Maybe because it WASN'T about all the topics. It had nothing to do with the significant person. It was based on Ethics and/OR Significant Practices, hence the vague question was so people would make their own interpretations which many people are seemingly incapable of.
I'v said this before but, people themselves are not to blame.
The BOS is to blame. Not because they SET that question in the exam, but because they had been rewarding regurgitation for pretty much YEARS now. They've trained some of these people to become mindless regurgitation, by awarding pre-planned responses full marks, whereas those that were attempting to think of a solution IN the exam itself were left in the dust.
Now when suddenly one of the examiners decides to shift this, its completely understandable why so many kids would be thrown off. They've literally been trained their whole life to regurgitate.
BOS needs to pick a side and stick with it, either advocate regurgitation, and rename the HSC to MWSE: memorization/witting speed exam.
Or get the marker to not just skim through essays looking for keywords to give marks to, but actually try to follow the ideas the student is saying.
When a question is asked and the student provides a logical but not taught in the course answer, they shouldn't be given 0 marks.
Even the whole idea of a "bullshit" answer. I'v heard it so many times, students come out saying "i just gave a bullshit answer"... When actually what they've done is given an answer like you would in the real world. It's gotten to the state that if an answer is not regurgitated, its a "bullshit" answer.... Bullshit.