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I wrote in lead. (1 Viewer)

Bdogz

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You mean you wrote in graphite because they don't put lead in lead pencils anymore lol and i think you should be ok its pretty slack if they give you zero for the whole test, besides i used pencil for the graphs:D
 

ashllis92

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Technically the marker isn't required to mark it if it's not in black or blue pen and it probably wont show up well when they scan it either

Let's just hope yours isn't the last paper of the night before they pack up!
 

daniieee

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Technically the marker isn't required to mark it if it's not in black or blue pen and it probably wont show up well when they scan it either

Let's just hope yours isn't the last paper of the night before they pack up!
Haha +1

I hope it doesn't smudge either. Stacked with all the rest, then shipped off to the marking centres, then sorted into other stacks, and so on. That's a lot of, for lack of a better term, paper rubbing on paper there.

Whatever made you write in pencillllllll =[[ I used pencil to quickly sketch my graphs before I went over it with a pen.
 

absorber

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Yes; I must ask, with graphs, do they have to be in pen? I did them in pencil, but everything else in pen...
 

daniieee

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Yes; I must ask, with graphs, do they have to be in pen? I did them in pencil, but everything else in pen...
Well the instructions explicitly state to write using either a black or blue pen, so going by the instructions, everything written is to be in pen. Graphing isn't exactly writing so there you go lol, use a texta if you'd like. However, with pencils there's the risk of the lines smudging, and that's when they can penalise you for not clearly showing the lines, etc. So no it's not actually a must, if you take the official instructions literally, but it's highly recommended to avoid any unnecessary confusion.
 

Marina89

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Am I screwed?
Relax you'll be fine. Last year when I did english, (I did the HSC over two years at tafe) all my pens ran out so I wrote most of my essays in pencil and I still got a decent mark. Don't stress!
 

absorber

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Well the instructions explicitly state to write using either a black or blue pen, so going by the instructions, everything written is to be in pen. Graphing isn't exactly writing so there you go lol, use a texta if you'd like. However, with pencils there's the risk of the lines smudging, and that's when they can penalise you for not clearly showing the lines, etc. So no it's not actually a must, if you take the official instructions literally, but it's highly recommended to avoid any unnecessary confusion.
True, but then again, how many people out of 25000 or so would have made that mistake? It'd be a damn few thousand.
 

daniieee

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True, but then again, how many people out of 25000 or so would have made that mistake? It'd be a damn few thousand.
Which is why I highly doubt they'd penalise anyone for using pencil to graph. Only exception is if they can't see the lines clearly due to smudging, in which case, even if you'd used a pen they'd still have to penalise you. I'm sure you'll be fine lol. Like you said, alot of people used pencil to graph.
 

naisAtoN

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It'd have to be a pretty significant amount of smudging for them to want to penalise you. I highly doubt, if a couple of words are slightly smudged, that the markers are going to think 'omg this student's paper is COMPLETELY ILLEGIBLE! ZERO!!!'.

The guidelines are mostly there to make it easy on the markers. If your work was still neat and easy to read, then you shouldn't have too much to worry about. I think one of the main thing about the black/blue pen rule is that the lighting can be slightly shonky in some of the marking centres. That, and they don't want people handing in 10-page essays written in pink highligher. A couple of my teachers who are markers say they prefer people to use black felt tip just because it stands out the most.
 
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M@ster P

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It'd have to be a pretty significant amount of smudging for them to want to penalise you. I highly doubt, if a couple of words are slightly smudged, that the markers are going to think 'omg this student's paper is COMPLETELY ILLEGIBLE! ZERO!!!'.

The guidelines are mostly there to make it easy on the markers. If your work was still neat and easy to read, then you shouldn't have too much to worry about. I think one of the main thing about the black/blue pen rule is that the lighting can be slightly shonky in some of the marking centres. That, and they don't want people handing in 10-page essays written in pink highligher. A couple of my teachers who are markers say they prefer people to use black felt tip just because it stands out the most.
lmao!!! pink highlighter, I wondered if anyone used that for the test??
 

ashllis92

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Funny you should say that about pink highlighter....

But seriously, they scan the maths papers so what if the pink highlighter doesn't show up on the scan, I used it to make the final answer really clear???
argh
 

naisAtoN

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Funny you should say that about pink highlighter....

But seriously, they scan the maths papers so what if the pink highlighter doesn't show up on the scan, I used it to make the final answer really clear???
argh
What on earth possessed you to bring out the highlighters in an HSC exam? Try not to worry about it though, there's nothing you can do. If the highlighter itself doesn't show up in the scan (although I wasn't aware they scanned them) then perhaps the writing will. Just hope it doesn't make your working have a 'grey' background if they only scan in greyscale.
 

hairspray

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I don't get what you guys mean by "scan"... so are u saying they won't mark the originals of what we wrote?
 

Aquawhite

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I drew graphs in pencil but as far as I know, that's acceptable... as other people have told me.
 

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