English ATAR Year 12 Syllabus (effective from 1 January 2025)
Year 12 is assessed two ways, and both halves count. School-based assessment across the pair of units is weighted Responding 35 per cent, Creating 35 per cent and Examination 30 per cent, with at least one speaking / listening task over the year; the school mark is then statistically moderated against the course's examination results. The ATAR course examination itself is a single three-hour paper (10 minutes reading time, 100 marks, no calculator, data booklet or formula sheet, and no multiple choice anywhere in it) in three sections: Section One — Comprehending, 30 per cent, two compulsory questions on two unseen texts, of which one is written and the second written, visual or multimodal, poetry and drama excluded, each answered in roughly 200–300 words; Section Two — Responding, 40 per cent, one extended analytical response chosen from six questions on texts you have studied; and Section Three — Composing, 30 per cent, one sustained imaginative, interpretive or persuasive piece chosen from four or five prompts that are not tied to your studied texts. Suggested working time is 60 minutes per section, and Section One texts must not be used to answer Section Two. Every script is marked against SCSA's ratified marking key for that year. The examination mark is then averaged 50:50 with the moderated school mark to give the combined mark reported on your ATAR course report; TISC scales that combined mark to produce the scaled score that goes into your TEA and ATAR.
Past papers on this subject span more than one syllabus. Papers written under an older one still work as practice, but the units and content areas they test have changed — the index labels every paper with the syllabus it was set under.
Syllabus for teaching from 2027 (next) · 2027–presentSyllabus for teaching from 2025 (current) · 2025–2026Pre-2025 syllabus (superseded) · 2020–2024
The units and content areas, one by one
Each area below lists the concepts named in the syllabus, what the SCSA exam asks of them, and the mistake that most often costs marks.
- Unit 3 — Compare texts from similar or different genres and contexts (texts in contexts)
- Unit 3 — Compare and contrast distinctive features of genres (language and textual analysis)
- Unit 3 — Analyse and critically appraise how the conventions of texts influence responses (engaging and responding)
- Unit 3 — Create a range of texts (creating texts)
- Unit 3 — Reflect on their own and others' texts (reflecting)
- Unit 4 — Investigate and evaluate the relationships between texts and contexts (texts in contexts)
- Unit 4 — Evaluate different perspectives, attitudes and values represented in texts (language and textual analysis)
- Unit 4 — Evaluate how texts offer perspectives (engaging and responding)
- Unit 4 — Create a range of texts (creating texts)
- Unit 4 — Reflect on their own and others' texts (reflecting)
Area 1 of 10
Unit 3 — Compare texts from similar or different genres and contexts (texts in contexts)
The comparative spine of Unit 3. You analyse the language, structural and stylistic choices of two or more texts, explain how each conforms to or challenges the conventions of its genre or mode, and analyse and evaluate how similar themes, issues, ideas and concepts are treated differently across them. The point is not that two texts share a theme but that they build it out of different materials — a memoir, a documentary and a feature article can all be about displacement and reach the reader by entirely different routes.
What the syllabus lists under this area · 3 points
- analysing language, structural and stylistic choices
- explaining how each text conforms to or challenges the conventions of particular genres or modes
- analysing and evaluating how similar themes, issues, ideas and concepts are treated in different texts
What the exam asks
This content underpins Section One, where one of the two compulsory questions can require comparison between the unseen texts, and it is the natural home of Section Two comparison questions, where the design brief allows examiners to ask you to compare, contrast or evaluate a studied text or texts and you may draw on any text or text type you have studied.
Where marks go missing
Running two texts in parallel rather than comparing them — half the response on Text A, half on Text B, and a final sentence claiming they are 'both effective'. A comparison earns marks only where the point of contact is explicit: same idea, different convention, different effect on the reader.
Area 2 of 10
Unit 3 — Compare and contrast distinctive features of genres (language and textual analysis)
Genre studied as a working system rather than a label. You analyse the techniques and conventions used in different genres and modes, consider how those conventions can be manipulated — borrowed, inverted, hybridised, parodied — and examine how genres and their conventions have changed over time, so that what counted as a convention of the crime novel, the campaign advertisement or the nature documentary in one decade is a knowing reference in the next.
What the syllabus lists under this area · 3 points
- analysing the techniques and conventions used in different genres and modes
- considering how the conventions of genres can be manipulated
- examining how genres and their conventions have changed over time
What the exam asks
Section Two questions on genre and convention sit directly on this content, and Section One rewards it whenever an unseen text works in a recognisable form — an opinion column, an advertisement, a photo essay — because naming the form lets you argue about what a reader was set up to expect.
Where marks go missing
Listing conventions as a checklist. The marks are in the manipulation: what the text does with the convention, and what shifts in the reader when the convention is broken rather than kept.
Area 3 of 10
Unit 3 — Analyse and critically appraise how the conventions of texts influence responses (engaging and responding)
The reader-facing half of Unit 3. You study the ways language patterns create meaning — repetition, contrast, motif, register, syntactic patterning — how expectations of a genre have developed and what happens when those expectations are met or refused, and how responses to texts and genres change over time and in different cultural contexts, so that a text read as daring at publication can read as conventional now.
What the syllabus lists under this area · 3 points
- the ways language patterns can create meaning
- how expectations of genres have developed and the effect when those expectations are met or not met
- how responses to texts and genres may change over time and in different cultural contexts
What the exam asks
This is the content that turns a technique-spotting answer into an analytical one, and it is examinable in both Section One, where you must say what the unseen text's patterning does to a reader in 200–300 words, and Section Two, where questions can require you to reflect on or evaluate a studied text.
Where marks go missing
Writing about 'the audience' as a single, fixed group. The syllabus is explicit that responses shift over time and across cultural contexts — specifying which readers, when, is what makes an evaluative claim arguable.
1 real SCSA question indexed on this area →
Area 4 of 10
Unit 3 — Create a range of texts (creating texts)
The composing content for Unit 3: transforming and adapting texts for different purposes, contexts and audiences; making innovative and imaginative use of language features; experimenting with the text structures and language features of specific genres for particular effects; sustaining analysis and argument; using appropriate quotation and referencing protocols; and using strategies for planning, drafting, editing and proofreading with accurate spelling, punctuation, syntax and metalanguage.
What the syllabus lists under this area · 7 points
- transforming and adapting texts for different purposes, contexts and audiences
- making innovative and imaginative use of language features
- using and experimenting with text structures and language features related to specific genres for particular effects
- sustaining analysis and argument
- using appropriate quotation and referencing protocols
- using strategies for planning, drafting, editing and proofreading
- using accurate spelling, punctuation, syntax and metalanguage
What the exam asks
Section Three examines this directly — one sustained imaginative, interpretive or persuasive text, chosen from four or five prompts, written for a specific audience, context and purpose in about 60 minutes. In school-based assessment it is the 35 per cent Creating component.
Where marks go missing
Treating Section Three as a place to recycle a memorised piece. The prompts are deliberately not tied to studied texts, and a pre-learned narrative bent onto the prompt reads as exactly that; the marking key credits control of form, audience and purpose, which a bolted-on opening cannot fake.
Area 5 of 10
Unit 3 — Reflect on their own and others' texts (reflecting)
Reflection as an analytical act: analysing and evaluating how different texts represent similar ideas in different ways, comparing and evaluating the impact of the language features used across a variety of texts and genres, and considering the role of the audience in making meaning — the recognition that a text does not deliver a meaning so much as make one available to a particular reader.
What the exam asks
It supplies the evaluative layer examiners look for at the top of both Section One and Section Two — the sentence that says not only how the text works but how well, and for whom.
Where marks go missing
Confusing reflection with personal opinion. 'I found this moving' is not a claim about representation; the marks come from tying the response back to a specific choice in the text and the position it offers a reader.
Area 6 of 10
Unit 4 — Investigate and evaluate the relationships between texts and contexts (texts in contexts)
Unit 4 opens with close analysis of texts and the contexts around them: examining how each text relates to a particular context or contexts, and comparing the context in which a text was created with the context in which it is received. Context here is not a paragraph of biography before the analysis — it is the pressure that explains why this text says this, this way, at this moment.
What the syllabus lists under this area · 3 points
- undertaking close analysis of texts
- examining how each text relates to a particular context or contexts
- comparing the contexts in which texts are created and received
What the exam asks
Prime Section Two territory: questions can require you to interpret, analyse, compare, contrast, reflect on or evaluate a studied text, and context questions are answerable with any text or text type you have studied. It also supports Section One, where an unseen text's date, publication and purpose are often the fastest route into its choices.
Where marks go missing
Front-loading historical background and never returning to it. Context earns marks only where it is doing analytical work on a specific choice — a word, an image, a structure — in the text in front of you.
Area 7 of 10
Unit 4 — Evaluate different perspectives, attitudes and values represented in texts (language and textual analysis)
The heart of Unit 4. You analyse content, purpose and choice of language; analyse the use of voice and narrative point of view — first or third person, omniscient or restricted, reliable or unreliable; and explore other interpretations and aspects of context in order to develop a considered response of your own rather than a borrowed one.
What the syllabus lists under this area · 3 points
- analysing content, purpose and choice of language
- analysing the use of voice and narrative point of view
- exploring other interpretations and aspects of context to develop a considered response
What the exam asks
Section Two questions on voice, perspective, attitudes and values are drawn straight from this content, and Section One questions frequently turn on who is speaking in the unseen text and what that positioning does to the reader.
Where marks go missing
Collapsing narrator, author and perspective into one voice. The syllabus separates them deliberately, and an argument about values that cannot say whose values — the character's, the narrator's, the text's — stalls at description.
1 real SCSA question indexed on this area →
Area 8 of 10
Unit 4 — Evaluate how texts offer perspectives (engaging and responding)
How a perspective is delivered as well as held: the selection of mode, genre and type of text; the ways viewpoints and values are represented; and the selection of language features that generate empathy or controversy. The same argument put as a podcast, a poster and a parliamentary speech asks different things of its audience, and the choice of vehicle is itself a persuasive act.
What the syllabus lists under this area · 3 points
- the selection of mode, genre and type of text
- the ways viewpoints and values are represented
- the selection of language features that generate empathy or controversy
What the exam asks
Examinable in Section Two, where you may be asked to evaluate how a studied text offers a perspective, and directly useful in Section One when the second unseen text is visual or multimodal and its framing, composition or shot size is doing the persuading.
Where marks go missing
Asserting that a text 'positions the reader to feel sympathy' without identifying the feature that does it. Empathy and controversy are effects; the marking key rewards the mechanism that produces them.
Area 9 of 10
Unit 4 — Create a range of texts (creating texts)
Composing at Unit 4 level: using appropriate language and stylistic features to sustain a personal voice and perspective, using nuanced language, synthesising ideas and opinions into complex argument, and substantiating and justifying your own responses with textual evidence — alongside the same protocols for quotation, referencing, planning, drafting, editing and proofreading, and accurate spelling, punctuation, syntax and metalanguage.
What the syllabus lists under this area · 7 points
- using appropriate language and stylistic features to sustain a personal voice and perspective
- using nuanced language
- synthesising ideas and opinions to develop complex argument
- substantiating and justifying their own responses using textual evidence
- using appropriate quotation and referencing protocols
- using strategies for planning, drafting, editing and proofreading
- using accurate spelling, punctuation, syntax and metalanguage
What the exam asks
Section Three examines the composing skill under time, and the demand for substantiated, sustained argument shapes what a top-band Section Two response looks like. In school-based assessment it is again the 35 per cent Creating component.
Where marks go missing
Sacrificing control for ambition in the last 15 minutes. Section Three credits a sustained piece — an unfinished experiment in second person costs more in mechanics and structure than a well-built conventional piece gains in novelty.
1 real SCSA question indexed on this area →
Area 10 of 10
Unit 4 — Reflect on their own and others' texts (reflecting)
The most demanding content in the course: analysing and evaluating how different attitudes and perspectives underpin texts, questioning the assumptions and values a text takes for granted, identifying omissions, inclusions, emphases and marginalisations, and discussing and evaluating different interpretations of the same text.
What the exam asks
This is where a Section Two response separates itself — questions that invite you to evaluate a studied text's representation of a group or an issue, or to weigh a common interpretation against your own, are answered from this content.
Where marks go missing
Naming an omission without arguing why it matters. 'Women are marginalised in this text' is a starting point; the mark is in showing the choice that produces the marginalisation and the reading it makes available.
Common questions
How is my final English ATAR mark actually calculated?
Your school mark for the pair of units (Responding 35 per cent, Creating 35 per cent, school examination 30 per cent) is statistically moderated against your cohort's performance in the ATAR course examination. The moderated school mark is then averaged 50:50 with your raw examination mark to give the combined mark on your ATAR course report. TISC scales that combined mark against the performance of English students across all their courses to produce the scaled score that feeds your TEA and ATAR.
Is there a set text list for English ATAR?
No. SCSA publishes a suggested text list for Years 11 and 12, but schools may substitute comparable works, and the Section Two design brief requires questions that can be answered using any text or text type you have studied. That is why the six Section Two questions are pitched at ideas, conventions, contexts and perspectives rather than at named books.
Can I use the Section One texts in my Section Two answer?
No. The examination is explicit that candidates must not use the Section One texts to answer Section Two. Section Two is about the texts you studied across Units 3 and 4; the unseen texts are there to be comprehended and analysed cold in about 200–300 words per question.
What is the paper actually like on the day?
Three hours working time with 10 minutes reading time, 100 marks, no multiple choice and no calculator, data booklet or formula sheet. Section One is two compulsory questions on two unseen texts worth 30 per cent, Section Two is one extended response from a choice of six worth 40 per cent, and Section Three is one piece of original writing from a choice of four or five worth 30 per cent. Suggested working time is 60 minutes per section, so the 40 per cent section is on the same clock as the 30 per cent ones — plan accordingly. In 2026 the ENG examination is on Friday 30 October in the 9.20 am session.
Do I need English ATAR to get an ATAR?
Not specifically. An ATAR needs scaled scores in at least four ATAR courses, and English does not have to be one of them or one of your best four. Separately, the WACE requires four post-Year 10 English units including a Year 12 pair, and standard school-leaver university admission in WA requires competence in English — usually a scaled score of at least 50 in English ATAR, Literature ATAR or EAL/D ATAR, with concessions available at each university. Note also that English and EAL/D cannot both count towards your TEA.
Can the course average predict my own scaled score?
No. A course average describes a cohort; it is not a rule converting your individual mark. An average scaled score cannot tell you how much your own mark will rise or fall. Refer to TISC’s official explanation of scaling when interpreting your result.
How do English, Literature and EAL/D differ?
They are separate ATAR courses with separate syllabuses and separate examinations. English is the broad course covering written, visual and multimodal texts across genres and contexts; Literature works on literary texts and literary theory; EAL/D is for eligible students for whom English is an additional language or dialect. English and Literature can both count towards your TEA, but English with EAL/D and Literature with EAL/D are unacceptable combinations — only the higher scaled score is used.
Is the syllabus changing?
Yes, but not yet for current Year 12 students. The syllabus effective from 1 January 2025 is the one examined in 2025 and 2026. SCSA has published an English ATAR Year 12 syllabus for teaching from 2027, alongside 'what's changing' summaries covering the rationale, aims and general capabilities, so 2027 Year 12 students will work from the newer document.