Online tutor shows how to answer hard high school maths exam question in TikTok video

People are divided over this high school maths exam question being labelled the 'hardest'. Photo / TikTok

It's safe to saying that year 12 exams like the HSC (Australia's version of NCEA) are designed to be difficult – but a TikTok video about the "hardest" question from last year has people divided.

In a video that has been viewed more than 48,000 times, TikTok account @alphaedtutoring has broken down what he says was the most difficult question for the HSC's advanced maths exam.

"The hardest question in the 2020 two unit HSC: For four marks we're asked to find the value of A, substitute the area under the two curves and it is exactly equal to 16/3," he said in the video, before going on to show how he solved it.

As well as the video being viewed thousands of times, it also got dozens of comments from students who weren't sold on how hard the question was.

"I thought this was one of the easier questions, at least in my opinion," one person commented, while another asked: "How is this the hardest question?"

"Bruh I'm in yr 10 and can do that," one student also wrote.

Meanwhile Victorian students claimed that their NSW counterparts had gotten off easy compared to their maths exam.

"If this was the hardest you should've seen VCE (Victoria's exams)," one wrote.

"Wow they got lucky if that was the hardest question compared to the VCE cohort," another commented.

In response to the debate @alphaedtutoring wrote in the comment section that he had described it as the "hardest" based on the feedback from the students he had tutored.

"By hardest question – I've heard from many students of mine that this was a very tedious and long question so with limited time students struggled," he wrote.

"This doesn't necessarily mean everyone else will find it hard."

People are divided over this high school maths exam question being labelled the 'hardest'. Photo / TikTok

But plenty of people found the question hard enough. Photo / TikTok

Meanwhile if watching that video just gave you the sweats and reminded you of your dad trying to explain long division at the kitchen bench during school, then you're not alone.

Plenty of people found the question difficult, with one person going so far as to comment it gave them "flashbacks" (presumably not good ones).

"I can't even divide," one person wrote.

"Yea I'll be back when I learn integration," another said.

Another commented that they were "so glad I dropped to standard" maths while one person seemed resigned to never understand how to answer the question.

"No idea what this means but 30 ATAR here we come," they wrote.