VCE English and English as an Additional Language (EAL) Study Design (Units 3 and 4, 2024–2027)
Units 3 and 4 are assessed by School-assessed Coursework worth 25 per cent each and one end-of-year written examination worth 50 per cent. Unit 3 SAC marks are split 30 for an analytical response to a text, 20 for comprehension of an audio or audio visual text on the historical, cultural and/or social values behind the set text, 40 for a written text created for a stated audience, purpose and context, and 10 for roughly 250 words of annotations on your writing decisions. Unit 4 splits 40 for an analytical text response, 40 for an analysis of argument and language, and 20 for a three-to-five-minute point of view oral presentation. The examination is a 60-mark task book with 15 minutes reading time and 3 hours writing time: Section A an analytical response to one topic on one text from List 1 (20 marks), Section B one created written text — song, poetry and verse excluded — using the given title, at least one unseen stimulus and one Framework of Ideas (20 marks), and Section C an analysis of argument, written and spoken language, and visuals in unseen persuasive material (20 marks). Each section is worth exactly one-third. Since 2024 there is no listening section in the examination and no multiple choice anywhere in it. You may take an English and/or bilingual printed dictionary into the room; no electronic device is permitted.
Past papers on this subject span more than one study design. Papers written under an older one still work as practice, but the areas of study they test have changed — the index labels every paper with the study design it was set under.
SD 2024–2027 (current) · 2024–2027SD 2017–2023 · 2017–2023SD 2007–2016 · 2007–2016
The areas of study, one by one
Each area below lists the concepts named in the study design, what the VCAA exam asks of them, and the mistake that most often costs marks.
- Unit 1, AOS 1 — Reading and exploring texts (not examinable, foundational)
- Unit 1, AOS 2 — Crafting texts (not examinable, foundational)
- Unit 2, AOS 1 — Reading and exploring texts (not examinable, foundational)
- Unit 2, AOS 2 — Exploring argument (not examinable, foundational)
- Unit 3, AOS 1 — Reading and responding to texts (examinable, Part 1)
- Unit 3, AOS 2 — Creating texts (examinable)
- Unit 4, AOS 1 — Reading and responding to texts (examinable)
- Unit 4, AOS 2 — Analysing argument (examinable, Part 2)
Area 1 of 8
Unit 1, AOS 1 — Reading and exploring texts (not examinable, foundational)
Unit 1 starts with personal connection rather than formal analysis. You read or view one set text, or extracts from it, and work on inferential reading: what a text implies about character, setting, plot, point of view and voice rather than what it states. The area of study asks you to notice how vocabulary, text structures and language features build meaning on more than one level, and to compare the cultural, social and historical values embedded in the text with your own. Class and small-group discussion is treated as a skill in its own right — testing an idea aloud before committing it to paper — and your writing moves from personal response towards formal essay structures with metalanguage and textual evidence.
What the exam asks
School-assessed only. The EAL outcome wording is deliberately lighter than the English wording: you identify selected vocabulary, text structures, language features and ideas rather than analyse all of them. The set text here must be a different text type from the one you study in Unit 2.
Where marks go missing
Treating Unit 1 as the year where quotes do not matter yet. The habit of pinning a claim to a specific word or shot is the single skill that Section A rewards two years later, and students who never build it write plot summary under exam pressure.
Area 2 of 8
Unit 1, AOS 2 — Crafting texts (not examinable, foundational)
This is where the Section B skill set begins. You read three mentor texts in depth — short stories, speeches or monologues with transcripts, essays, podcasts with transcripts, poetry or songs, feature articles, memoir or biography, whole or in extract — and study them as models of how writing actually works, not as content to be summarised. From there you write your own texts for a stated purpose, a situated context including mode, and a specific audience, experimenting with vocabulary, text structures and language features, and applying standard or non-standard conventions where they suit the piece, including colloquial and idiomatic language. You then explain the decisions you made.
What the exam asks
School-assessed only. No idea from the Unit 3 Framework of Ideas may be studied in Unit 1, and no List 2 mentor text aligned with a Framework idea may be used here — Unit 1 crafting is deliberately kept separate from the examinable Framework work.
Where marks go missing
Writing for no one. A piece with no nameable audience and no stated purpose has nothing to be judged against, and the same vagueness in the examination is what separates a mid Section B script from a high one.
Area 3 of 8
Unit 2, AOS 1 — Reading and exploring texts (not examinable, foundational)
Unit 2 takes the Unit 1 reading skills and pushes them towards analysis. You study one set text of a different text type from Unit 1, this time reading for how vocabulary, text structures, language features and conventions work together to construct meaning, and for how historical context and social and cultural values shape the way different readers understand the same text. The writing goal is explicit: respond to a set topic, apply metalanguage accurately, integrate evidence rather than bolt it on, and organise the whole thing as a formal essay that can be reviewed and edited.
What the exam asks
School-assessed only. The EAL outcome asks you to identify and develop analysis of how meaning is constructed, where English students are asked to explore and analyse it.
Where marks go missing
Answering the text instead of the topic. Unit 2 is where 'respond to a set topic' first appears as a key skill, and the students who skip it write the same prepared essay every time — the exact behaviour the 2024 and 2025 examination reports flag as a low-scoring habit in Section A.
Area 4 of 8
Unit 2, AOS 2 — Exploring argument (not examinable, foundational)
Here you meet the Section C material for the first time, through a contemporary local or national issue. You read, view and listen to persuasive texts and break each one down into contention, sequence of arguments, supporting evidence and persuasive strategies, then examine the language and visuals and state the intended effect on the audience. Audio and audio visual texts are handled explicitly through intonation, volume, pace, pausing and stress. Practice runs through note taking, summaries and short-answer questions before formal analytical writing, and the unit closes with you building your own point of view text for oral presentation.
What the exam asks
School-assessed only, but this is the direct rehearsal for Unit 4 AOS 2 and Section C of the examination. The oral presentation strand introduced here is also assessed at school in Unit 4 and never on the paper.
Where marks go missing
Collecting techniques. Listing rhetorical questions, inclusive language and statistics is the behaviour the examination reports name as low-scoring: identifying devices without saying which argument they serve and what the intended audience is meant to feel or accept.
Area 5 of 8
Unit 3, AOS 1 — Reading and responding to texts (examinable, Part 1)
You study one text from the annual VCE English and EAL Text List, of a different text type from your Unit 4 text, and read it critically: the dynamics of the text, characters' motivations, tensions in relationships, the function of settings, the complexities of plot and the role of point of view, alongside its ideas, concerns and conflicts. Historical context and social and cultural values are studied as things that position readers differently, not as background trivia. Sustained analytical writing is the output — metalanguage used accurately, evidence integrated, organisational structure controlled. EAL students additionally complete a listening task that frames the text's historical, cultural and/or social values through an interview, podcast episode, lecture or presentation.
What the exam asks
Part 1 of this outcome is examinable and supplies Section A. Part 2, the listening comprehension task, is School-assessed Coursework only and worth 20 of the Unit 3 marks, assessed through short-answer responses or note form summaries. Section A gives two topics for each of the 20 List 1 texts; you answer one topic on one text. Topics come in three shapes — a proposition followed by 'Discuss.', 'Do you agree?' or 'To what extent do you agree?'; a quotation plus a proposition; or a direct question opening with 'How does ...?'.
Where marks go missing
Answering one word of the topic. The 2025 report names this as the most common low-scoring feature — a High Ground response that discusses the results of revenge but never the extent to which revenge is a form of justice. The second trap is writing in the style of a review, or reproducing a SAC essay that ignores the topic you actually chose.
Area 6 of 8
Unit 3, AOS 2 — Creating texts (examinable)
You study three mentor texts aligned with one idea from the Framework of Ideas — writing about country, writing about protest, writing about personal journeys, or writing about play — from List 2 of the annual text list, and use them to learn how effective, cohesive writing is put together. You then create your own texts with a clear purpose: to explain, to express, to reflect or to argue. Purpose, context including mode, and audience shape every choice of voice, vocabulary, text structure and language feature. Drafting, feedback and refinement are part of the outcome, and you comment on your own authorial decisions in roughly 250 words of annotations.
What the exam asks
Examinable, and it supplies Section B. In the examination you get four Frameworks, each with a set title and three unseen stimuli — in 2025 these were 'Origins' for country, 'Small Acts, Big Wins' for protest, 'Changing Direction' for personal journeys and 'Life is a Game' for play. You must use the title, draw a relevant idea from at least one stimulus, and connect meaningfully to the Framework. Mentor texts do not need to be referenced in the examination. Song, poetry and verse are excluded. Framework choice is heavily lopsided in practice: 57 per cent of 2025 students wrote on personal journeys and 28 per cent on protest.
Where marks go missing
Walking in with a memorised piece and bending the title onto it. Both examination reports say so directly, and the marks show it — the stimulus exists to generate ideas, so quoting it or underlining where you touched it earns nothing. The other giveaway is a piece that recounts a sequence of events with no discernible purpose.
Area 7 of 8
Unit 4, AOS 1 — Reading and responding to texts (examinable)
A second text, a different text type from your Unit 3 one, read with a sharper focus on what is implied rather than stated. The area of study centres on explicit and implicit ideas, on how the values in a text are conveyed and how historical context and social and cultural values shape a reader's understanding, and on the impact of vocabulary, text structures and language features on meaning. The writing demand is a planned, edited analytical response of roughly 700 to 900 words that answers the set topic explicitly, sustains a line of argument and supports it with key evidence.
What the exam asks
Examinable. This outcome and Unit 3 AOS 1 Part 1 together supply Section A — you may write on either of your two texts, provided it appears on List 1 for that year. Unit 4 Outcome 1 is worth 40 School-assessed Coursework marks as a written analytical response.
Where marks go missing
Explaining authorial intent instead of interpreting the text. The 2025 report calls this out precisely: responses limited by focusing on what the author intended rather than building an interpretation that answers the topic, usually ending as an explanation of the effect of each example.
Area 8 of 8
Unit 4, AOS 2 — Analysing argument (examinable, Part 2)
You analyse argument, language and visuals in texts debating a contemporary and significant national or international issue that has appeared in the media since 1 September of the previous year. Contention and supporting arguments are studied through sequence and structure, supporting evidence, language, and techniques and strategies; visuals are studied as things that support and augment argument. You examine how the context a text appears in and the identity of its author affect an audience's reaction, how effective persuasive texts rebut opposing views respectfully, and how print, digital, audio and audio visual texts differ — including intonation, volume, pace, pausing and stress in spoken material. You also build and deliver your own point of view text.
What the exam asks
Part 2 — the written analysis — is examinable and supplies Section C. Part 1, the point of view oral presentation, is School-assessed Coursework only, worth 20 marks, three to five minutes long, and never appears on the paper. Section C gives you background information plus unseen persuasive material and one task: write an analysis of the ways arguments, written and spoken language, and visuals are used to try to persuade the intended audience. In 2025 the material was a community newsletter article by a local resident proposing that a regional town replace its New Year's Eve fireworks with a projected lightshow.
Where marks go missing
Misreading the context and therefore the audience. In 2024 low-scoring responses identified the intended audience as local residents when the speaker was addressing gym members; in 2025 the high-scoring scripts were the ones that registered that the author shares the readers' affection for the tradition he wants changed. Annotate the background information before you write. And remember the specification: you are not required to evaluate whether the arguments succeed.
Common questions
Which study design and exam structure apply to EAL now?
The VCE English and EAL Study Design accredited for Units 3 and 4 from 2024 to 2027. The examination that goes with it has been running since 2024: three sections, 20 marks each, 60 marks total, 15 minutes reading and 3 hours writing, contributing 50 per cent of your study score.
Is there still a listening section in the EAL exam?
No. Listening left the examination in 2024. It is now assessed only at school, as Part 2 of Unit 3 Outcome 1 — comprehension of an audio or audio visual text through short-answer responses or note form summaries, worth 20 of the Unit 3 SAC marks. The point of view oral presentation is likewise School-assessed Coursework only.
Can I still use EAL exams from 2023 and earlier?
For Section A and Section C skills, yes, with care. Papers from 2017 to 2023 are a different structure — Section A Listening to texts 20 per cent, Section B Analytical interpretation of a text 40 per cent, Section C Argument and persuasive language 40 per cent, 100 marks total — and the 2016 paper is different again, with Text response, Writing in Context and Analysis of language use. The old Section B text-response topics and the old Section C persuasive material are still good practice; the mark allocations, the listening section and Writing in Context are not.
How does EAL scale?
In the 2025 VTAC Scaling Report a raw EAL study score of 30 scaled to 27, and 35 scaled to 33, so through the middle of the range EAL scales down. The curve flattens at the top: 40 stayed at 40, 45 rose to 46 and 50 stayed at 50. Compared with mainstream English in the same report, EAL is slightly harsher at the bottom and slightly kinder at the top. Choose EAL because you are eligible for it, not as a scaling play.
How many words should I write in the exam?
The examination sets no word limit and no word count is marked. The 700 to 900 word figure comes from the study design's suggested length for School-assessed Coursework responses, and 250 words is the suggested length for your Unit 3 annotations. Three 20-mark sections in three hours works out at roughly an hour each including planning.
Do I have to reference a mentor text in Section B?
No. The specification is explicit that mentor texts exist to give you access to ideas and to teach you how writing works, and that you are not required to make explicit reference to them in the examination. What you must use is the title provided for your chosen Framework and a relevant idea from at least one of the three unseen stimuli.
Which Framework should I prepare for Section B?
The one your class studied — you only study one, and the three mentor texts you read all year are aligned to it. In practice the field is lopsided: in 2025, 57 per cent of students wrote on personal journeys and 28 per cent on protest, with country at 8 per cent and play at 6 per cent. Average scores were closest across the four Frameworks, so there is no easy one; the marks came from execution, not choice.
What can I take into the EAL exam?
Pens, pencils, highlighters, erasers, sharpeners, rulers, and an English and/or bilingual printed dictionary. No calculator, no mobile phone and no unauthorised electronic device. The dictionary is the one real advantage the EAL paper gives you, and it is worth practising with the exact book you will bring so that looking a word up costs seconds rather than minutes.