English EAL/D: should I choose it?

What will I learn?

How will I be assessed?

Progression and companion subjects

No complete companion or exclusion review is attached to this profile. Check the official course-entry conditions, language eligibility and your school’s sequence before enrolling. Links between resource hubs show related learning; they do not establish a compulsory prerequisite.

Will I find it hard?

Difficulty depends on your experience, interests, teaching and assessment. These are our reflection prompts, not an official difficulty rating.

• Do you enjoy close reading, developing an interpretation and supporting it with evidence?
• Would you rather revise a piece of writing over time or respond to a text under timed conditions? Check the actual assessment mix.

Does it scale up or down?

English EAL/D, 2025. UAC Table A3 reports separate means for reported HSC marks and scaled marks per unit, with candidature for each course in 2025. These are cohort statistics. They do not supply individual raw exam marks or a conversion between the two columns. Historical cohort data cannot predict your result or a future scaling direction.

Scaling is not a measure of difficulty or a guaranteed bonus. Prioritise content you can engage with and required subjects for courses you are considering.

Try a little of the subject

Reading to write: language forms, structures and grammar

Every sentence is built from parts of speech , the word classes that do different jobs. Nouns name people, places, things and ideas ( teacher, Sydney, freedom ). Pronouns replace nouns ( she, them, which ). Verbs show actions, states or happenings ( run, seem, become ). Adjectives describe nouns ( fragile, enormous ) and adverbs describe verbs, adjectives or other adverbs ( quietly, extremely ). Prepositions show position or relationship ( under, during, by ), and conjunctions join words, phrases and clauses ( and, because, although ). Many words change class depending on use: in a run in the park the word run is a noun, but in we run daily it is a verb. Always decide the class from the job the word does in the sentence, not from the word alone. Writers choose parts of speech to shape ideas and perspectives. A noun such as newcomers positions people differently from invaders , and an adjective such as determined gives a more positive view than stubborn . Strong verbs carry attitude: stroll , stagger and march all mean walk, but each creates a different picture. Verb forms. Most English verbs have five forms: the base form ( walk ), the third-person singular ( walks ), the past simple ( walked ), the past participle ( walked ) and the present participle ( walking ). Irregular verbs break the pattern: go, went, gone ; write, wrote, written ; buy, bought, bought . Auxiliary verbs ( be, have, do ) and modal verbs ( can, must, might ) help form tenses and show certainty or obligation. Tenses. Learn the main ones by their form and purpose: Present simple ( she studies ): habits and general truths. Present continuous ( she is studying ): actions happening now or temporary situations. Past simple ( she studied ): finished actions at a definite time. Present perfect ( she has st

Original practice question: Which sentence uses the present perfect tense correctly?

This is ATARMAxxing’s original sample learning material. It is not an official assessment task or a prediction of your school’s workload.

Explore the resources

Open the English EAL/D subject hub and free preview (opens in a new tab)

Core subject information and planning are free. Full study resources are optional.