For University of Otago HSFY 2027
Walk into semester one already solid on the chemistry, physics and body systems basics, in short lessons you do at your own pace.
Try a lesson first, if you would rather see it than read about it.
CHEM191(Chemistry), 11 modules
PHSI191(Physics), 9 modules
HUBS191(Human body systems), 9 modules
CELS191(Cell and molecular biology), 11 modulesHSFY moves fast from week one, and students without Year 13 chemistry or physics are starting from further back.
Summer is the one stretch with time to fix that. Physics, chemistry and the health science basics, at your own pace, built by University of Otago Medicine and Dentistry students.
Semester one final marks of four Cutline students, from eVision, the University of Otago’s records system, shared with their permission.
Individual results from the in-year Cutline app. Not typical, not a promise. Cutline Summer is new and has no results yet.
Name, email and a plan. Nothing to pay today. The first round closes 25 October 2026.
Offers are released and enrolment opens on 2 November 2026. You pay then, not before.
Platform access runs 16 November 2026 to 28 February 2027. Start after your last school exam.
Exam-style questions for the semester one papers, with tutors showing you how. This preview is from the Summer beta.
And a study system to take into the year. Active recall, spaced repetition and a weekly study rhythm.
A crate moves right across a level floor at constant velocity. A horizontal pull of 45 N acts to the right. What is the friction force? The pull and friction are the only horizontal forces.
In the full lesson videos, your tutor explains each step out loud, so you can follow the method as well as the working.
Planned Cutline Summer modules for the four semester one papers. Lecture counts overlap between modules.
Start with symbols and moles, then connect reactions, molecular structure and biological chemistry.
How to prepare for CHEM 191 over summerTutors will teach you how to solve realistic chemistry exam-style questions, explaining the calculations and chemical reasoning step by step.
Concepts you’ll cover: Atoms, isotopes, electron shells, bonding and naming, Lewis structures, polarity and intermolecular forces, then formulae, units, equation balancing, moles, limiting reactants, concentration and logarithms.
Practise for the exam: Use a balanced equation to identify the limiting reactant and calculate the product amount.
Concepts you’ll cover: Hydrogen bonding, solubility, electrolytes, reaction quotients, equilibrium calculations, changing mixtures and precipitation.
Practise for the exam: Compare the reaction quotient with the equilibrium constant to predict how a mixture changes.
Concepts you’ll cover: Conjugate pairs, pH, strong and weak acids, buffers, titration curves and molecular ionisation.
Practise for the exam: Choose an acid-base model and calculate pH from the information in the question.
Concepts you’ll cover: Heat, enthalpy, Hess’s law, entropy, Gibbs energy, temperature, reaction coupling and equilibrium constants.
Practise for the exam: Use Gibbs energy to judge reaction direction under the stated conditions.
Concepts you’ll cover: Rate laws, initial rates, first-order reactions, half-life, reaction mechanisms, activation energy and temperature.
Practise for the exam: Infer a rate law from experimental data and explain how temperature affects the rate.
Concepts you’ll cover: Oxidation states, half-equations, electrochemical cells, electrode potentials, membrane potentials, metal ions and biological electron transfer.
Practise for the exam: Balance a redox reaction and use electrode potentials to judge its direction.
Concepts you’ll cover: Orbitals, Lewis structures, formal charge, resonance, molecular shape, functional groups, isomers and stereochemistry.
Practise for the exam: Draw a Lewis structure and justify formal charges, molecular shape or an isomer assignment.
Concepts you’ll cover: Electron movement, nucleophiles, bases, leaving groups, substitution, elimination and addition reactions of alkenes.
Practise for the exam: Follow electron movement to predict a product and justify the reaction mechanism.
Concepts you’ll cover: Alcohols, amines, carbonyl reactions, imines, acetals, sugar rings, reducing sugars, glycosidic bonds and polysaccharides.
Practise for the exam: Read a sugar structure and identify whether it has a reducing end.
Concepts you’ll cover: Carboxylic acid derivatives, esters, lipids, amino acid charge, peptides, protein structure and protease action.
Practise for the exam: Determine an amino acid’s charge at a stated pH and explain your reasoning.
Concepts you’ll cover: Aromatic rings, heterocycles, nucleosides, nucleotides, phosphate bonds, base pairing and nucleic-acid stability.
Practise for the exam: Use molecular structure to explain base pairing and the stability of a nucleic acid.
Build your maths foundations, then connect motion, matter, energy and light to biological problems.
How to prepare for PHSI 191 over summerTutors will walk you through realistic physics exam-style questions, explaining how to choose an approach and work through the calculations.
Concepts you’ll cover: Units, graphs, algebra, ratios, trigonometry, vectors, scientific notation and logarithms, then motion, forces, energy, density and pressure from first principles.
Practise for the exam: Rearrange an equation, substitute values and check the units and sign of your answer.
Concepts you’ll cover: Displacement, acceleration and projectiles; force diagrams, friction, drag, circular motion, torque and equilibrium.
Practise for the exam: Draw a force diagram and use Newton’s laws to justify the resulting motion.
Concepts you’ll cover: Work, kinetic and potential energy, conservation, power, efficiency, momentum, impulse and collisions.
Practise for the exam: Choose an energy or momentum model and explain what is conserved in a collision.
Concepts you’ll cover: Spring forces and energy, simple harmonic motion, wave propagation, interference and standing waves.
Practise for the exam: Use a wave pattern to identify nodes and connect wavelength with frequency.
Concepts you’ll cover: Density, deformation, pressure, buoyancy, surface tension, fluid flow, viscosity, diffusion and osmosis.
Practise for the exam: Calculate pressure or flow and state which assumptions make your model appropriate.
Concepts you’ll cover: Temperature, gases, phase changes, calorimetry, humidity, heat transfer and energy use in the body.
Practise for the exam: Choose the right heat calculation for a temperature change or a phase change.
Concepts you’ll cover: Charge, electric fields, potential, capacitors, current, resistance, circuit laws and charging circuits.
Practise for the exam: Use circuit laws to calculate current and potential difference across connected components.
Concepts you’ll cover: Reflection, refraction, lenses, mirrors, the eye, corrective lenses, interference, diffraction and resolution.
Practise for the exam: Use a ray diagram and lens equation to explain image position and size.
Concepts you’ll cover: Atomic energy levels, photons, nuclear decay, half-life, radiation interactions, dose and medical imaging.
Practise for the exam: Calculate radioactive decay and explain how radiation interacts with tissue in an imaging example.
Connect anatomy with movement, nerve signals, hormones and immune defence, and learn to interpret biomedical data.
How to prepare for HUBS 191 over summerTutors will give you realistic HUBS exam-style questions and teach you how to solve them, explaining the concepts and reasoning behind each answer.
Concepts you’ll cover: The four basic tissues, homeostasis, feedback, anatomical position, body planes and joint movements.
Practise for the exam: Identify tissue from its features and describe a movement using precise anatomical terms.
Concepts you’ll cover: Skeletal organisation, bone cells, remodelling, growth, connective tissues, joint types and movement.
Practise for the exam: Use joint structure to explain which movements are possible and which are restricted.
Concepts you’ll cover: Osmosis, membrane potentials, muscle contraction, force, fibre types, levers, muscle actions, stance and gait.
Practise for the exam: Trace muscle activation to contraction and explain a change in force or movement.
Concepts you’ll cover: Samples, bias, variation, variable types, summary statistics, standard error, graphs, confidence intervals and null models.
Practise for the exam: Interpret a confidence interval and identify a source of bias in a biomedical study.
Concepts you’ll cover: Nervous system organisation, neurons, glia, autonomic control, membrane channels, action potentials and synapses.
Practise for the exam: Explain how changes at the membrane trigger or prevent an action potential.
Concepts you’ll cover: Spinal structures, peripheral nerves, protective layers, cerebrospinal fluid, brain regions and sensory and motor pathways.
Practise for the exam: Use a pathway diagram to locate where damage could cause a stated deficit.
Concepts you’ll cover: Sensory receptors, adaptation, stimulus coding, movement planning, muscle activation and stretch and withdrawal reflexes.
Practise for the exam: Trace a reflex pathway and predict how changing one part affects the response.
Concepts you’ll cover: Hormone action, pituitary control, growth, thyroid function, calcium, stress responses, glucose regulation and diabetes mechanisms.
Practise for the exam: Use a feedback loop to predict how hormone levels respond to a disturbance.
Concepts you’ll cover: Barriers, immune cells, inflammation, complement, antigen presentation, antibodies, memory, tolerance, allergy and vaccination.
Practise for the exam: Explain which immune cells and mechanisms respond to a stated infection or vaccination.
Follow life from cells and molecules to inheritance, genomes, microbes and infection.
How to prepare for CELS 191 over summerTutors will walk you through realistic cell biology exam-style questions, showing how to use the concepts to work out the answer.
Concepts you’ll cover: Living systems, natural selection, evolutionary trees, cell types, carbohydrates, proteins, lipids and nucleic acids.
Practise for the exam: Compare cell features and use them to justify a classification or evolutionary relationship.
Concepts you’ll cover: Membranes, diffusion, osmosis, active transport, compartments, protein trafficking, endocytosis, exocytosis and cellular recycling.
Practise for the exam: Predict how water or a solute moves when membrane conditions change.
Concepts you’ll cover: Cytoskeleton, cell junctions, extracellular matrix, plant walls, turgor, nuclear pores, ribosomes and DNA packing.
Practise for the exam: Connect a damaged cell structure with the function most likely to be affected.
Concepts you’ll cover: ATP, cellular respiration, proton gradients, ATP synthase, photosynthetic light reactions and carbon fixation.
Practise for the exam: Trace energy transfer and predict how disrupting a proton gradient affects ATP production.
Concepts you’ll cover: DNA structure, transcription, RNA processing, the genetic code, translation, DNA replication and repair.
Practise for the exam: Read a sequence and connect a DNA change to its possible effect on a protein.
Concepts you’ll cover: Chromosome sets, the cell cycle, mitosis, meiosis, genetic variation, chromosome abnormalities and X-inactivation.
Practise for the exam: Track chromosomes through division and explain how an abnormal distribution could arise.
Concepts you’ll cover: Genetic crosses, probability, dominance, environmental effects, linked genes, allele frequencies, drift and selection.
Practise for the exam: Use a genetic cross or allele frequencies to calculate a stated inheritance probability.
Concepts you’ll cover: Reference genomes, genetic variation, comparative genomics, ancient DNA, mutation effects, pedigrees and disease risk.
Practise for the exam: Use a pedigree and variant evidence to evaluate an explanation for inherited disease.
Concepts you’ll cover: Gene experiments, transgenesis, gene editing, gene therapy, cell differentiation, stem cells, PCR and genetic tests.
Practise for the exam: Choose a genetic method and explain what its result can establish.
Concepts you’ll cover: Bacterial structure, Gram staining, survival, growth, metabolism, microbial communities, research methods and the microbiome.
Practise for the exam: Interpret a growth curve and use cell features to distinguish bacterial groups.
Concepts you’ll cover: Viruses, replication, bacterial gene transfer, phages, infection, toxins, antibiotic targets, resistance and pathogen evolution.
Practise for the exam: Explain why an antibiotic targets a bacterium and how resistance can spread.
Build a method you can take into the exam. Recognise the concept, choose a method, explain your answer, even when the question looks unfamiliar.
One free application for every option. You pay from 2 November 2026, after an offer, and only if you accept it.
Summer Mentor Circle, 50 places
Everything in Summer + Cutline HSFY 2027, with a small group and someone checking in. Chosen on suitability from the application, not first-come.
The Ultimate HSFY Year
Both semesters of 2027, to 1 December 2027.
Summer NZ$699 + 2027 added later NZ$850 = NZ$1,549
Save NZ$100Apply for Summer + HSFY 2027HSFY Head Start Accelerator
15 weeks, 16 Nov to 28 Feb. CHEM, PHSI, CELS and HUBS basics before day one.
Do the first module of each paper by 31 December 2026. If Summer isn't helping, tell us and get a full refund.
Plus a full refund within 14 days of paying, no questions. GST included. Three payments, 30 days apart, that stop after the third. Mentor Circle sessions already held are not refunded.
Med or dent? Add UCAT ($199) or the Dent interview ($99) during HSFY.
| Tuition for a full-time year of Health Sciences papers (2026 rates) | NZ$10,159 |
| A standard room in a University residential college (2026 contract) | NZ$21,470 |
| The year, by Otago’s own figures | NZ$31,629 |
| Cutline Summer | NZ$699 |
Cutline Summer is about 2% of what the year itself costs.
Both figures are the University of Otago’s own, from its tuition fees page and its college fee schedule.
Send them the parent page, in English and 中文.
Your pace. Tutors walk you through exam-style questions.
Short lessons, practice and worked answers in one place.
A lesson whenever it suits you. Start any time after your last school exam.
Tutors explain the method. Ask when you get stuck.
From the people behind Cutline. Cutline is built by Otago medicine and dentistry students who sat these papers themselves.
Information for parentsNo. Beginner routes start from zero; a faster route starts at HSFY level.
Yes. It is self-paced and the weekly Q&A is optional. The Summer Mentor Circle (Nov to Feb only) adds six weekly sessions.
Questions answered on the platform and a weekly Q&A. The Summer Mentor Circle adds small-group sessions, Nov to Feb only, with Otago Medicine and Dentistry students who got exceptionally high grades in HSFY.
Summer + Cutline HSFY 2027 if you start HSFY in 2027. Cutline Summer for the summer only. Want a small group? Ask for the Summer Mentor Circle on the form.
Applications close 25 October 2026. Enrolment opens 2 November 2026. Access runs 16 November 2026 to 28 February 2027.
Yes. Full refund within fourteen days of paying.
No, mentoring is in English. The platform and the guides are in English and Chinese.
Summer + Cutline HSFY 2027 carries on in the Cutline app to 1 December 2027. On Cutline Summer? Add 2027 for $850 before 28 February 2027.
No. Cutline operates independently and is not affiliated with, employed by, or endorsed by the University of Otago.
Free application. No payment today. Name, email and a plan. The rest is optional, after you confirm.
First round closes 25 October 2026. Offers from 2 November 2026. A person reads every application, and you hear back by email either way.
Free application. No payment today.
Get the free HSFY plan and guide. Seven taps for your read, the free HSFY guide and Summer updates.
Cutline operates independently and is not affiliated with, employed by, or endorsed by the University of Otago.
Name, email and a plan. The rest is optional, after you confirm.
Tie Education Ltd (Cutline, New Zealand) collects this. We use it to process your application, decide mentoring places, and email you about it. We do not ask for your date of birth or your ethnicity, because neither has anything to do with that. Email [email protected] to see or delete it. Privacy policy
