Which VCE Chemistry past paper do students score lowest on?

The 2020 Exam, averaging 50.9% across 6,262 marked attempts on AusGrader. The 2024 Exam (NHT) is the highest on 69.4%.

Which VCE Chemistry dot points give the best return on revision time?

4.1.2.1 (2.6 marks at risk per 100), 4.1.1.4 (1.6 marks at risk per 100) and 3.2.3.1 (1.6 marks at risk per 100). Marks at risk combines a dot point's share of paper marks with the marks students drop on it, so it ranks by recoverable marks and not by score alone.

How many attempts is each VCE Chemistry figure based on?

38,364 marked attempts overall, with the per-row count shown in every table. Any cut below 50 attempts is withheld instead of published.

Do these averages show how the VCAA cohort performed?

No. They are AusGrader users' marked attempts, a self-selected group practising when they chose to and often without exam timing. They corroborate what VCAA publishes about this subject and do not replace it.

VCE Chemistry hardest topics

Across 38,364 marked attempts on AusGrader, VCE Chemistry students average 56.1% on questions taken from board external papers. The lowest average of any command verb is calculate on 53.3%, and the verb that costs the most marks is explain, which carries 18.3% of the paper against 12.5% for calculate. These are self-selected users practising when they chose to, not the VCAA cohort under exam conditions.

How to read these numbers

The figures are AusGrader users' marked attempts, not VCAA results. They corroborate what the board publishes about this subject and do not stand in for it.
Any cut with fewer than 50 attempts is withheld, which on this page is 9 dot points, 1 question type and 10 verbs. Every figure shown carries its attempt count.
Scores cover questions mapped to the VCE Chemistry study design from any board's external papers, which is why the sample is larger than the 9 VCAA papers alone. The paper table below is the exception and uses VCAA papers only.
Internal assessment and school-uploaded exams are excluded throughout, so these averages differ from the ones on VCE Chemistry performance stats, which count every attempt.

Score by past paper

Year	Exam	Average	Attempts
2025	Exam	58.9%	5,567
2025	Exam (NHT)	68.7%	153
2024	Exam	51.5%	5,192
2024	Exam (NHT)	69.4%	106
2023	Exam	55.1%	5,132
2023	Exam (NHT)	63.3%	73
2022	Exam	56.6%	5,274
2021	Exam	54.3%	5,095
2020	Exam	50.9%	6,262

The lowest average belongs to the 2020 Exam on 50.9% from 6,262 attempts, and the highest to the 2024 Exam (NHT) on 69.4% from 106 attempts. A paper's average reflects both how hard it was and who chose to sit it, so treat the spread as a guide to which papers make demanding practice.

Score by question type

Question type	Average	Attempts
Multiple choice	55.4%	34,013
Short answer	59.3%	4,327

Score by unit

Unit	Average	Attempts
Unit 3: How can design and innovation help to optimise chemical processes?	55.4%	22,239
Unit 4: How are carbon-based compounds designed for purpose?	57.1%	16,980

An attempt counts once per unit, so a question assessed across two units appears in both rows and the column adds to slightly more than 38,364.

The priority list: heavy topics with low scores

Topic	Share of marks	Average	Attempts	Marks at risk
What are the current and future options for supplying energy?	26.2%	55.2%	13,467	11.7
How can the rate and yield of chemical reactions be optimised?	25.1%	55.7%	10,657	11.1
How are organic compounds analysed and used?	19.5%	52.1%	7,007	9.3
How are organic compounds categorised and synthesised?	20.0%	60.9%	8,041	7.8
How is scientific inquiry used to investigate the sustainable production of energy and/or materials?	9.2%	58.7%	2,467	3.8

The topic list is close: 11.7 against 11.1 marks at risk separates first from second, so topic choice alone will not order revision. The dot-point list below spreads further.

The same cut at subtopic level

Subtopic	Share of marks	Average	Attempts	Marks at risk
Instrumental analysis of organic compounds	11.7%	50.9%	3,231	5.7
Production of chemicals using electrolysis	11.9%	57.0%	3,582	5.1
Extent of chemical reactions	9.7%	54.3%	5,158	4.4
Measuring changes in chemical reactions	9.1%	52.3%	2,705	4.3
Primary galvanic cells and fuel cells as sources of energy	8.3%	52.0%	7,186	4.0
Reactions of organic compounds	10.7%	64.0%	3,745	3.9
Structure, nomenclature and properties of organic compounds	9.3%	58.6%	4,818	3.9
Carbon-based fuels	8.8%	63.4%	4,432	3.2
Investigation design	4.2%	48.9%	1,567	2.1
Medicinal chemistry	4.5%	58.2%	2,205	1.9
Laboratory analysis of organic compounds	3.3%	46.8%	1,788	1.8
Scientific evidence	4.1%	58.3%	907	1.7
Rates of chemical reactions	3.5%	58.5%	2,214	1.4
Science communication	0.9%	82.1%	645	0.2

The same cut at dot-point level

Dot point	Content	Share of marks	Average	Attempts	Marks at risk
4.1.2.1	organic reactions and pathways, including equations, reactants, products, reaction conditions and catalysts (specific enzymes not required) synthesis of primary haloalkanes and primary alcohols by substitution; addition reactions of alkenes; the esterification between an alcohol and a carboxylic acid; hydrolysis of esters; pathways for the synthesis of primary amines and carboxylic acids; transesterification of plant triglycerides using alcohols to produce biodiesel; hydrolytic reactions of proteins, carbohydrates and fats and oils to break down large biomolecules in food to produce smaller molecules; condensation reactions to synthesise large biologically important molecules for storage as proteins, starch, glycogen and lipids (fats and oils)	7.6%	65.3%	3,149	2.6
4.1.1.4	trends in physical properties within and between homologous series (boiling point and melting point, viscosity), with reference to structure and bonding	3.4%	53.6%	1,251	1.6
3.2.3.1	the use and limitations of the electrochemical series to explain or predict the products of the electrolysis of particular chemicals, given their state (molten liquid or in aqueous solution) and the electrode materials used, including the writing of balanced equations (with states) for the reactions occurring at the anode and cathode and the overall redox reaction for the cell	2.7%	41.9%	652	1.6
3.2.2.5	calculations involving equilibrium expressions (including units) for a closed homogeneous equilibrium system and the dependence of the equilibrium constant ( $K_c$ ) value on the system temperature and the equation used to represent the reaction	3.5%	55.3%	1,713	1.6
4.1.1.2	molecular, structural and semi-structural (condensed) formulas and skeletal structures of alkanes (including cyclohexane), alkenes, benzene, haloalkanes, primary amines, primary amides, alcohols (primary, secondary and tertiary), aldehydes, ketones, carboxylic acids and non-branched esters	3.0%	56.5%	2,429	1.3
3.1.2.4	energy from fuels and food calculation of energy transformation efficiency during combustion as a percentage of chemical energy converted to useful energy; comparison and calculations of energy values of foods containing carbohydrates, proteins and fats and oils	2.6%	52.2%	1,028	1.2
3.2.3.3	the common design features and general operating principles of rechargeable (secondary) cells, with reference to discharging as a galvanic cell and recharging as an electrolytic cell, including the conditions required for the cell reactions to be reversed and the electrode polarities in each mode (details of specific cells not required)	3.3%	63.5%	2,187	1.2
3.2.1.1	factors affecting the frequency and success of reactant particle collisions and the rate of a chemical reaction in open and closed systems, including temperature, surface area, concentration, gas pressures, presence of a catalyst, activation energy and orientation	2.5%	52.5%	1,073	1.2
4.3.2.2	ways of organising, analysing and evaluating primary data to identify patterns and relationships, including sources of error and uncertainty	2.7%	57.3%	886	1.1
3.1.3.5	the common design features and general operating principles of fuel cells, including the use of porous electrodes for gaseous reactants to increase cell efficiency (details of specific cells not required)	2.5%	54.4%	1,955	1.1
3.1.2.1	calculations related to the application of stoichiometry to reactions involving the combustion of fuels, including mass-mass, mass-volume and volume-volume stoichiometry, to determine heat energy released, reactant and product amounts and net volume or mass of major greenhouse gases ( $CO_2$ , $CH_4$ and $H_2O$ ), limited to standard laboratory conditions (SLC) at $25\,^\circ\mathrm{C}$ and $100\,\mathrm{kPa}$	2.6%	56.2%	648	1.1
3.1.2.2	the use of specific heat capacity of water to approximate the quantity of heat energy released during the combustion of a known mass of fuel and food	2.1%	46.0%	419	1.1
4.2.3.4	enzymes as protein-based catalysts in living systems: primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary structures and changes in enzyme function in terms of structure and bonding as a result of increased temperature (denaturation), decreased temperature (lowered activity), or changes in pH (formation of zwitterions and denaturation)	2.6%	56.5%	1,937	1.1
3.2.2.3	the change in position of equilibrium that can occur when changes in temperature or species or volume (concentration or pressure) are applied to a system at equilibrium, and the representation of these changes using concentration-time graphs	2.3%	51.7%	2,332	1.1
4.2.2.1	applications of mass spectrometry (excluding features of instrumentation and operation) and interpretation of qualitative and quantitative data, including identification of molecular ion peak, determination of molecular mass and identification of simple fragments	2.4%	55.6%	353	1.1
4.3.1.2	characteristics of the selected scientific methodology and method, and appropriateness of the use of independent, dependent and controlled variables in the selected scientific investigation	1.7%	37.2%	287	1.1
4.2.2.2	identification of bond types by qualitative infrared spectroscopy (IR) data analysis using characteristic absorption bands	1.7%	37.8%	544	1.1
3.1.1.8	combustion (complete and incomplete) reactions of fuels as exothermic reactions: the writing of balanced thermochemical equations, including states, for the complete and incomplete combustion of organic molecules using experimental data and data tables	2.1%	49.8%	474	1.1
3.2.2.4	the application of Le Chatelier’s principle to identify factors that favour the yield of a chemical reaction	1.8%	44.8%	1,254	1.0
4.2.2.5	the principles of chromatography, including high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and the use of retention times and the construction of a calibration curve to determine the concentration of an organic compound in a solution (excluding features of instrumentation and operation)	2.0%	51.1%	1,543	1.0

Which command verbs cost the most marks

Verb	Share of marks	Average	Attempts	Marks at risk
explain	18.3%	55.9%	1,464	8.1
calculate	12.5%	53.3%	293	5.8
identify	7.1%	58.8%	736	2.9
state	7.7%	63.5%	264	2.8
write	6.9%	66.9%	360	2.3
justify	4.5%	61.7%	90	1.7
draw	4.0%	57.3%	344	1.7
compare	2.4%	56.9%	60	1.0

Calculate has the lowest average on the page at 53.3%, and it is not where the marks go. Explain averages 55.9% but carries 18.3% of the paper against 12.5%, so it puts 8.1 marks per 100 at risk against 5.8. Each verb above is practised in the VCE Chemistry question bank, where the marking criteria show what VCAA expects the answer to do.

What this does not measure

Where to practise

Work the priority list from the top: What are the current and future options for supplying energy? and How can the rate and yield of chemical reactions be optimised? first, then the dot points above. Each topic page holds real VCAA questions with marking criteria attached. For what the papers actually cover, read VCE Chemistry most tested topics.

Syllabus and assessment material referenced in this guide is reproduced by permission, © VCAA. See our VCAA licensing notice. The VCAA does not endorse or make any warranties regarding this study resource. VCE® is a registered trademark of the VCAA.