QCE Chemistry study guide

QCE Chemistry is decided by four assessments in Units 3 and 4: the IA1 data test (10%), the IA2 student experiment (20%), the IA3 research investigation (20%) and the external examination (50%). Your school sets and marks the three internal assessments and QCAA confirms them; QCAA writes and marks the two exam papers, so internal and external assessment are worth exactly the same. Across four cohorts of subject reports QCAA has named the same short list of problems every year, and they are about how a response is built more than about how much chemistry is in it.

This guide describes Chemistry 2025 v1.0, the current General Senior Syllabus, released January 2024 and applying to Year 11 from 2025 and Year 12 from 2026. The 2026 Year 12 cohort is the first assessed under it. That matters when you read anything else about this subject: the four subject reports published so far (2022 to 2025 cohorts) describe assessment under the superseded Chemistry 2019 v1.3 rules, so their exam and subject-matter commentary still holds, while their criterion names, mark splits and confirmation figures describe rules that no longer apply.

How the marks add up

Units 1 and 2 are formative. Schools run at least two and no more than four assessments across them, with at least one in each unit, and none of it counts towards your result.

The IA1 data test is the only assessment whose paper shape is published before you sit it: the syllabus fixes what proportion of the marks tests each objective, to within 2%. The IA2 student experiment asks you to modify an experiment relevant to Unit 3 and report it, and the IA3 research investigation asks you to evaluate a claim relevant to Unit 4 using secondary evidence. Both are marked on four criteria worth 5 marks each, and under the 2025 syllabus Communication is no longer one of them.

The exam is half of your result

Two papers, written and marked by QCAA, sat by every school on the same day under the same conditions. Each paper gives you 5 minutes perusal and 90 minutes working time, a QCAA-approved graphics or scientific calculator is permitted, and the QCAA Chemistry formula and data book is provided. The format is combination response: multiple choice, single words, sentences, paragraphs, calculations and unseen stimulus such as graphs, tables and diagrams.

Four of the six assessment objectives are examined (describe, apply, analyse and interpret). Evaluate and investigate live in the internal assessments.

Neither syllabus version fixes a mark total or a split between the papers. This is what was actually sat:

Twenty multiple-choice marks in Paper 1 every year, and the total climbed from 100 in 2022 to around 110 since. In 2025 the two papers balanced exactly at 55 marks each. Divide that out and 90 minutes for 55 marks is about 1 minute 38 seconds per mark, a figure we derived from the report rather than one QCAA publishes, and in Paper 1 the twenty multiple-choice marks have to fit inside the same 90 minutes. A 2022 paper is a gentler time rehearsal than the paper you will sit.

Only the Science understanding subject matter is externally assessable. Science as a human endeavour (SHE) and Science inquiry are assessed internally, and the 2025 syllabus moved real content across that line: green chemistry principles, atom economy, molecular manufacturing, the industrial use of enzymes and triglycerides as esters are all now SHE. Moving the other way, with no 2019 counterpart, are solubility products and reaction quotients, quantitative electrolysis using $Q = n(e^-) \times F$, optical isomerism and chirality, Markovnikov's rule, zwitterions, conductometric titration, and chromatography and electrophoresis of amino acids.

What QCAA keeps saying, four years running

These six problems each appear in more than one of the four reports, and because they describe subject matter and exam skills they survive the syllabus revision intact.

1. The cognitive verb decides the shape of the answer. Named in all four reports from 2022 to 2025. Compare is the one QCAA works through twice: it needs the similarity, the difference and the significance of that difference (2022, 2023). The 2024 report does the same job for explain, which needs a detailed account of the scenario with additional relevant information.

2. The mark count tells you how many points to make. Named in 2024 and 2025. QCAA's own example: a question asking for a prediction and an explanation of reasoning for 3 marks usually wants the prediction plus two points of explanation.

3. Questions that span two or more steps or topics. Named in 2022, 2023 and 2024. The 2023 report points at specific items, Questions 21, 25 and 27 in Paper 1 and Question 9 in Paper 2, and both the 2023 and 2024 reports ask schools to teach the connections between subject matter across topics and units.

4. Structural formulas and IUPAC nomenclature. Named in 2023 and 2024 in almost identical wording. The 2025 report extends the same territory to organic pathways and the conditions under which reactions occur.

5. Chemistry conventions. The 2025 report names ionic charges and states of matter in redox equations, equilibrium arrows for the partial dissociation of a weak acid against reaction arrows for the full dissociation of a strong acid, and oxidation states written with the sign before the number (+3) while an ionic charge puts the magnitude first (2+). The 2025 syllabus writes that sign convention into the subject matter itself.

6. In the internal assessments, the evidence is the source of everything. For IA2, all four reports say the same thing: identify uncertainty and limitations through analysis of the evidence, not by listing problems with the methodology. For IA3, 2023, 2024 and 2025 all say conclusions must address the research question, and that quality of evidence means the evidence itself, not the credentials of the source.

Where the marks are actually lost

QCAA names the cognitive verb every year but does not publish a score per verb. Across 34,620 marked attempts on 736 Chemistry questions on AusGrader, students average 68.6% overall. Ranked weakest first, with our two strongest verbs at the foot for contrast:

Name and identify ask you to recognise something, and every verb that asks you to produce an account, a calculation or a construction scores well beneath them. That is our sample agreeing with QCAA independently, on different questions and by a different method, and two sources agreeing is a stronger claim than either one alone. A few verbs above 80% are missing from this table on purpose: in our data they are dominated by assignment-style items and cannot be compared with exam-marked responses.

Sketch is the row to watch. It is one of our four weakest verbs, on a small sample of 57 attempts, and the 2025 syllabus now asks for it outright in three places where the 2019 wording said "describe, using a diagram" or "sketch the general shapes".

The content that gives the most trouble

These are our per-subtopic averages, weakest first. Two redox and galvanic subtopics are held back from it: QCAA reports that the 2025 cohort handled that content well, our figures disagree, and where the board and our sample conflict the board wins. Our data exposes a question count per subtopic but no attempt count at that grain, so the 50-attempt floor we apply to verbs cannot be applied here. Read them as directions to look in, not as statistics about the state cohort. The questions behind them come from 2020 to 2025 papers, sat under the previous syllabus and mapped onto 2025 subtopic names by us.

QCAA's practices to strengthen for the 2025 cohort point the same way at two of these: the electrolysis of dilute, concentrated and molten salt under different conditions, and organic pathways with the conditions under which reactions occur. The report also singles out spectra work, and the 2025 Paper 2 electrophoresis item sits behind our Analytical techniques row.

The cohort is not weak everywhere. QCAA reports that 2025 students handled describe and explain questions on redox and galvanic cell processes well, distinguished ketones, aldehydes and carboxylic acids from spectroscopic data, and contrasted the movement of ions and electrons in a galvanic cell.

By topic, Unit 4's organic materials content is our lowest at 63.4% across 681 questions, and both Unit 3 topics sit around 70%. Unit 3 is chemical equilibrium systems and oxidation and reduction; Unit 4 is properties and structure of organic materials and chemical synthesis and design. Each page holds real QCAA questions with the marking criteria attached, and the QCE Chemistry question bank pulls all four together.

Do not chase a fixed grade boundary

Every report repeats the same line: the boundaries are determined by comparing results on a numeric scale to the reporting standards. The A cut-off rose from 86 to 87 between the 2022 and 2023 cohorts and has held there since, and the D and E boundary moved in 2024. Any number you copy from an older cohort is a guess about yours.

For scale, 9,335 students completed Units 3 and 4 in 2025 across 423 schools. Of that cohort 44.26% finished on an A and 39.33% on a B, so more than 83% landed in the top two standards, while 0.39% received a D and 0.01% an E. Only the 2025 report prints percentages; the earlier three print counts, and the A share has risen in every year we hold.

Where to start

If your next assessment is the data test, start there: it is the only paper whose mark distribution across objectives is published in advance, and knowing that changes what you practise. If you are partway through Unit 3, go to the student experiment guide, where 20% of the subject turns on a handful of adjectives in the marking guide. If you are in Unit 4, the research investigation guide covers evaluating secondary evidence and applying it to a claim, which is a different skill from anything IA1 or IA2 asks of you. The QCE hub covers how internal and external assessment fit together across the certificate.