QCAA Physical Education General Senior Syllabus 2025 v1.3 (from 2026)
The external assessment is a written examination sat across two books: a multiple choice question book and a question and response book, with the marking guide published afterwards (the 2020 paper also carried a stimulus book). It contributes 25% of the final subject result and draws on the Units 3 and 4 subject matter — tactical awareness, ethics, energy, fitness and training — usually framed around a physical activity scenario. Short and extended responses ask you to analyse the stimulus, apply a concept and justify a recommendation.
Past papers on this subject span more than one syllabus. Papers written under an older one still work as practice, but the units and topics they test have changed — the index labels every paper with the syllabus it was set under.
2019 syllabus (v1.3) · 2020–20252025 syllabus (v1.3) · 2026–present
The units and topics, one by one
Each area below lists the concepts named in the syllabus, what the QCAA exam asks of them, and the mistake that most often costs marks.
Area 1 of 5
Unit 1: Motor learning, functional anatomy, biomechanics and physical activity
This unit gives you the vocabulary for describing and improving movement. Body and movement concepts cover body awareness, space awareness, quality of movement and relationships — the language you use to describe what a performer is actually doing. Motor learning concepts explain how skills are acquired and stored as motor programs, and how skills are classified as fine or gross, open or closed, and discrete, continuous or serial; that classification decides which practice and feedback approach suits a skill. Functional anatomy links the muscles, joints and actions used in your selected physical activity to the movement produced. Biomechanics is the most technical strand: summation of forces, the difference between speed, velocity, displacement and acceleration, Newton's three laws of motion, balance and stability, levers, and Bernoulli's principle applied to the flight paths of balls and implements.
What the syllabus lists under this area · 4 points
- Body and movement concepts (body awareness, space awareness, quality of movement, relationships)
- Motor learning concepts (motor skills, motor programs, skill classification: fine/gross, open/closed, discrete/continuous/serial)
- Functional anatomy relevant to the selected physical activity
- Biomechanical concepts (summation of forces, speed, velocity, displacement, acceleration, Newton's laws of motion, balance and stability, levers, Bernoulli's principle)
What the exam asks
Questions supply an activity scenario, an image sequence or performance data and ask you to explain how a named concept accounts for what you can see, or to apply a biomechanical principle to a specific technique. Command words such as explain, analyse and apply dominate, and marks come from linking the principle to the observed movement and its effect on performance.
Where marks go missing
Naming the principle and stopping — writing 'summation of forces' or 'Newton's third law' without saying which body segments sequence, in what order, and what that does to the force or speed produced in that particular skill.
Area 2 of 5
Unit 2: Sport psychology and equity in physical activity
Two strands sit inside this unit. Sport psychology covers motivation, confidence, arousal, attention and concentration, and team dynamics, together with the psychological techniques — goal setting, self-talk, imagery, relaxation and performance routines — used to move a performer toward an optimal state. You need to explain why a technique suits a particular performer at a particular moment, not simply list it. The equity strand looks at what lets people into physical activity or keeps them out: personal factors such as self-esteem, self-concept, personal ability, genetic disposition, gender and prior experience, and cultural, institutional and environmental factors such as government funding, media promotion, organisational policies, and the built and natural environments a community can access. Barriers and enablers are the organising idea, since the same factor can operate either way depending on the group.
What the syllabus lists under this area · 4 points
- Sport psychology (motivation, confidence, arousal, attention, concentration, team dynamics)
- Psychological techniques to optimise performance
- Personal factors as barriers and enablers (self-esteem, self-concept, personal ability, genetic disposition, gender, prior experience)
- Cultural, institutional and environmental factors as barriers and enablers (government funding, media promotion, policies, built/natural environments)
What the exam asks
You are typically given a performer, group or community in the stimulus and asked to identify barriers and enablers, then evaluate a strategy for improving engagement or performance. Higher marks go to responses that classify the factor correctly, explain the mechanism by which it operates, and weigh the strategy's likely effect on that specific group.
Where marks go missing
Treating a barrier as universal. A factor such as media promotion or gender only earns marks when you explain how it operates for the specific person or community described in the stimulus, and whether it functions there as a barrier or an enabler.
Area 3 of 5
Unit 3: Tactical awareness and ethics in physical activity
Unit 3 carries two topics examined alongside your practical performance. Tactical awareness asks you to read a game as a dynamic system: specialised movement sequences and movement strategies are selected in response to opponents, space and time, and a small change in one constraint shifts the whole pattern of play. You devise tactical strategies for your selected activity, gather data on how they work, and evaluate whether they optimised performance. The ethics and integrity topic covers fair play, the values that underpin participation, and the pressures that erode them — doping, match fixing, gamesmanship, and selection or inclusion decisions. You learn to work through an ethical dilemma using ethical frameworks and to evaluate the strategies organisations use to protect integrity, rather than simply labelling behaviour right or wrong.
What the syllabus lists under this area · 5 points
- Topic 1: Tactical awareness — specialised movement sequences and movement strategies
- Topic 1: Dynamic systems of motor learning applied to tactical awareness
- Topic 1: Devising and evaluating tactical strategies to optimise performance
- Topic 2: Ethics and integrity — fair play and ethical values in physical activity
- Topic 2: Responding to and evaluating ethical dilemmas/ethics strategies in sport
What the exam asks
Expect a scenario — a passage of play, or an integrity dilemma facing an athlete, coach or governing body. You analyse the situation, apply dynamic systems or ethics concepts, and justify a strategy. Marks reward a clear recommendation supported by reasoning about consequences for the specific people involved, not a general statement that cheating is wrong.
Where marks go missing
Recounting the scenario instead of judging it. Ethics questions want a justified position: without naming the ethical concept, weighing at least one competing interest and committing to a recommendation, the response stays descriptive and caps out low.
Area 4 of 5
Unit 4: Energy, fitness and training
Unit 4 is the physiology of performance. The three energy systems — ATP-PC, lactic acid (anaerobic glycolysis) and aerobic — are studied for their fuel source, rate and duration of energy supply, and for how they interact across the actual work-to-rest pattern of your selected activity. Components of fitness (aerobic capacity, muscular endurance, speed, strength, power, flexibility and agility) are matched to the demands of that activity so training targets the right quality. Training session structure is specified: a RAMP warm-up, a conditioning phase and a cool down. You then apply training principles such as specificity, overload, progression, reversibility and recovery, and select methods — continuous, interval, fartlek, resistance, plyometric — to build a program that improves your own performance and can be justified with data.
What the syllabus lists under this area · 4 points
- Energy systems (ATP-PC, lactic acid/anaerobic glycolysis, aerobic)
- Components of fitness (aerobic capacity, muscular endurance, speed, strength, power, flexibility, agility)
- Training session structure (RAMP warm-up, conditioning phase, cool down)
- Training principles and methods applied to the selected physical activity to optimise personal performance
What the exam asks
Questions give an activity profile, training data or a performance trend and ask you to explain which energy system predominates, which fitness component is limiting performance, or whether a training program is appropriate. The strongest responses tie the physiology to the specific work and rest demands of the activity and then recommend a modification.
Where marks go missing
Describing the energy systems as if they switch on one at a time. Marks are lost when a response ignores that all three contribute simultaneously and that the intensity and duration of the activity determine which one predominates at that moment.
Area 5 of 5
Selected physical activities (practical/applied context across units)
This is the practical spine of the course rather than a separate body of theory. You study the theory through selected physical activities drawn from different categories: invasion activities such as touch, football or netball; net and court activities such as badminton, volleyball or tennis; and performance activities such as athletics, dance or swimming. The syllabus requires selection from different categories across Units 3 and 4, so you cannot build the whole course on one sport. Everything you learn about motor learning, biomechanics, tactics, ethics, energy systems and training is applied to these activities, and the data you collect on your own performance — game statistics, video, fitness testing — becomes the evidence base for the arguments you make in internal assessment and the reasoning you carry into the examination.
What the syllabus lists under this area · 4 points
- Invasion category activity
- Net and court category activity
- Performance category activity
- Requirement to select from different categories across Units 3 and 4
What the exam asks
The examination does not assess your physical skill, but it assumes you know at least one activity in real detail. Scenario questions expect you to reason about the demands of a named activity — its movement patterns, work-to-rest ratio and tactical problems — so answers that could describe any sport forfeit the application marks.
Where marks go missing
Reaching for an unfamiliar activity as your exam example. Students who write about the activity they actually played and collected data on can name real movement sequences and demands; a generic sport choice produces vague, unearned application.