How to Prepare for VCE Exams in 2026: A Plan Built on VCAA's Own Advice

In most VCE studies the exam is half your study score, and it's also what your school's SAC scores are moderated against, so it counts for more than its printed weight. Plan backwards from your own dates in the 2026 timetable (27 October to 18 November), then repeat one loop until your first exam: sit a timed past paper, get it marked, find what you lose marks on, and practise that. Across subjects, VCAA's exam reports keep naming the same costly habit: answering the topic instead of the question actually asked.

This guide covers the 2026 VCE written exams. The VCAA external assessment reports it draws on describe the 2024 and 2025 exams.

What the exam is still worth

Every VCE study has three graded assessments across Units 3 and 4, and at least one is an exam. How the weight splits depends on the study.

For any other study, check VCAA's assessment summary. Across all studies the exam share runs from 15% to 75%.

By exam time your SACs are done, but their scores aren't settled. VCAA statistically moderates each school's SAC scores against how that school's students perform on the exam in the same study. Moderation keeps your rank within your school exactly as your teachers set it. What it changes is the scores those ranks turn into. Your teachers are required to tell you that your initial SAC scores may change.

So the exam reaches past its own percentage:

• It's the only graded assessment still open. Half your study score, or more in the maths studies, is decided in a few hours in November.
• Your school's exam results set the scale for your SACs. Moderation lines your school's SAC scores up with how your school's students do on the exam, so the whole group's preparation affects everyone's SAC scores. That's a reason to study with your classmates, not against them.
• A study score is a rank. VCAA rescales every study to a mean of 30, and most scores land between 23 and 37. You're being compared with everyone else who sat the study that year, so a hard paper is hard for all of them.

For more on how the number itself is built, see VCE study scores explained.

What counts toward your ATAR

VCAA produces your study scores. The ATAR comes from VTAC, and two of its rules shape how you spread your effort.

1. You need an English-group study. To get an ATAR you need study scores in at least four permissible studies, and one has to be English, EAL, Literature or English Language.
2. English always counts. VTAC builds your aggregate from your "primary four": your scaled English-group score plus your next three highest scaled scores. A fifth and sixth study add 10% of their scaled score each.

That has two consequences for exam prep:

• Don't drop your English exam to the bottom of the list. Whatever your other results, one English-group score is in your primary four.
• Every other study is still in play. You won't know which three join English until results are scaled, and a fifth or sixth study still adds to your aggregate. Don't write off a study in the exam block.

If you've looked at Queensland advice, be careful here. In the QCE, English is a hurdle that doesn't have to count toward the ATAR. In the VCE, it always counts.

Plan backwards from your timetable

The main 2026 written exam period runs Tuesday 27 October to Wednesday 18 November. English and EAL go first. A few language papers are sat earlier, on 15 and 16 October.

Times are the start of the session, including reading time. Find your own studies in the full timetable and count backwards.

• English gets the least runway. It's the first exam and it's in everyone's primary four, so its practice has to start first.
• Maths and the physical sciences run late. Methods, Specialist, Chemistry and Physics all fall in the second and third weeks, so you'll have some days between your first exams and theirs. Plan to use them.
• Maths exams come in pairs. Methods and Specialist Exam 1 are technology-free and Exam 2 allows CAS. Practise both formats, not only the one you're stronger in.

The loop: practise, get marked, find gaps, repeat

Revision without marked practice tells you what you've read, not what you can do under exam conditions. Run one loop per study, as many times as the calendar allows.

1. Sit a past paper under real conditions. Set a timer for the full exam, reading time included. Closed book, with the calculator and materials the exam allows.
2. Get it marked against the external assessment report. VCAA publishes a report with each exam, giving the expected answers, how marks were awarded and what students got wrong. You can mark yourself against it (how to do that honestly). On AusGrader you can answer VCE past-paper questions and get each one marked with feedback on where the marks went.
3. Sort every lost mark into a gap. Separate topic gaps (you didn't know the content) from question gaps (you knew it, but described when the command term said explain, or missed part b). They need different fixes.
4. Practise the gaps. Topic gaps go to targeted questions on that topic. The most-tested topics guide for each study shows what VCAA examines most, for example Chemistry. The hardest topics guide shows where marks are lost most often, for example Biology. Question gaps go to the next section.
5. Repeat with a new paper. A gap that comes back on the next paper hasn't been closed.

For English the loop is the same, but the practice is timed writing on an unseen topic, prompt or text.

What VCAA keeps saying costs marks

We read the 2024 and 2025 external assessment reports for 16 VCE studies side by side. Subject after subject, the assessors name the same few problems. These are the question gaps from step 3.

Answering the topic, not the question

This is the most repeated finding. Every one of the eight science reports names it, and so do most of the humanities and maths reports. The 2024 Business Management report puts it directly: "Students are reminded that they must respond directly to the question being asked rather than rely on rote-learned responses that do not directly address the question."

A common form is repeating the question back as if it were the answer. The 2024 Physics report describes students who restated a condition from the question, "thinking that this was the justification."

Ignoring the command term

Nine of the ten humanities and business reports come back to command terms, and so do the Biology, Psychology, Health and Human Development, PE and Food Studies reports. VCAA publishes a glossary of command terms, and the reports mark against it. The 2024 History: Revolutions report reminds students that "according to the VCAA glossary of command terms, 'evaluate' requires students to provide a clear and reasoned judgment."

Missing part of the question

Humanities, sciences, health and maths reports all name answers that deal with one part of a question and drop another. In maths it's often the last step: students find the gradient and never write the tangent equation. In English, both reports say responses were limited when students discussed one concept in a topic that asked about two.

Dot points are allowed. The 2025 Food Studies report says students "who are running low on time or who find it challenging to respond to all parts of the question are encouraged to use dot points to demonstrate their knowledge, to ensure that they respond to all parts of the question."

Not using the stimulus

Every Health and Human Development, PE and Food Studies report names this, and so do many of the business and science reports. Naming or copying the source isn't using it. The 2024 Health and Human Development report describes students who drew on the stimulus "but not linking this discussion to improvements in health status," and says "this issue could have been averted by students planning their response before writing."

Working, CAS and exact answers in maths

Nine of the twelve maths reports say a correct answer without working can lose marks. The 2024 Specialist Mathematics Exam 1 report is plain about it: on show-that questions, "full marks will only be awarded where appropriate and correct working is provided."

Two more come up in every Exam 2 report, where CAS is allowed. Check what you type: the 2025 Methods Exam 2 report says "students should check the values they enter into their CAS as some students had the correct definite integral but ended up with an incorrect answer." And give the exact answer when one is asked for, not the decimal your calculator shows first. The 2024 General Mathematics Exam 2 report asks students "to read the question again after writing their final answer."

Time and legibility

Few reports give time advice, but what there is agrees. Use the marks to decide how long an answer should be, and don't leave a big question blank. The 2024 Psychology report says students "are encouraged to always attempt to answer the extended-response question, even if time is running out."

Write in pen. The 2024 Physics report explains that "the assessors do not view the actual paper. Rather, they assess a scanned image," and that students "are strongly advised to use an ink pen for all responses." Faint pencil can be misread.

Exam day

• Reading time: each exam starts with 15 minutes of reading time unless VCAA says otherwise. Use it to find the high-mark questions and any stimulus.
• Leaving early: not in the first 30 minutes of writing time, and not in the last 5.
• Calculators and references: General Mathematics allows an approved CAS or scientific calculator and a bound reference in both exams, and Methods and Specialist allow them in Exam 2 only. Chemistry, Physics, Accounting and Economics allow a scientific calculator only. English, EAL and Literature allow a dictionary. Check the Exams Navigator for the approved models and the exact rules for each study.
• Three exams in one day: you get an extra 10 minutes per hour in the third, and a Derived Examination Score for it automatically, as long as you sit all three and attempt the questions. VCAA awards the higher of your actual score and the DES.