VCE Mathematical Methods formula sheet explained (VCAA)

Quick answer

The VCE Mathematical Methods formula sheet (VCAA) is two printed pages of tables in four sections: mensuration, calculus, probability and sample proportions. It is handed out with Exam 1, which is technology-free with no notes, and Exam 2 has its own sheet with the same content. It prints derivative and antiderivative pairs, the product, quotient and chain rules, Newton's method and the trapezium rule, but not algebra, logarithm or circular function facts, so those come from you. This page describes the sheet in our own words; print the official PDF from the VCAA Methods examination page and work from that.

This guide describes the sheets VCAA links for Mathematical Methods (marked 2024 on the cover; no 2026-dated sheet was listed when we checked on 21 October 2026) under the VCE Mathematics Study Design accredited from 2023. Exam 1 in 2026 is on Thursday 5 November. Past papers and marked questions live on the VCE Mathematical Methods page.

What is on the VCE Methods formula sheet?

The sheet has four headed groups. Page 2 holds the first two and page 3 the other two. Here is each group in plain words, with what it is for.

Mensuration

Seven formulas: the area of a trapezium, the curved surface area of a cylinder, the volume of a cylinder, a cone, a pyramid and a sphere, and the area of a triangle written with two sides and the sine of the angle between them.

Calculus

This is the biggest group. It lists seven rows of derivatives and antiderivatives, then five rules and methods:

• Derivatives and antiderivatives for a power of $x$, a power of a linear expression $(ax+b)$, the exponential $e^{ax}$, the natural logarithm, sine, cosine and tangent. Where a letter $a$ sits inside the function, the printed pair already includes the factor it produces, so you can copy the pattern without re-deriving the chain rule.
• Product rule, quotient rule and chain rule. The chain rule is printed in the $\frac{dy}{du}\cdot\frac{du}{dx}$ form.
• Newton's method, the iteration that improves an estimate of a root.
• The trapezium rule approximation of area, printed with the width factor $\frac{x_n - x_0}{2n}$ in front of a bracket of function values.

Two details are easy to miss. The antiderivative cell for tangent is shaded out, so it is not printed. And the antiderivative of $\frac{1}{x}$ is printed for $x>0$ only, which matters when a question hands you a negative $x$.

Probability

• The complement rule, the addition rule for two events, and conditional probability.
• The mean and the variance of a random variable, with variance in both its definition form and its shortcut form.
• The binomial coefficient written with factorials.
• A three-row table of distributions: discrete, binomial and continuous, each with a probability rule, a mean and a variance. For a continuous random variable the probability is an integral between two values, and the mean and variance are integrals over the whole real line.

Sample proportions

The sample proportion as a count over a sample size, its mean, its standard deviation and the approximate confidence interval for a population proportion. The interval is printed with a $z$ in it, but the sheet does not say what value of $z$ to use.

What is not on the formula sheet?

This list comes from reading the sheet itself, not from the study design. Each item is absent from the printed pages, so it has to come from memory in Exam 1, and from memory or your bound reference in Exam 2. Whether a given item is examinable is a question for the study design.

The left column was checked against the two printed pages. The right column is our own note on where the gap can matter, not VCAA wording.

Are the Exam 1 and Exam 2 formula sheets the same?

Yes, on the files VCAA currently links. We compared the two sheets page by page: same four groups, same rows, same layout. Only the exam number in the page header and on the cover changes. The practical differences between the papers sit elsewhere:

Calculator and bound reference rules are from VCAA's 2026 Exams Navigator and the study design. Lengths and weightings are from the study design.

How do you use the sheet in the technology-free Exam 1?

The sheet saves you remembering a formula. It does not save you the algebra, and it is the algebra that Exam 1 marks. Two short examples show where the sheet stops and your own work starts.

What the 2024 and 2025 Exam 1 external assessment reports say about the technology-free paper, in short:

• Show working for any question worth more than one mark. The 2024 report quotes the exam instruction and adds that a correct answer must come from correct working; the 2025 report repeats that working must be shown to earn full marks.
• Make the final answer obvious. If you use extra space, mark which response is final. Conflicting final answers cannot earn full marks (both reports, p. 1).
• Respect the command term. Verify means check the truth of a statement with specific values, so a general comment about positive and negative tendencies is not enough (2024 report). A show that question needs each line to progress explicitly to the given result, and substituting the two candidate values back in was not enough in one 2025 question.
• Answer only what is asked. In 2025 some students found a gradient correctly and then derived a full tangent equation that was not requested.
• Write a required rule in full, not an incomplete statement such as "c = ..." (2025 report, p. 1).
• Give a reason when an area comes out negative. The 2024 report notes students knew the area had to be positive but did not show the step, such as using an absolute value or stating that area must be positive.
• Draw graphs so the assessor can see them. Pencil is fine for curve sketching, but dashed asymptotes must be dark enough to read (2025 report, p. 1).
• Be careful when you introduce a new variable. The 2025 report describes students who solved for a substituted variable and reported that value as the answer to the original one.

Where do you practise with the sheet?

AusGrader holds VCAA Methods Exam 1 and Exam 2 past papers, with marked practice questions. Do an Exam 1 paper with only the printed sheet beside you and no calculator, and tick each rule you reached for that is not on it. That list is your personal not-on-the-sheet list, and it is more useful than anyone else's. For which topics reward revision, see most tested topics and hardest topics. The topic pages for calculus and data analysis, probability and statistics hold the questions that use the calculus and probability groups of the sheet. Dates for every VCE exam are on the VCE exam timetable.