SACE English Literary Studies past exams 2023–2025, by year and topic

The rest of the syllabus

Question-level mapping for these areas is still being verified. Every official paper covering them is in the year table above.

• Evidence and inference — Close reading: evidence, inference and interpretation
• Narrative perspective — Narrative voice, focalisation and reliability
• Textual structure — Structure, sequence and the distribution of information
• Stylistic features — Diction, imagery and the patterns of figurative language
• Attitude and evaluation — Tone, irony and the gap between statement and implication
• Prose fiction — Characterisation, dialogue and relationships in prose
• Narrative time and place — Setting, memory and narrative chronology
• Poetic form — Poetic speakers, lineation and stanza structure
• Poetic sound — Rhythm, sound and the interaction of form and meaning
• Drama — Dramatic conflict, dialogue and subtext
• Performance — Stage directions, dramatic space and audience knowledge
• Film — Framing, editing, sound and film perspective
• Non-fiction and multimodal texts — Rhetoric, visual arrangement and nonfiction authority
• Comparison — Comparing unseen texts through a shared argument
• Context — Texts, readers and historical and cultural contexts
• Critical perspectives — Critical lenses and competing interpretations
• Analytical argument — Building and revising a sustained analytical response
• Submitted comparative essay — Designing the Comparative Text Study
• Transformation — Transforming texts and explaining authorial choices
• Composition and editing — Creating for purpose, audience and form