Each year, the toughest HSC maths exam ends in a question notorious for its sheer difficulty, often stumping even the state’s best students.

The blistering heat on Wednesday afternoon was no deterrent for more than 3800 students across the state who sat the gruelling three-hour HSC mathematics extension 2 exam, where they were tested on topics such as proofs, mechanics and vectors.

While the class of 2025 feared for the worst, some students found this year’s final question more straightforward than expected.

James Ruse Agricultural High School student Emily Xiao was expecting a problem she would “have to think for a long time about”.

“But for this question I could visualise the actual geometric points on the sphere itself, which made it easier to go through the exam knowing I could do

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