Which VCE Psychology past paper do students score lowest on?

The 2022 Exam, averaging 60.0% across 7,201 marked attempts on AusGrader. The 2020 Exam is the highest on 65.9%.

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

4.3.1.2 (3.6 marks at risk per 100), 3.2.1.1 (3.2 marks at risk per 100) and 4.3.2.2 (1.9 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 Psychology figure based on?

52,242 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 Psychology hardest topics

Across 52,242 marked attempts on AusGrader, VCE Psychology students average 63.2% on questions taken from board external papers. The lowest average of any command verb is define on 44.8%, and the verb that costs the most marks is explain, which carries 18.5% of the paper against 0.0% for define. 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 1 dot point, 1 question type and 31 verbs. Every figure shown carries its attempt count.
Scores cover questions mapped to the VCE Psychology study design from any board's external papers, which is why the sample is larger than the 6 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 Psychology performance stats, which count every attempt.

Score by past paper

Year	Exam	Average	Attempts
2025	Exam	61.8%	8,215
2024	Exam	63.9%	7,910
2023	Exam	63.8%	7,864
2022	Exam	60.0%	7,201
2021	Exam	62.9%	9,231
2020	Exam	65.9%	10,475

The lowest average belongs to the 2022 Exam on 60.0% from 7,201 attempts, and the highest to the 2020 Exam on 65.9% from 10,475 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	63.2%	50,854
Short answer	65.7%	1,376

Score by unit

Unit	Average	Attempts
Unit 4: How is mental wellbeing supported and maintained?	62.5%	29,195
Unit 3: How does experience affect behaviour and mental processes?	64.1%	24,516

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 52,242.

The priority list: heavy topics with low scores

Topic	Share of marks	Average	Attempts	Marks at risk
How is scientific inquiry used to investigate mental processes and psychological functioning?	22.8%	57.9%	12,733	9.6
How does the nervous system enable psychological functioning?	23.6%	66.2%	12,475	8.0
How do people learn and remember?	21.0%	62.1%	12,047	8.0
How does sleep affect mental processes and behaviour?	17.2%	63.1%	9,227	6.3
What influences mental wellbeing?	15.4%	69.3%	8,108	4.7

How is scientific inquiry used to investigate mental processes and psychological functioning? tops the list on 9.6 marks at risk per 100 paper marks, 1.6 ahead of How does the nervous system enable psychological functioning?.

The same cut at subtopic level

Subtopic	Share of marks	Average	Attempts	Marks at risk
Investigation design	13.1%	60.0%	8,067	5.2
Stress as an example of a psychobiological process	12.4%	66.2%	6,529	4.2
Approaches to understand learning	10.3%	60.9%	5,189	4.0
The psychobiological process of memory	10.8%	62.9%	7,079	4.0
Scientific evidence	8.8%	54.7%	6,647	4.0
Nervous system functioning	11.2%	66.2%	6,559	3.8
Importance of sleep to mental wellbeing	8.0%	59.8%	4,644	3.2
The demand for sleep	9.2%	65.6%	5,844	3.2
Application of a biopsychosocial approach to explain specific phobia	7.7%	61.4%	3,035	3.0
Maintenance of mental wellbeing	3.9%	68.8%	2,613	1.2
Defining mental wellbeing	3.8%	76.5%	3,262	0.9
Science communication	0.8%	62.5%	408	0.3

The same cut at dot-point level

Dot point	Content	Share of marks	Average	Attempts	Marks at risk
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	8.9%	60.0%	4,710	3.6
3.2.1.1	behaviourist approaches to learning, as illustrated by classical conditioning as a three-phase process (before conditioning, during conditioning and after conditioning) that results in the involuntary association between a neutral stimulus and unconditioned stimulus to produce a conditioned response, and operant conditioning as a three-phase process (antecedent, behaviour and consequence) involving reinforcement (positive and negative) and punishment (positive and negative)	8.0%	59.6%	4,055	3.2
4.3.2.2	ways of organising, analysing and evaluating primary data to identify patterns and relationships, including sources of error and uncertainty	4.5%	57.6%	2,923	1.9
3.1.1.1	the roles of different subdivisions of the central and peripheral nervous systems in responding to, and processing and coordinating with, sensory stimuli received by the body to enable conscious and unconscious responses, including spinal reflexes	5.0%	62.2%	2,437	1.9
4.2.2.1	the relative influences of factors that contribute to the development of specific phobia, with reference to gamma-amino butyric acid (GABA) dysfunction and long-term potentiation (biological); behavioural models involving precipitation by classical conditioning and perpetuation by operant conditioning, and cognitive biases including memory bias and catastrophic thinking (psychological); and specific environmental triggers and stigma around seeking treatment (social)	3.7%	56.5%	1,824	1.6
4.2.2.2	evidence-based interventions and their use for specific phobia, with reference to the use of short-acting anti-anxiety benzodiazepine agents (GABA agonists) in the management of phobic anxiety and breathing retraining (biological); the use of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and systematic desensitisation as psychotherapeutic treatments of phobia (psychological); and psychoeducation for families/supporters with reference to challenging unrealistic or anxious thoughts and not encouraging avoidance behaviours (social)	4.0%	66.4%	1,616	1.3
3.2.2.3	the role of episodic and semantic memory in retrieving autobiographical events and in constructing possible imagined futures, including evidence from brain imaging and post-mortem studies of brain lesions in people with Alzheimer’s disease and aphantasia as an example of individual differences in the experience of mental imagery	2.9%	56.3%	1,727	1.3
4.3.2.4	assumptions and limitations of investigation methodology and/or data generation and/or analysis methods	2.9%	56.5%	2,188	1.3
4.1.1.3	differences in, and explanations for, the demands for sleep across the life span, with reference to total amount of sleep and changes in a typical pattern of sleep (proportion of REM and NREM)	3.4%	63.4%	1,326	1.2
3.2.2.1	the explanatory power of the Atkinson-Shiffrin multi-store model of memory in the encoding, storage and retrieval of stored information in sensory, short-term and long-term memory stores	3.4%	64.4%	3,300	1.2
3.1.1.2	the role of neurotransmitters in the transmission of neural information across a neural synapse to produce excitatory effects (as with glutamate) or inhibitory effects (as with gamma-amino butyric acid [GABA]) as compared to neuromodulators (such as dopamine and serotonin) that have a range of effects on brain activity	3.6%	67.1%	3,078	1.2
4.1.2.1	the effects of partial sleep deprivation (inadequate sleep either in quantity or quality) on a person’s affective, behavioural and cognitive functioning, and the affective and cognitive effects of one night of full sleep deprivation as a comparison to blood alcohol concentration readings of 0.05 and 0.10	3.2%	64.1%	2,329	1.1
4.1.1.1	sleep as a psychological construct that is broadly categorised as a naturally occurring altered state of consciousness and is further categorised into REM and NREM sleep, and the measurement of physiological responses associated with sleep, through electroencephalography (EEG), electromyography (EMG), electro-oculography (EOG), sleep diaries and video monitoring	3.4%	66.5%	3,218	1.1
3.1.2.3	the explanatory power of Hans Selye’s General Adaptation Syndrome as a biological model of stress, including alarm reaction (shock/counter shock), resistance and exhaustion	2.9%	61.0%	2,243	1.1
4.1.2.2	changes to a person’s sleep-wake cycle that cause circadian rhythm sleep disorders (Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome [DSPS], Advanced Sleep Phase Disorder [ASPD] and shift work) and the treatments of circadian rhythm sleep disorders through bright light therapy	2.4%	54.3%	1,676	1.1

Which command verbs cost the most marks

Verb	Share of marks	Average	Attempts	Marks at risk
explain	18.5%	58.1%	186	7.8
outline	9.7%	51.8%	126	4.7
identify	9.7%	66.7%	250	3.2
describe	5.3%	57.7%	230	2.2
justify	3.5%	56.8%	87	1.5
name	1.4%	75.1%	82	0.3
contrast	1.0%	66.9%	60	0.3
state	0.7%	57.1%	119	0.3

Define has the lowest average on the page at 44.8%, and it is not where the marks go. Explain averages 58.1% but carries 18.5% of the paper against 0.0%, so it puts 7.8 marks per 100 at risk against 0.0. Each verb above is practised in the VCE Psychology 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: How is scientific inquiry used to investigate mental processes and psychological functioning? and How does the nervous system enable psychological functioning? 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 Psychology 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.