Business — 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 | 2019 v1.1 syllabus | Question and response book ↗ | Report ↗ |
| 2024 | 2019 v1.1 syllabus | Question and response book ↗ | Report ↗ |
| 2023 | 2019 v1.1 syllabus | Question and response book ↗ | Report ↗ |
| 2022 | 2019 v1.1 syllabus | Question and response book ↗ | Report ↗ |
| 2021 | 2019 v1.1 syllabus | Question and response book ↗ | Report ↗ |
| 2020 | 2019 v1.1 syllabus | Question and response book ↗ | Report ↗ |
COVERAGE: QCAA external assessment for Business (General) exists only from 2020 (the syllabus was first implemented for Year 11 in 2019, first Year 12 EA in 2020 under the 2019 v1.1 syllabus). This index covers all 6 available EA years (2020-2025) — there is no year before 2020 to include, and 2026 papers do not exist yet (the revised 2025 v1.3 syllabus applies to students completing in 2026 or later, so its first external assessment will be Term 4 2026, not yet published as of July 2026). No years are behind a portal — all question/response books and marking guides found are on the open qcaa.qld.edu.au public downloads path (no login required based on search-result access). STRUCTURE STABILITY: Both syllabus eras (2019 v1.1 and 2025 v1.3) use the identical unit and topic names (Unit 1 Business creation, Unit 2 Business growth, Unit 3 Business diversification, Unit 4 Business evolution, with the same Unit 3/4 topic titles: Competitive markets, Strategic development, Repositioning a business, Transformation of a business) — this is a revision/refresh of the same syllabus, not a structural overhaul, so the topics[] taxonomy in this index applies validly across all listed years. Only Units 3 and 4 (Year 12) subject matter is externally examined; Units 1-2 (Year 11) are formative/school-assessed only, but are included in topics[] for completeness of the browsing structure since QCAA subject reports and syllabus documents describe them as part of the same continuous course. MARKS FORMAT: The external assessment is a single "Examination — combination response" (short response + extended response sections), weighted 25% of the final subject result, held in Term 4 each year. Total marks were recalibrated in the early cohort years (45 marks in 2020, 35 in 2021, 39 in 2022) before likely stabilising in later years (2023 confirmed as Section 1 = 3 short response questions/10 marks, Section 2 = 1 extended response/25 marks = 35 total); exact 2024/2025 mark totals were not independently confirmed from a page I could actually open. METHODOLOGY / LIMITATION: All facts were built from WebSearch result snippets, NOT from opening/reading full PDF text. Every attempt to WebFetch a qcaa.qld.edu.au URL (both PDF downloads and HTML subject pages) returned HTTP 403 Forbidden — this looks like a bot-blocking rule on QCAA's server rather than a genuine access restriction, since the same URLs are indexed and publicly linked by search engines and by third-party sites (school portals, textbook publishers) with no login wall mentioned anywhere. I attempted the nimble-web-expert and brightdata-plugin:scrape skills as documented site-fetch tools per project CLAUDE.md routing, but neither the Nimble CLI nor the Bright Data CLI is installed in this environment, so I could not get past the 403 to read full paper text. Because of this, questions[] is empty (per instructions — never guess). Every url in years[] and reportUrl was copied verbatim from search results and cross-confirmed by at least 2 independent search queries returning the same exact filename/URL, so I have high confidence the URLs themselves are correct even though I could not open the underlying PDFs to verify their internal contents word-for-word. Topic/subtopic wording in topics[] is a paraphrase built from multiple corroborating search snippets (including a Quizlet/Padlet/exam-insights.com syllabus-overview mirror used only to cross-check content, never cited as a source URL) rather than verbatim syllabus quotation — treat subtopic phrasing as a reliable paraphrase, not an exact quote of QCAA's syllabus text. Recommend a follow-up pass with an actual PDF-capable fetch (e.g., once Nimble/Bright Data CLI is installed, or via manual download) before publishing per-question content to the platform.
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.
Unit 1: Business creation · question map rolling out
Legal and business fundamentals (seed stage of the business life cycle)
Question-level mapping for this subtopic is being verified — use the year table above; every official paper is one click away.
Business planning and strategic planning approaches (SWOT, PEST analysis)
Question-level mapping for this subtopic is being verified — use the year table above; every official paper is one click away.
Creation of business ideas, stakeholders, competitors and the business environment
Question-level mapping for this subtopic is being verified — use the year table above; every official paper is one click away.
Entrepreneurship and evaluating business ideas against competitiveness, effectiveness, efficiency and stakeholder satisfaction
Question-level mapping for this subtopic is being verified — use the year table above; every official paper is one click away.
Unit 2: Business growth · question map rolling out
Internal business environment in the growth stage (business/legal structure, operational processes and systems, facilities, inventory, scheduling, capacity, customer service)
Question-level mapping for this subtopic is being verified — use the year table above; every official paper is one click away.
External business environment for market entry (PESTLE analysis — political, economic, socio-cultural, technological, legal, environmental)
Question-level mapping for this subtopic is being verified — use the year table above; every official paper is one click away.
Human resources, marketing, finance and operations strategies to support growth
Question-level mapping for this subtopic is being verified — use the year table above; every official paper is one click away.
Analysing relationships, patterns and trends in the growth stage
Question-level mapping for this subtopic is being verified — use the year table above; every official paper is one click away.
Unit 3: Business diversification · question map rolling out
Topic 1: Competitive markets — business situations in the maturity stage, employer of choice strategies, diverse workforce and HR strategic planning, risk management
Question-level mapping for this subtopic is being verified — use the year table above; every official paper is one click away.
Topic 2: Strategic development — leadership styles and expansion strategies, strategic planning in a competitive market, diversification strategies
Question-level mapping for this subtopic is being verified — use the year table above; every official paper is one click away.
Evaluating diversification strategies using competitiveness, effectiveness, efficiency and stakeholder satisfaction
Question-level mapping for this subtopic is being verified — use the year table above; every official paper is one click away.
Unit 4: Business evolution · question map rolling out
Topic 1: Repositioning a business — post-maturity stage, internal/operating/macro environmental factors, sustainability, corporate social responsibility, ethical standards, mergers and acquisitions, public relations and crisis management, drivers of change (corporate culture, management styles, organisational structures, competition, legislative compliance)
Question-level mapping for this subtopic is being verified — use the year table above; every official paper is one click away.
Topic 2: Transformation of a business — change management theories (Lewin's force field analysis, Kotter's eight-step model), financial/HR/marketing/operational strategies for transformation, workforce redundancy, retraining and development
Question-level mapping for this subtopic is being verified — use the year table above; every official paper is one click away.
Analytical tools: SWOT, STEEPLE, force field analysis, Porter's Five Forces
Question-level mapping for this subtopic is being verified — use the year table above; every official paper is one click away.
Evaluating repositioning and transformation outcomes using business criteria to make decisions and recommendations
Question-level mapping for this subtopic is being verified — use the year table above; every official paper is one click away.
Turn any question into a live lesson
Book a verified QCE tutor, and the question you pick loads into a shared live workspace — the tutor sees your working as you type, on a video call beside the official paper.
Find a Business tutor →