It’s a warm, sunny day, and inside a dark industrial shed at Sydney Olympic Park, dozens of teachers are sitting under fluorescent lighting, staring at banks of computers.

They’re engrossed in phase one of marking roughly 67,000 English essays, a process which starts with a small group reading about 10 per cent to get a sense of the full spectrum of responses. There are the students who triumphed, the ones who regurgitated a memorised essay, and those with handwriting requiring patient interpretation.

Supervisors Laura Craven, Geoffrey Kemmis and Kyra Rose among the markers at this year’s HSC. Credit: Sam Mooy

“We’re in the phase of reading a very large number of scripts to see how students respond to our particular questions,” says Laura Craven.

Craven is a supervisor of marking w

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