WACE Command Words Explained (SCSA): What Each Key Word Asks

A WACE command word is the verb at the start of an exam question that tells you what kind of answer earns the marks. SCSA calls them key words and publishes one glossary of 66 of them, which applies to every ATAR course. This guide groups the main ones by what they ask for, so you can match a question to an answer style before you start writing.

This guide describes SCSA's Glossary of key words in the formulation of questions (reference 2026/1553), as held in October 2026. It is a board-level document for all ATAR courses, not one syllabus version. The definitions below are our paraphrase, so read the official glossary on your course page for SCSA's exact wording. For past-paper questions in your course, start from WACE past exams (SCSA).

What does SCSA call command words?

SCSA's term is key words. The glossary is a three-page table of 66 terms in alphabetical order, each with a short definition. It has no mark guidance and no worked examples, so it tells you what a word means and nothing about how many marks an answer is worth.

The examination reports use looser labels for the same words: instructional verbs in Psychology, command verb in Biology, and directional verbs in Economics and Geography. All of them mean the opening verb of a question.

SCSA expects you to know them. Every one of the eight humanities, business and PE reports for 2024 and 2025 names the glossary or the verbs it defines, either telling candidates to learn them or telling teachers to drill the difference between them. Six of the ten science reports do the same. The Psychology 2025 report also points candidates to the glossary on the course page so they understand what each instructional verb requires. For how this fits into your wider revision, see how to prepare for WACE exams.

Which key words ask you to recall facts?

These words ask for something you know, with little or no argument.

Note that define asks for the essential qualities as well as a meaning, so a bare synonym does not fully answer it. Calculate is the one word here that works from given information rather than memory.

Which key words ask you to describe or show relationships?

These words ask for more than a fact. They differ in how far you go.

Three pairs are easy to confuse.

• Describe and outline. Both deal with features. Describe wants the characteristics and features in full. Outline wants the main ones in general terms, so it is the shorter answer.
• Explain and illustrate. Illustrate is defined as similar to explain, with a requirement for specific examples, statistics, or a drawn map, graph or sketch. An illustrate answer with no specific example is missing the part that sets it apart.
• Compare and contrast. Compare covers similarities and differences. Contrast covers differences only. A contrast answer that spends its words on similarities is off target.

Which key words ask for a judgement or an argument?

These words ask you to take a position or weigh something.

The glossary separates these in small ways that matter.

• Discuss asks for issues and points on one or both sides, and does not itself ask you to land on a verdict. Argue asks you to make a case using appropriate evidence. Justify asks you to back an argument or conclusion with reasons.
• Evaluate, assess and judge all ask you to weigh something up: evaluate by appraising its value or amount, assess by judging its value or quality, judge by reaching an opinion or conclusion. The wording differs between them, so check how your course uses each.
• Critically raises the bar on analyse or evaluate. The glossary lists the extra qualities rather than a different task.

The 2025 English examination report names discuss, analyse, compare and evaluate together and tells candidates that each needs quite a different approach.

Which key words are not in the glossary?

We searched the glossary text for five verbs students often meet and found no entry for any of them: estimate, verify, express, hence and write. If a question uses one of these, SCSA has not defined it in the glossary, so your course content and past paper wording have to guide you.

This matters most in mathematics. The glossary does have entries for solve (determine a solution to a mathematical problem, or find an answer to or explanation of a problem), prove (use a series of steps or a scientific method to reach a required result) and show (give information, or illustrate). But the Methods 2025 examination report treats show questions as their own type, separate from routine questions, and notes that many answers to them lacked enough intermediate steps to fully justify the result. The glossary's one-line entry for show does not say that. For the course in question, see WACE Mathematics Methods.

Can a key word mean something different in my course?

Yes. SCSA's note at the top of the glossary says the definitions are generic and apply across all courses, and that some terms have a course-specific meaning that comes directly from the content and the language of the course. A glossary entry is a starting point, not the final word inside Chemistry or Geography.

A few entries are loosely worded. Deduce is defined as drawing conclusions, which gives you little to act on, and draw covers both making a diagram and drawing a conclusion. When an entry is that thin, read it alongside the way a past paper question and its Marking Key use the word.

What do students get wrong with key words?

SCSA's reports come back to the same few errors, and key words sit at the centre of them.

• Treating similar words as the same word. The Human Biology 2024 report tells candidates to know the difference between a question that asks them to name or identify and one that asks them to describe or explain. The 2025 English report says discuss, analyse, compare and evaluate each need a different approach.
• Missing part of the question. The 2025 English report tells candidates to respond to all of a question's demands, and the Psychology 2025 report tells them to read each question in full so they do not miss required aspects or commands.
• Fitting a prepared answer to the question. The reports warn against memorised, rote or prepared answers in Chemistry, Human Biology, Geography, Business Management and English, and the 2025 English report found prepared answers with varying degrees of alignment to the question.

What does the wrong verb look like against the right one?

The table below is illustrative, written by us from the glossary definitions. It shows the shape of an answer that fits the verb and one that does not. It contains no real marking key content.

How do I practise key words?

Mark yourself on the verb as well as the content. When you lose a mark on a past paper, check which key word in the question should have told you to write what the Marking Key rewarded. That turns a content gap into a question gap, and a question gap is fixed by practising the verb.

AusGrader marks WACE past-paper questions and shows where each mark was lost. Start from your course's past papers on its subject page, for example Chemistry or Biology. For a cross-board comparison of the words, see exam command words explained.