Economics — 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.
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Official papers & examiner reports, year by year
| Year | Study design | Official paper(s) | Examiner report |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Syllabus 2019 (v1.1–v1.4) | External exams ran 27 Oct – 21 Nov 2025 (confirmed via a third-party QCAA-timetable mirror, not qcaa.qld.edu.au itself), so a 2025 Economics EA paper should exist, but no snr_economics_25_ea_*.pdf or snr_economics_25_subj_rpt.pdf URL surfaced via WebSearch as of this research (2026-07-08) — unlike sibling subjects (Business, Accounting, English) whose 2025-cohort subject reports were indexed dated January 2026. Likely either not yet publicly indexed or currently behind the QCAA schools/myQCAA portal. Do not fabricate a URL for this row — left blank pending direct portal access or a later re-check. | — |
| 2024 | Syllabus 2019 (v1.1–v1.4) | Question and response book (Written examination — combination response, 60 marks) ↗ · Multiple choice question book ↗ · Marking guide ↗ | Report ↗ |
| 2023 | Syllabus 2019 (v1.1–v1.4) | Question and response book (Written examination — combination response, 61 marks) ↗ · Multiple choice question book ↗ · Marking guide ↗ | Report ↗ |
| 2022 | Syllabus 2019 (v1.1–v1.4) | Question and response book (Written examination — combination response, 65 marks) ↗ · Multiple choice question book ↗ · Marking guide ↗ | Report ↗ |
| 2021 | Syllabus 2019 (v1.1–v1.4) | Question and response book (Written examination — combination response, 60 marks) ↗ · Multiple choice question book ↗ · Stimulus book ↗ · Marking guide ↗ | Report ↗ |
| 2020 | Syllabus 2019 (v1.1–v1.4) | Question and response book (Written examination — combination response, 62 marks) ↗ · Multiple choice question book ↗ · Marking guide ↗ | Report ↗ |
ACCESS LIMITATION (important): qcaa.qld.edu.au is behind Cloudflare bot-challenge protection (confirmed via direct curl and WebFetch — both returned HTTP 403 with `cf-mitigated: challenge` on every attempt, including the syllabus PDF, the subject page, and exam PDFs). I could NOT open or read the actual content of any QCAA PDF. All URLs below were obtained via WebSearch, which independently indexes these exact official qcaa.qld.edu.au URLs (titles match QCAA's own document naming/numbering conventions, e.g. "250013 Economics subject report 2024 cohort January 2025"), giving high confidence the URLs themselves are genuine and correctly copied — but per the task instructions, since I could not actually open/read a paper, questions[] is empty and topic/subtopic wording for Units 3–4 (below) is reconstructed from search-snippet paraphrases of the syllabus plus a third-party site (exam-insights.com) that mirrors QCAA's own subject-matter headings, NOT copied verbatim from the syllabus PDF itself. Treat topics[] subtopic wording as a reasonable approximation of the real syllabus structure, not a guaranteed verbatim quote — Andrew should spot-check against the syllabus PDF (link below) once he can access it (e.g., via a school-network/VPN context, Google cache, or the myQCAA portal) if exact syllabus wording is required for anything graded. SYLLABUS ERA CLARIFICATION: There is only ONE Economics syllabus era covering the entire external-exam period — "Economics 2019" (first taught 2019, first EXTERNAL EXAM cohort 2020, since QCAA's new QCE external-assessment system itself only began in 2020). The syllabus has been amended several times (v1.1 → currently v1.4, republished with a "2025" year-stamp in the filename reflecting its most recent reprint, per the file title "231395 Economics 2025 v1.4 General senior syllabus March 2026") but it is the SAME underlying "2019" syllabus — QCAA does not appear to have issued a wholesale new Economics syllabus since 2019. I've therefore used a single sdEra "Syllabus 2019 (v1.1–v1.4)" spanning 2020–2025 rather than fabricating multiple eras. I could not verify the exact v1.0→v1.4 amendment date table since the amendment-notices page also 403'd. YEAR COVERAGE: 2020 (first EA cohort) through 2024 are fully verified with question/response book, MC book, marking guide, and subject report URLs, all found via WebSearch. 2025 external exams were confirmed (via a third-party timetable mirror, not qcaa.qld.edu.au itself) to have run 27 Oct – 21 Nov 2025, so a 2025 EA paper should exist, but WebSearch did NOT surface a snr_economics_25_ea_question_response.pdf or snr_economics_25_subj_rpt.pdf URL (unlike sibling subjects Business/Accounting/English, whose 2025-cohort subject reports were indexed dated January 2026) — this could mean it is simply not yet indexed by search, or (per the task's own framing) sits behind the QCAA schools/myQCAA portal for a period before public release. Marked as a gap, not fabricated. 2019 has NO external assessment (external assessment for the new QCE system did not exist before 2020) — Unit 1–4 sample assessment instruments from 2019 exist but are NOT past EXAM papers, so 2019 is excluded from years[]. QUESTION BOOK STRUCTURE (from search snippets, unverified by direct read): the EA is a single "combination response" exam — Section 1 multiple choice (10 questions), plus short-response and extended-response sections, drawing on Unit 3 (International economics) and Unit 4 (Contemporary macroeconomics) content only, worth ~60-65 marks total (varies slightly by year: 62 marks in 2020, 60 in 2021, 65 in 2022, 61 in 2023, 60 in 2024) — it is ONE exam/paper per year (not multiple numbered papers), issued as three separate PDFs (multiple-choice question book, question-and-response book, marking guide). CURRENCY: confidence is "medium" not "high" solely because of the Cloudflare block preventing direct verification of PDF contents and the 2025-year gap — the URL list itself (years, labels, hosts) is well-corroborated across multiple independent WebSearch queries.
Browse by topic
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Unit 3: International economics (examinable in EA) · question map rolling out
The global economy — trade patterns, comparative/absolute advantage, terms of trade
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Trade liberalisation and protection — tariffs, quotas, subsidies, free trade agreements
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Exchange rates — determination, floating vs fixed systems, factors affecting AUD
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Balance of payments — current account, capital/financial account, sustainability
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Globalisation and international economic development issues
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Unit 4: Contemporary macroeconomics (examinable in EA) · question map rolling out
Economic indicators and measuring economic performance (GDP, unemployment, inflation, economic cycle)
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Aggregate demand and aggregate supply model — short-run and long-run
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Domestic macroeconomic objectives — full employment, price stability, external stability, growth
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Fiscal policy — budget, government spending/taxation, automatic/discretionary stabilisers
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Monetary policy — RBA cash rate, monetary policy transmission mechanism
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Contemporary economic issues and policy evaluation/trade-offs
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Unit 1: Markets and models (foundational — IA only, not EA-examinable) · question map rolling out
The basic economic problem — scarcity, choice, opportunity cost
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Economic models — circular flow of income, production possibility curve
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Demand, supply and the price mechanism
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Market equilibrium and elasticity
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Unit 2: Modified markets (foundational — IA only, not EA-examinable) · question map rolling out
Market structures and competition
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Market failure — externalities, public goods, information failure
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Government intervention in markets
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Labour markets
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