…
2026 QCE English exam: What to learn from last year's mistakes
Hi all, in preparation for the upcoming exam, here's what to learn from last year's mistakes.
2025 exam median and average: not stated in QCAA's report.
The exam was one 45-mark essay worth 25% of the subject result. Knowledge application carried 18 marks, organisation and development 16, and textual features 11.
I've gone through last year's feedback. Knowing the plot wasn't enough. These are the gaps I'd check in a practice essay.
QCAA doesn't publish an average for each essay question. The marks above are rubric allocations, not separate marks for the examples below.
Never Let Me Go, question b: Tommy
Where students went wrong: Retelling what Tommy did or discussing him as though he were a real person, rather than a character Ishiguro constructed.
What they should have done: Explain how his characterisation shapes the reader's view of being human. His anger, relationships and desire for recognition can support an argument about dignity and agency. Pick an exact moment, explain the author's choices, then connect it to the question. A paragraph listing events doesn't do that analysis.
All the Light We Cannot See, question a: Human nature in wartime
Where students went wrong: Discussing human nature generally and barely addressing the wartime part of the question.
What they should have done: Explain how war changes the pressures on the characters and what their choices reveal. For example, analyse a conflict between obedience and moral responsibility using a specific passage. Keep the conditions of war in the argument, not just the introduction.
The Yield, question b: August leaving and returning
Where an answer loses marks: Describing the departure and homecoming without explaining their significance for identity.
What you needed: Connect those experiences to August's relationship with family, Country and belonging. Explain how Winch constructs that connection through the selected evidence. Leaving and returning are part of the argument, not two plot summaries.
Othello, question a: Reputation
Where an answer loses marks: Listing examples of reputation without developing a view about what Shakespeare makes the audience question.
What you needed: Build an argument about how reputation can be manipulated and become destructive. Analyse how race or gender affects whose reputation is trusted and whose is vulnerable. Show how particular language or dramatic choices support that reading.
The rubric gives up to 5 marks for a developed thesis and 5 for selecting and combining evidence. More quotes won't fix an argument that answers a different question.
For 2026, Macbeth and Burial Rites have retired from the external-assessment list. The Namesake and Twelfth Night have been added. Use the questions above for essay skills; prepare the current text your school selected.
Use the 2025 report alongside official marking guide. 2026 syllabus changes.
Figures and criteria: QCAA. Explanations paraphrased from its materials, © State of Queensland (QCAA) 2025–2026, CC BY 4.0.
Use the English hub and past papers and marking guides alongside this.
0 repliesReply