in total. Question 1, Author and authority (20 marks), uses stimulus and/or unseen material. Question 2, Author study (20 marks), is on your chosen author. Each question can ask for a critical response, a creative response or both, can be in two parts or one extended response, and may include stimulus and/or unseen material. Headphones are needed for audio and video stimulus.
• Major Work, marked out of 20 and then converted to 60. The conversion means the Major Work counts for three times as much in the final result as its raw marks suggest.
• Total, 100 marks. The exam contributes 40 of the 100 and the Major Work contributes 60.

This is a real shift in weighting. In the old course, the Major Work and the Reflection Statement together made up the whole HSC mark. Now a student needs to be prepared for a timed, on-screen exam as well as for a long independent composition. The Major Work is still the larger share, but 40 marks is far too many to leave to chance.

With at most three items across 90 minutes of working time, expect to write sustained responses rather than many short answers. Open NESA's sample online paper (linked from the NSW Curriculum site) to see the layout on screen.

What the questions can look like

NESA's specification says both online questions will require a critical or creative response, or both, may include stimulus and/or unseen material, and may be in two parts or one extended response. NESA has published two sample papers with marking guidelines (linked under Sources), and they show how wide that is. In our own words:

• Sample 1, Question 1 (critical). An evaluation of the extent to which the ideas in a given statement are reflected in your study of Author and authority.
• Sample 2, Question 1 (critical). A sustained response on how literary debates influence the process of composition.
• Sample 2, Question 2, Henry James (stimulus-based critical). Extracts about narrative point of view are the stimulus, and the response must show how the stimulus and your study of narrative point of view in James contribute to an understanding of narratology.
• Sample 2, Question 2, Haruki Murakami (creative plus reflection). Part (a), 8 marks: the beginning of a narrative that echoes or extends the ideas and style of the author. Part (b), 12 marks: a reflection on how significant thinkers influenced the compositional choices you made in part (a).
• Sample 2, Question 2, Alexis Wright (critical). How your study of Wright has deepened your understanding of what gives an author the authority to speak into contested spaces.

So practise four things: an argued critical response, a response built from a stimulus extract, a short creative piece in your author's manner, and a reflection that names the thinkers and critics behind your choices. The practice questions below cover each.

What authority means in this focus area

The word authority does two jobs in this focus area, and strong responses keep both in view.

Authority as a claim a composer makes. An author persuades readers to trust a voice, a vision or a version of the world. They do this through narrative method, tone, structure, point of view, and the way a body of work builds a recognisable way of seeing. Ask what the author asks you to believe, and how.

Authority as a claim made about the author. Readers, critics, publishers, prizes, translators and communities also grant or withhold authority. A reputation is itself a construction. Ask who has the standing to say what a work means, and whether the author's own account of their work settles the matter.

A useful working definition, in our own words, is this: authority is the power to be believed and to be treated as the one whose meaning counts, and every part of it can be examined, tested and challenged. That is why the focus area suits an extension course. It asks you to read an author's work critically and to ask critical questions about the idea of the author itself.

The author study

You study one author in depth. The three authors in the 2024 syllabus are Henry James, Haruki Murakami and Alexis Wright. You study one. NESA does not prescribe any author-study texts: the syllabus sets four general areas of critical enquiry for every author, adds three author-specific points for each of the three, and lists no set titles, so the works you read within that author's output are not fixed by NESA and you should build your map from the works your class studies. The four general areas are below, and each author page sets out its three specific points in our own words.

NESA sets four general areas of critical enquiry that apply to whichever author you study. Each asks how significant thinkers, theories or movements have shaped ideas about one of these:

1. How the author's personal, social, historical and literary context influenced their writing.
2. The author's experiments with, and contribution to, textual form.
3. How the author has influenced later writers and texts.
4. How a wide range of readers and scholars have celebrated, represented, appreciated and criticised the author.

Studying an author is different from studying a text. A text-based module asks how one work is constructed. An author study asks what pattern emerges when you read across several works, and what that pattern shows about a distinctive way of seeing. You are looking for recurring concerns, recurring methods, and the points where the author changes or contradicts themselves.

A practical routine for any of the three authors:

1. Build a map of the works you are set. For each, note the form, the approximate date, the narrative situation and the central tension.
2. Name two or three recurring concerns. Make them specific. "Identity" is too broad. "How a person is formed by being watched" is something you can argue.
3. Name the recurring methods. Voice, structure, handling of time, the use of silence or gaps, the relationship with the reader.
4. Find a point of difference. One work that behaves differently from the pattern is worth more to an argument than a fourth example of the pattern.
5. Add context as a driver. Ask what conditions made this author's approach possible, and how a present-day reader meets it differently.
6. Read some commentary and argue with it. Critics and reviewers hold authority too. Decide where you agree and where you do not.

How to prepare for the two exam parts

Because the exam is split evenly, plan your revision in two halves.

Author and authority (20 marks) rewards your grasp of the concept. Revise the two meanings of authority above and practise applying them to your author with a sharp argument, not a list of examples.

Author study (20 marks) rewards depth across your author's work. Revise your map of the works, your recurring concerns and methods, and your points of difference. Practise writing a focused piece from a short prompt in the time you will have on screen.

Whichever part you face, three habits lift a response:

• State a position early and keep returning to it.
• Move across more than one work by the author, since the whole point is a body of work.
• Analyse method (what the author does, and how) before you generalise about meaning.

Common traps

• Writing a biography. Context should explain a choice in the work, not replace the analysis.
• Treating the author's own statements as the final answer. Interviews and essays are evidence, not verdicts.
• Retelling plots across several works instead of arguing about patterns.
• Quoting from memory and getting wording wrong. In an online exam, short accurate references to scenes and methods are safer than long recalled lines.
• Forgetting the Major Work. Forty marks of exam is important, but sixty marks come from the composition, so protect time for it. See the new Major Work page.