QCE English assessment and marking, explained
The four assessments, the three criteria every one of them uses, and how QCAA checks the marks.
QCE English has four summative assessments in Units 3 and 4, each worth 25%. Three are internal, marked by the school against QCAA's instrument-specific marking guides (ISMGs). The fourth is QCAA's external exam. The 2025 syllabus applies to students finishing in 2026 or later.
The four assessments
| Assessment | What students produce | Conditions |
|---|---|---|
| IA1 | Spoken persuasive response | Up to 8 minutes, open resources, 4 weeks' notice |
| IA2 | Written response for a public audience, on two texts linked by a representation | Up to 1500 words, 5 weeks' notice |
| IA3 | Exam: imaginative response, using a prescribed text as a springboard | 15 min planning + 120 min, supervised, no notes |
| EA | External exam: analytical essay on a prescribed text | 15 min planning + 120 min, unseen question, no text or notes |
The three ISMG criteria
Every English instrument is marked against the same three criteria, each worth 8 or 9 marks, for a total of 25:
| Criterion | What it looks for |
|---|---|
| Knowledge application | How well the response uses its understanding of the texts, the task and the audience. |
| Organisation and development | How the response is structured and how its ideas build. |
| Textual features | Control of language, style and the conventions of the text type. |
Each criterion is divided into mark bands with a quality word that steps down: discerning, effective, appropriate, superficial, fragmented. Markers choose the band that best matches the evidence in the response.
Endorsement and confirmation
- Endorsement happens before students sit a task. QCAA checks each school's assessment instrument is valid and accessible.
- Confirmation happens after marking. The school moderates internally, submits provisional marks for each criterion, and QCAA assessors review a sample against the ISMG. QCAA describes this as checking the school's judgements, not re-marking.
- The final result is the internal and external marks added together, out of 100. Internal marks are not scaled to the exam.
AI and QCE English
From 2026, completing an academic integrity course is a requirement for the QCE, introduced in response to generative AI. Schools must teach critical and responsible use of AI and name AI explicitly when they communicate the consequences of misconduct.
Giving feedback that uses the criteria
- Name the criterion, then the next step. "Your analysis is mostly descriptive" helps less than "pick one technique per paragraph and say what it does to the reader".
- Feed forward on drafts. Feedback lands when students still have time to act on it. Comments on a final piece are mostly read for the mark.
- Hide the mark on practice work. Students read feedback more closely when there is no number to look at first.
- Show the gap with work samples. Two short responses side by side teach the difference between levels faster than the descriptors do.
- Moderate early. Marking one set of practice responses together as a faculty catches drift before it reaches assessed work.
Common questions
What are the QCE English ISMG criteria?
Knowledge application, Organisation and development, and Textual features. Every English internal assessment uses all three, for a total of 25 marks.
What are IA1, IA2 and IA3 in QCE English?
Under the 2025 syllabus: IA1 is a spoken persuasive response, IA2 is a written response for a public audience, and IA3 is an imaginative response written under exam conditions. The external assessment is an analytical essay.
Are QCE internal marks scaled?
No. Internal marks are confirmed by QCAA, not scaled to the external exam, and are added to the external mark for a result out of 100.