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QCE · QCE Units 3 & 4 · official past papers

Psychology — 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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Psychology 2019 v1.3 General Senior Syllabus · 20202026Psychology 2025 v1.3 General Senior Syllabus (new) · 2027present

Official papers & examiner reports, year by year

YearStudy designOfficial paper(s)Examiner report
2025SD 2019 v1.3Subject report (260038, Jan 2026) confirms a 2025 EA cohort sat exams, but the actual EA question/response and multiple-choice PDF booklets for 2025 were not yet locatable via search at time of this index (2026-07-08) — QCAA sometimes lags publishing the newest year's papers publicly after they clear the confirmation/exclusion window. Recheck the official subject page directly.Report ↗
2024SD 2019 v1.3Paper 1 – Multiple choice question book · Paper 1 – Question and response book · Paper 2 – Question and response bookReport ↗
2023SD 2019 v1.3Paper 1 – Multiple choice question book · Paper 1 – Question and response book · Paper 2 – Question and response bookReport ↗
2022SD 2019 v1.3Paper 1 – Multiple choice question book · Paper 1 – Question and response book · Paper 2 – Question and response bookReport ↗
2021SD 2019 v1.3Paper 1 – Multiple choice question book · Paper 1 – Question and response book · Paper 2 – Question and response bookReport ↗
2020SD 2019 v1.3Paper 1 – Multiple choice question book · Paper 1 – Question and response book · Paper 2 – Question and response bookReport ↗

METHODOLOGY: All URLs were verified via targeted WebSearch queries against qcaa.qld.edu.au (WebFetch was blocked with HTTP 403 on every qcaa.qld.edu.au URL attempted, including the subject page and PDFs directly — QCAA's site appears to bot-block automated fetchers — so verification relied on Google-indexed search-result snippets that returned the exact qcaa.qld.edu.au download URL and an accurate title/description of the document, cross-checked across 15+ distinct search queries with overlapping results confirming the same URLs repeatedly). No URL was fabricated or guessed by pattern-extrapolation alone; every URL in years[] appeared verbatim in at least one search result.\n\nCOVERAGE: QCE Psychology as a standalone General senior subject only exists from the 2019 v1.3 syllabus, first examined 2020 — so all 6 available EA years (2020–2025) are included, which is the full population, not just \"most recent 10.\" There is no QCAA Psychology EA before 2020 (Queensland's old OP system, pre-QCE reform, did not have a directly equivalent Psychology external exam in this format).\n\nGAP: 2025 EA question papers (P1 MC, P1 Q&R, P2 Q&R) could not be located via search despite the 2025 subject report (proving the exam occurred and was marked) being indexed. This is flagged in the 2025 year entry's notes rather than guessed. Recommend rechecking https://www.qcaa.qld.edu.au/senior/senior-subjects/syllabuses/sciences/psychology directly (or QCAA's 'Senior syllabus resource search' tool) closer to when this index is consumed, as QCAA's own indexing/publication of the newest year's papers sometimes lags.\n\nSYLLABUS TRANSITION: A NEW Psychology 2025 v1.3 General Senior Syllabus was published (dated January 2026) and applies to students who complete the course in 2026 or beyond — meaning the first EA under this new syllabus would be November 2027 (or possibly late 2026 depending on QCAA's cohort-year convention; this needs confirming against QCAA's syllabus implementation schedule, not confirmed in this pass). All 2020–2025 papers listed are under the OLD (still current as of today, 2026-07-08) 2019 v1.3 syllabus. Do not badge 2020-2025 papers with the new syllabus era.\n\nQUESTIONS: questions[] is deliberately empty. WebFetch could not open any QCAA PDF (persistent 403), so no paper content was directly read by me — per the task's strict instruction, I did not guess or infer per-question breakdowns from third-party summaries (e.g., exam-insights.com, Studocu snippets) that appeared in search results, since those are not \"actually opening and reading\" the official PDF and their question-level descriptions are not verifiable as accurate/complete.\n\nPORTAL-LOCKED CONTENT: IA (internal assessment) sample instruments, annotated sample responses, and annotated bibliographies exist per-unit on QCAA's site but are separate from EA past papers and were not included in years[].papers — only true EA (external assessment) exam booklets were included, matching the task's scope. Some richer historical resources (e.g., full year-by-year confirmed grade boundaries, alternate-format/accessible versions of papers) sit behind the QCAA Portal (teacher/school login) per QCAA's own text (\"teachers can access additional resources in the Syllabus application in the QCAA Portal\") and were excluded as non-public.\n\nMINOR URL VARIANTS: Several filenames appeared in multiple crawled variants (e.g., 2022 Paper 2 as both snr_psychology_22_ea_p2_question_response_a324.pdf and a plain version; 2023 Paper 1 MC as both a plain and _a4n18-suffixed version) — these look like alternate-format (accessible/large-print) duplicates hosted alongside the standard PDF at different crawl times. I selected the base/primary filename confirmed with a clean official title in search results for each; if a link 404s, try removing or the underscore-suffix variant.

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Unit 3: Individual thinking · question map rolling out

Topic 1: Localisation of function in the brain

Question-level mapping for this subtopic is being verified — use the year table above; every official paper is one click away.

Topic 2: Visual perception

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Topic 3: Memory

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Topic 4: Learning

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Unit 4: The influence of others · question map rolling out

Topic 1: Social psychology

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Topic 2: Interpersonal processes

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Topic 3: Attitudes

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Topic 4: Cross-cultural psychology

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Unit 1: Individual development (Year 11, not externally examined) · question map rolling out

Introduction to the discipline of psychology

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Psychological research design and statistics

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The human brain and neuroanatomy

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Cognitive development

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Consciousness and sleep

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Unit 2: Individual behaviour (Year 11, not externally examined) · question map rolling out

Understanding and measuring intelligence

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Diagnosis and classification of psychological disorders

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Treatment of psychological disorders (incl. anxiety disorders)

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Emotion and wellbeing

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Motivation

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