Accounting — past papers by topic
Every official QCAA exam and examiner report we index, organised by topic and subtopic and labelled with the study design it was written under. Open the official paper, work the question in your own workspace, or bring a tutor into it live.
Papers and examiner reports open on the official QCAA website — they stay official and up to date. Question descriptions below are our own; we never republish exam content. Prefer to be walked through it? Book a tutor →
Official papers & examiner reports, year by year
| Year | Study design | Official paper(s) | Examiner report |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | SD 2019 v2.0 | Subject report for the 2025 cohort (published January 2026) is public and confirms this cohort was examined under the 2019 v2.0 syllabus. The 2025 EA question/response, MC question, mark guide, and stimulus PDFs (expected filenames snr_accounting_25_ea_question_response.pdf, snr_accounting_25_ea_mc_question.pdf, snr_accounting_25_ea_mark_guide_pub.pdf, snr_accounting_25_ea_stimulus.pdf, following the confirmed 2020–2024 naming pattern) could NOT be located via public search as of this research — likely not yet indexed/public or briefly portal-restricted post-exam. Do not confuse with the 'snr_accounting_25_*' NEW SYLLABUS filename prefix (Accounting 2025 v1.x General Senior Syllabus), which is a different, not-yet-examined syllabus era — QCAA reuses the '_25_' filename slug for both the 2025 exam-year cohort under the old syllabus AND the 2025-numbered new syllabus version, which is a genuine naming collision on their site. | Report ↗ |
| 2024 | SD 2019 v2.0 | Question and response book ↗ · Multiple choice question book ↗ · Stimulus book ↗ | Report ↗ |
| 2023 | SD 2019 v2.0 | Question and response book ↗ · Multiple choice question book ↗ | Report ↗ |
| 2022 | SD 2019 v2.0 | Question and response book ↗ · Multiple choice question book ↗ | Report ↗ |
| 2021 | SD 2019 v2.0 | Question and response book ↗ · Multiple choice question book ↗ | Report ↗ |
| 2020 | SD 2019 v2.0 | Question and response book ↗ · Multiple choice question book ↗ | Report ↗ |
METHODOLOGY AND ACCESS LIMITATION (read first): Every direct fetch of qcaa.qld.edu.au (both WebFetch and raw curl with browser headers) returned HTTP 403 with a Cloudflare "Just a moment..." bot-challenge page — confirmed by inspecting the raw response body, which contained Cloudflare's challenge HTML/CSS rather than any QCAA content. This means NO page or PDF on qcaa.qld.edu.au could be directly opened/read in this session. All URLs and facts below were assembled from Google-indexed search result titles/snippets (via WebSearch) that surface the exact official qcaa.qld.edu.au download URLs and short content previews. Every url in years[] is copied verbatim from a search result pointing to the official qcaa.qld.edu.au host — none were fabricated or pattern-guessed beyond years where the same filename pattern was independently confirmed present in search results for that specific year. Because no PDF was actually opened and read, questions[] is correctly empty per task instructions — do not guess question content. COVERAGE: 2020–2024 are fully confirmed (question/response book + MC question book + subject report, plus mark guide URLs noted in each year's notes). 2020 is the first real QCAA Accounting EA (new QCE/ATAR system started Year 11 in 2019; no accounting EA exists before this). 2025 subject report is public (confirming a live 2025 EA cohort existed and was still under the 2019 v2.0 syllabus) but the actual 2025 EA question/mark-guide PDFs were not found in public search as of 2026-07-08 — flagged as likely portal-restricted/not-yet-public rather than fabricated. This is 5 confirmed exam years + 1 subject-report-only year (6 total), which is the full set QCAA has published since Accounting EAs began — there is no way to reach "10 years" because the exam type is only 6 years old. CRITICAL NAMING COLLISION: QCAA's filename slug uses a 2-digit year (_19_, _20_, ... _25_) for BOTH (a) the calendar exam/cohort year under the OLD 2019 v2.0 syllabus, and (b) the version number of the NEW syllabus (Accounting 2025 v1.x General Senior Syllabus, implementation from 2025, first examined 2026). Files like snr_accounting_25_syll.pdf, snr_accounting_25_unit3_ia1_smple_ass_inst.pdf, and snr_accounting_25_ea_mock_formula.pdf/snr_accounting_25_ea_stimulus.pdf belong to the NEW, not-yet-examined syllabus (these are mock/practice EA materials for teachers preparing for the first live EA in Nov 2026) — they must NOT be confused with a real "2025 exam year" past paper. I have kept these separate: the years[] entry for year:2025 refers only to the real 2025 cohort exam (still under 2019 v2.0), and its notes explicitly flag this collision. TOPICS[]: Sourced from the CURRENT syllabus (Accounting 2025 v1.x) via cross-verified search snippets from the official QCAA site plus two independent third-party QCAA-focused platforms (Exam Insights, AusGrader) that both quote the same official topic wording. Units 1–2 are foundational/formative (not externally examined) and included for completeness; Units 3–4 (esp. Unit 4: "Accounting — the big picture") are what the external examination draws on. Note: since 2020–2025 past papers were all written under the OLDER 2019 v2.0 syllabus, its Unit 3/4 topic wording is very similar in substance (same core topics: trading GST business accounting, complete accounting process, performance analysis of a public company) but may differ slightly in exact phrasing from the 2025 v1.x wording used in topics[] — could not fully verify subtopic-level wording differences between the two syllabus versions since neither full syllabus PDF could be opened directly. EA STRUCTURE (from search snippets, unverified against an opened paper): Section 1 = 10 multiple choice questions (10 marks); Section 2 = 3 short response questions (68 marks); total ~78 marks; combination response format; contributes 25% to overall subject result; only Units 3–4 results count toward ATAR. CONFIDENCE: medium — URL-level facts (existence, host, naming pattern) are well cross-corroborated across many independent search queries and are highly likely accurate copies of real official links. However, since no page was actually opened, there is residual risk that a URL has since moved/been renamed, and question-level/paper-content claims are correctly absent rather than guessed. Recommend the user (or a follow-up session with working QCAA access, e.g. via a school portal login or a scraping tool that can pass Cloudflare) verify each URL resolves before publishing to students.
Browse by topic
Pick a topic, open the exact question in the official paper, then work it in your own workspace — or hand the question straight to a live tutor session.
Cash management (Unit 3, Topic 1) · question map rolling out
Nature of cash and cash flows
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Bank reconciliation
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Cash budgets — estimated receipts from accounts receivable and GST payable/receivable
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Spreadsheet features/functions for cash budgeting
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Comparison of cash budgets vs Statement of Cash Flows
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Managing resources for a sole trader business (Unit 3, Topic 2) · question map rolling out
Resource acquisition and management decisions
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Asset valuation and depreciation choices
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Non-current asset registers
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Ethical considerations in resource management
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Accounting for a trading GST business (Unit 3/4 transition — recording and reporting) · question map rolling out
Double entry accounting for trading businesses
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GST-inclusive transactions
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Balance day adjustments (accrued/prepaid revenue and expenses)
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Perpetual inventory system
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Complete accounting process for a trading GST business (Unit 4, Topic 2) · question map rolling out
General journal entries
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Ledger and trial balance preparation
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Fully classified Statement of Profit or Loss
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Fully classified Statement of Financial Position
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Statement of Cash Flows preparation
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Performance analysis of a public company (Unit 4, Topic 3) · question map rolling out
Profitability ratios
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Liquidity ratios
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Stability ratios
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Ratio, vertical, horizontal and trend analysis
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Factors complicating financial statement comparisons
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Benchmarking within an industry
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Stakeholder use of analysis results
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Entities and the role of accounting (Unit 1 — foundational, not externally examined) · question map rolling out
Types of business entities
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Role and users of accounting information
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Double entry accounting principles
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End-of-period reporting (Units 1–2 — foundational, not externally examined) · question map rolling out
End-of-month reporting for a service business (no GST)
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End-of-year reporting for a trading GST business
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