Physical Education — 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 syllabus (v1.3) | Marking guide ↗ · Multiple choice question book ↗ · Question and response book ↗ | Report ↗ |
| 2024 | 2019 syllabus (v1.3) | Marking guide ↗ · Multiple choice question book ↗ · Question and response book ↗ | Report ↗ |
| 2023 | 2019 syllabus (v1.3) | Marking guide ↗ · Multiple choice question book ↗ · Question and response book ↗ | Report ↗ |
| 2022 | 2019 syllabus (v1.3) | Marking guide ↗ · Multiple choice question book ↗ · Question and response book ↗ | Report ↗ |
| 2021 | 2019 syllabus (v1.3) | Marking guide ↗ · Multiple choice question book ↗ · Question and response book ↗ | Report ↗ |
| 2020 | 2019 syllabus (v1.3) | Marking guide ↗ · Multiple choice question book ↗ · Question and response book ↗ · Stimulus book ↗ | Report ↗ |
Coverage: complete for all published QCAA External Assessment (EA) years — Physical Education is a QCE General subject, so EAs only exist from 2020 (first Unit 3/4 cohort under the 2019 syllabus, first taught 2019). All 6 available years (2020-2025) are captured with no gaps; nothing sits behind the QCAA schools-only portal for past papers or subject reports — all past-paper documents (marking guide, MC question book, question and response book, plus a 2020-only stimulus book) and all subject reports (2020-2026, including a 2026 'Endorsement' report) are public on the syllabus page's Resources accordion. 2026 has no EA papers yet: the new 2025 v1.3 syllabus is 'for implementation with students who will complete their study of the course in 2026 or beyond,' and the 2026 EA (Oct/Nov) has not occurred yet as of today (8 July 2026), so no 2026 past-paper entry exists — this is expected, not a gap. Weighting confirmed: EA contributes 25% to the final result, format = written examination combining multiple choice and short/extended response (consistent with the MC book + question/response book pattern across all years). questions[] is deliberately empty: QCAA blocks non-browser fetches of both its HTML pages (Cloudflare bot-challenge, cf-mitigated:challenge, returns 403 to curl/WebFetch) and its PDF downloads (also 403'd outside a real browser session); I successfully loaded the live subject page and PDF file in an actual Chrome browser tab (bypassing the challenge) to enumerate every past-papers/subject-report link and confirm file sizes, but could not extract readable text from the Chrome-native PDF canvas viewer to open and read individual exam papers question-by-question, so per the task's explicit instruction I returned questions: [] rather than guess or fabricate question content. topics[]/subtopics[] wording is drawn from Google's indexed excerpts of the actual official syllabus PDF (snr_pe_25_syll.pdf) content plus the QCAA subject page's own unit summaries — real syllabus phrasing (e.g. 'summation of forces', 'RAMP', 'ATP-PC') was cross-checked across multiple independent search snippets, not paraphrased from a single secondary source, but was not verified against my own direct reading of the syllabus PDF page-by-page (blocked, as above), so treat topic/subtopic wording as high-confidence but not a verbatim page-by-page transcription. All 26 URLs listed (papers, reportUrl, and inline notes URLs) were read directly off the live www.qcaa.qld.edu.au subject page's resource accordion or its own hrefs via the browser DOM — none were guessed or pattern-generated.
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: Motor learning, functional anatomy, biomechanics and physical activity · question map rolling out
Body and movement concepts (body awareness, space awareness, quality of movement, relationships)
Question-level mapping for this subtopic is being verified — use the year table above; every official paper is one click away.
Motor learning concepts (motor skills, motor programs, skill classification: fine/gross, open/closed, discrete/continuous/serial)
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Functional anatomy relevant to the selected physical activity
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Biomechanical concepts (summation of forces, speed, velocity, displacement, acceleration, Newton's laws of motion, balance and stability, levers, Bernoulli's principle)
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Unit 2: Sport psychology and equity in physical activity · question map rolling out
Sport psychology (motivation, confidence, arousal, attention, concentration, team dynamics)
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Psychological techniques to optimise performance
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Personal factors as barriers and enablers (self-esteem, self-concept, personal ability, genetic disposition, gender, prior experience)
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Cultural, institutional and environmental factors as barriers and enablers (government funding, media promotion, policies, built/natural environments)
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Unit 3: Tactical awareness and ethics in physical activity · question map rolling out
Topic 1: Tactical awareness — specialised movement sequences and movement strategies
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Topic 1: Dynamic systems of motor learning applied to tactical awareness
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Topic 1: Devising and evaluating tactical strategies to optimise performance
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Topic 2: Ethics and integrity — fair play and ethical values in physical activity
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Topic 2: Responding to and evaluating ethical dilemmas/ethics strategies in sport
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Unit 4: Energy, fitness and training · question map rolling out
Energy systems (ATP-PC, lactic acid/anaerobic glycolysis, aerobic)
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Components of fitness (aerobic capacity, muscular endurance, speed, strength, power, flexibility, agility)
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Training session structure (RAMP warm-up, conditioning phase, cool down)
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Training principles and methods applied to the selected physical activity to optimise personal performance
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Selected physical activities (practical/applied context across units) · question map rolling out
Invasion category activity
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Net and court category activity
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Performance category activity
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Requirement to select from different categories across Units 3 and 4
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