HSC PDHPE (legacy syllabus): the two cores, the options and the former exam

Legacy syllabus. PDHPE has been replaced. The last PDHPE HSC exam was held in 2025, and from the 2026 HSC students sit Health and Movement Science 11-12 (2023). For the current course, go to our HSC Health and Movement Science hub. The notes linked below cover the former PDHPE Stage 6 syllabus and are kept as background and for older revision material.

HSC PDHPE was a written-response heavy subject built on two cores and two school-chosen options. The gap between Band 5 and Band 6 was largely about how well students used the syllabus frameworks in extended responses.

This page indexes our archived PDHPE material: the two cores, the five options, the former exam structure, study habits that still transfer to Health and Movement Science, and links to every PDHPE guide and dot point answer.

The two cores

Both cores are compulsory and both appear in Sections I and II of the exam.

Core 1: Health Priorities in Australia is the public-health core. Who is sick, who is dying, why, and what is being done about it. The framework you build on: how priorities are identified (social justice, prevalence, costs, prevention potential), the priority issues themselves (CVD, cancer, diabetes, injury, mental health), groups experiencing inequities (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, lower socioeconomic groups, rural and remote, overseas-born, elderly, people with disability), and how Australia responds (Medicare, health promotion, the Ottawa Charter).

Core 2: Factors Affecting Performance is the sport-science core. What makes an athlete fast, strong, or skilled. The framework you build on: energy systems (ATP-PC, lactic acid, aerobic) and their fuels, types of training (aerobic, anaerobic, flexibility, strength), principles of training (progressive overload, specificity, reversibility, variety, training thresholds, warm-up and cool-down), psychological factors (motivation, anxiety, mental rehearsal), nutrition and recovery, and skill acquisition (cognitive, associative, autonomous stages plus feedback).

The five options

Your school picks two. The most commonly chosen are Sports Medicine and Improving Performance because they extend Core 2 directly.

• The Health of Young People - mental health, drug use, road safety, body image, sexual health. Heavy on data and policy.
• Sport and Physical Activity in Australian Society - women in sport, Indigenous athletes, sport and national identity, commercialisation. The sociology option.
• Sports Medicine - injury types, classification, management, prevention, rehabilitation, and special groups (children, women, older adults). Most popular.
• Improving Performance - planning a training program, applying principles to a chosen sport, ethical issues (drugs in sport, technology). The applied option.
• Equity and Health - close cousin of Core 1, focusing on health inequities for specific groups (Indigenous, socioeconomic, gender). Less commonly chosen but high-content overlap with Core 1.

How to study PDHPE

PDHPE rewards a written-response practice habit over content recall. Three habits to build over Term 1 and 2:

1. Memorise the frameworks first. Ottawa Charter, principles of training, stages of skill acquisition. Every extended response needs one of these as the spine. Flashcards work here.
2. Build a current-examples bank. Every dot point needs at least one specific Australian example with a number, its source and its year (for example, an AIHW or ABS figure you have checked yourself). Markers reward specificity.
3. Write timed extended responses weekly from Term 2. 25-minute responses, marked against the published criteria. The single biggest mark-improver in this subject.

How PDHPE scaled

Scaling is calculated by UAC, not NESA, and PDHPE historically scaled below the sciences and advanced mathematics. UAC's annual Scaling Report gives the exact figures for each year. PDHPE is no longer examined, so for subject selection now, look at Health and Movement Science.

Deep-dive guides

Start with the two core deep-dives, then drill into the dot points and practice under timed conditions.

• HSC PDHPE Core 1 Health Priorities in Australia deep-dive - identifying priorities, epidemiology, CVD and mental health, the Ottawa Charter, and Medicare, with model extended responses.
• HSC PDHPE Core 2 Factors Affecting Performance deep-dive - energy systems, types and principles of training, physiological adaptations, sport psychology and nutrition, with model extended responses.
• HSC PDHPE practice questions - a verb-matched question bank across the cores and options with worked answers, for timed practice.

Past papers and dot point coverage

Every dot point in the former syllabus has a focused answer page below. Past HSC papers up to the final 2025 exam are in NESA's archive; the most-tested topics were health promotion strategies under the Ottawa Charter (Core 1), energy systems and their interplay (Core 2), and injury management procedures (Sports Medicine option).