QCE Physics IA1 data test: how to get top marks

Your IA1 is worth 10% and is marked out of 10 on a single criterion, converted from your raw score to a percentage and rounded down to a cut-off band. Every paper splits its marks into three fixed shares: about 30% on unknown quantities and calculations, about 30% on trends and patterns, and about 40% on conclusions drawn from analysis. That last figure is the one worth building a revision plan around, because it means the single biggest block of marks rewards reasoning from data, not getting a number right.

This guide describes the Physics 2025 syllabus (v1.2), which applies to Year 12 students from 2026. Perusal for IA1 dropped to 5 minutes under this syllabus, and the question specifications table changed too, so advice describing 10 minutes perusal or the 2019 verb list was written for the old rules.

What the task actually asks

IA1 is a supervised, individual data test drawn entirely from Unit 3. You are given between two and four datasets you have not seen before, taken from practicals, activities or case studies you covered in class, and you answer questions about them. Responses are short: single words, calculations, or sentences up to 150 words per question. You may use a QCAA-approved graphics or scientific calculator, and the QCAA Physics formula and data book is provided.

Conditions. 5 minutes perusal, 60 minutes working time, sat alone and supervised.

Because the stimulus is unseen, the closest preparation is practising with real Unit 3 questions, not notes. Gravity and motion and electromagnetism are the two Unit 3 topics IA1 can draw on, and both have question banks with marking criteria attached.

The question specifications table

QCAA requires every IA1 instrument to match these proportions within ± 2% (2025 syllabus, p. 40):

The 30/30/40 split itself is unchanged from 2019. Two things follow from the table, and both should shape how you revise.

First, conclusions carry the most marks in the paper, at around 40%. Most students prepare for a data test by drilling calculations, because calculation feels like the hard part. The largest single block of marks instead rewards drawing a conclusion from the data and justifying it, which is a different skill from getting a number right.

Second, the verb in a question tells you which objective it is testing, and therefore what shape of answer earns the marks.

Reading the verb, and where it changed in 2025

The verb lists inside each objective moved in 2025, and one change matters more than the rest:

Compare changed objective, from 4 to 3, and QCAA says so directly. The 2025 subject report (p. 10) states that "the cognitive verb compare now aligns more closely to Assessment objective 3 as it relates to the similarities and differences." So a question that says compare now wants similarities and differences between datasets (Objective 3), not a conclusion (Objective 4).

Note also that determine now sits under both Objective 2 and Objective 4, so the verb alone no longer fixes which objective a question tests. When you see determine, check what the question is actually asking you to do with the answer: read off or calculate a value (Objective 2), or use that value to support a conclusion (Objective 4).

How marks are awarded

IA1 is marked on a single criterion out of 10, using a percentage cut-off, not performance-level bands. Your raw score converts to a percentage, then rounds down to the matching mark:

Every cut-off is a strict "greater than", never "greater than or equal to". Exactly 80% earns 8, not 9. There is no band to reach by writing more, unlike a criterion marked by descriptor where a longer, more sophisticated response can jump a whole grade. In IA1, picking up individual marks across the paper is the only lever you have.

Common mistakes

These come from QCAA's own annotated IA1 excerpts, which show the exact line between a mark awarded and a mark withheld.

Naming a relationship with no data behind it. Stating that two quantities are related, or even naming the relationship correctly, is not the same as demonstrating it. The stronger responses QCAA prints always attach specific values from the dataset to the claim.

Reading a value off a graph without saying where it came from. A number copied from a trend line with no coordinates shown looks like a guess, even when it is correct. Writing the coordinates down before you use them turns a bare number into working a marker can follow and credit.

Quoting a mean with no uncertainty attached. Where a question asks for a measured value, the mean on its own is only half the answer. The uncertainty belongs next to it, not somewhere else in the response.

Weak versus strong responses

QCAA reproduces marked IA1 excerpts in its subject reports with the mark each one earned. The pattern across four years of these excerpts is consistent: the strong response backs its claim with specific numbers from the data, every time.

How reliably IA1 gets marked

Of the three internal assessments, IA1 is the one your school is most likely to mark exactly as QCAA would. Confirmation agreement on the single Data test criterion ran 98.23% in 2022, 99.74% in 2023, 99.75% in 2024 and 100.00% in 2025, when QCAA reviewed 2,844 samples and requested zero additional ones.

That is a different picture from IA2 and IA3, where confirmation moves school marks in every year held. Once your data test has been sat and marked, the mark your teacher gives is very likely the mark you keep. Where IA1 actually loses marks is upstream of that, in how the question was answered on the day.

In the room

There is no draft to check on a supervised test, so the checklist is a routine to run on each question as you answer it:

• Which objective does the verb point to (2, 3 or 4), and does your answer match its shape?
• Is a stated trend or relationship backed by at least two specific values from the data, not just described in words?
• If you read a value off a graph, have you written the coordinates down before using them?
• Is every mean or measured value paired with its uncertainty?
• Have you shown each step of a calculation, with units carried through?

Ready to practise? Work through unseen QCE Physics datasets on the Physics question bank, see how the whole subject fits together on the QCE Physics study guide, or read how the IA2 student experiment and IA3 research investigation are marked.