HSC PDHPE practice questions: cores and options (legacy syllabus)
PDHPE practice rewards matching the verb, naming the Australian example, and building on a framework. Do short-answer blocks under time and write full extended responses with an explicit thesis and judgement. Prepare an example bank for Core 1 (Ottawa Charter programs) and Core 2 (one athlete per energy profile) so exam time goes to analysis.
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Legacy syllabus. This page covers the former PDHPE Stage 6 syllabus (listed by NESA as PDHPE Stage 6 (2012)). The last PDHPE HSC exam was held in 2025. From the 2026 HSC, students sit Health and Movement Science 11-12 (2023) instead: see our HSC Health and Movement Science hub. Use this page only as background or for older revision material.
How to use this question bank
HSC PDHPE is a written-response heavy subject. The exam is three hours, 100 marks, with multiple choice and short answer on the two cores and extended responses on the options. The gap between Band 5 and Band 6 is almost entirely about how well you deploy the syllabus frameworks in extended responses, not how much you have memorised.
Three rules for PDHPE practice.
- Match the verb. Describe means detailed features. Explain means reasons and links. Analyse means draw out relationships. Evaluate and assess require an explicit judgement. Answer the verb the question actually uses.
- Name the example. Specific Australian programs (plain packaging, ACCHOs, the 715 Health Check, Heart Foundation Walking) and specific athletes or sports lift a response out of the middle band.
- Use the framework as a spine. The Ottawa Charter, the energy systems and the principles of training are scaffolding, not decoration. Build the answer on one of them and apply it consistently.
These questions are written by ExamExplained for practice. They are modelled on NESA paper patterns and are not endorsed by NESA.
Section A: Core 1 short answer (1-8)
- Identify the five criteria used to determine priority health issues in Australia. (3 marks)
- Distinguish between mortality and morbidity as epidemiological measures. (3 marks)
- Explain how infant mortality acts as an indicator of overall population health. (3 marks)
- Describe the nature of cardiovascular disease, referring to coronary heart disease and stroke. (4 marks)
- Explain how two of the social justice principles are used to identify priority health issues. (4 marks)
- Outline how Medicare is funded and what it covers. (4 marks)
- Describe two modifiable risk factors for cardiovascular disease and explain how reducing each lowers risk. (5 marks)
- Explain why mental health is considered a National Health Priority Area despite its relatively low direct mortality. (5 marks)
Section B: Core 1 extended response (9-12)
- Evaluate the effectiveness of the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion as a framework for addressing a priority health issue in Australia. (12 marks)
- Assess the role of health promotion based on the action area of building healthy public policy in improving the health of Australians. (10 marks)
- Analyse how epidemiology is used to identify and prioritise health issues in Australia. Refer to at least three measures. (8 marks)
- Evaluate the extent to which Australia's health care system promotes equitable health outcomes for priority population groups. (12 marks)
Section C: Core 2 short answer (13-20)
- Identify the fuel source and approximate duration of each of the three energy systems. (3 marks)
- Explain why hydrogen ions, rather than lactate, are the cause of fatigue in the lactic acid system. (3 marks)
- Distinguish between isotonic and isometric strength training, giving one example of each. (3 marks)
- Describe the principle of specificity and apply it to one named athlete. (4 marks)
- Explain how aerobic training lowers an athlete's resting heart rate. (4 marks)
- Describe two psychological strategies an athlete could use to manage state anxiety. (4 marks)
- Outline the goals of pre-performance, during-performance and post-performance nutrition. (5 marks)
- Explain how the principle of reversibility justifies the existence of a pre-season. (4 marks)
Section D: Core 2 extended response (21-24)
- Analyse how the three energy systems contribute to performance in a sport of your choice. Refer to fuel source, duration and cause of fatigue. (8 marks)
- Evaluate how a coach could apply the principles of training to design a program for a named athlete. (12 marks)
- Explain how physiological adaptations to training improve the performance of an endurance athlete. (8 marks)
- Assess the contribution of psychological strategies to elite sporting performance. (10 marks)
Section E: options extended response (25-30)
These cover the options most commonly studied. Answer those relevant to your school's choices.
- (Sports Medicine) Analyse the management of a soft-tissue injury from immediate care through to return to play. (15 marks)
- (Sports Medicine) Evaluate the role of injury prevention strategies in reducing sports injury among children. (15 marks)
- (Improving Performance) Evaluate the use of an aerobic training method in improving performance for an endurance sport. (15 marks)
- (Improving Performance) Assess the ethical and performance implications of the use of drugs in sport. (15 marks)
- (Health of Young People) Analyse the determinants that shape the health of young Australians. (15 marks)
- (Equity and Health) Evaluate strategies used to address health inequities for a named priority population group. (15 marks)
Worked examples
Prompt: "Evaluate the effectiveness of the Ottawa Charter as a framework for addressing a priority health issue." (12 marks)
- Thesis
- Applied to cardiovascular disease, the Ottawa Charter is highly effective because its five action areas operate together across structural and individual levers, and the sustained decline in age-adjusted CVD mortality is the clearest evidence; the framework is necessary but, as mental health shows, not always sufficient.
- Body, working through all five action areas
- Developing personal skills (Heart Foundation Walking, GP lifestyle advice) builds capacity but is limited alone. Creating supportive environments (Health Star Rating, smoke-free spaces) made the healthy choice easier, strongly on smoking. Strengthening community action (Heart Foundation advocacy, community-led Indigenous screening) raises awareness. Reorienting health services (Chronic Disease Management Plans, absolute-risk statin guidelines) contributed directly to falling mortality. Building healthy public policy (plain packaging, tobacco excise) has the strongest evidence base because it shifts everyone's default.
- Judgement
- The Charter is effective for CVD precisely because no single action area would have produced the decline; the combination did. Mental health qualifies the judgement: the Charter has been applied but population outcomes have improved less clearly, showing the framework is powerful but not a guarantee.
A response that names all five areas, gives one Australian example per area, carries CVD through, and ends with a reasoned judgement sits in the top band.
Prompt: "Evaluate how a coach could apply the principles of training to design a program for a named athlete." (12 marks, roughly 25 minutes)
Minutes 0 to 4, plan. Choose a 1500m runner. Thesis: a coach applies all seven principles together to produce running-specific adaptation while managing injury risk. Four clusters of principles to discuss: progressive overload and specificity (the engine), thresholds and variety (calibration and motivation), reversibility (the risk that justifies periodisation), warm-up and cool-down (injury protection).
Minutes 4 to 8, introduction. Thesis sentence, name the athlete, signpost the clusters, state that the principles are interdependent.
Minutes 8 to 22, body. Three to four paragraphs. Progressive overload: weekly mileage rising by no more than about 10 percent, interval intensity increasing across the block. Specificity: most work done running, intervals at and slightly faster than race pace. Thresholds: tempo work at lactate threshold, calculated from an estimated maximum heart rate. Reversibility and variety: periodised year so adaptation is maintained and motivation sustained. Warm-up and cool-down: dynamic warm-up, static-stretch cool-down.
Minutes 22 to 25, conclusion and judgement. The program is effective because the principles reinforce one another; overload without specificity wastes adaptation, specificity without overload plateaus. The coach's skill is in balancing overload against reversibility and injury risk.
Across these questions, two example banks reward preparation. For Core 1, keep a short list of named Australian programs mapped to Ottawa Charter action areas: plain packaging and tobacco excise (healthy public policy), the Health Star Rating (supportive environments), ACCHOs (community action), the 715 Health Check and Chronic Disease Management Plans (reorienting services), and Heart Foundation Walking (personal skills). For Core 2, keep one athlete per energy-system profile: a 100m sprinter (ATP-PC and strength), an 800m or 1500m runner (all three systems), and a marathon runner (aerobic). Carrying a prepared example into the exam means you spend writing time on analysis, not on inventing a scenario.
For every extended response, write your thesis sentence first, before any body paragraph. If you cannot state your position in one sentence, you do not yet know what you are arguing, and the response will drift into description.
Check your knowledge
Use these to rehearse planning and structure rather than full essays. Aim to produce a thesis and paragraph plan for each in five minutes, then check against the solutions.
- Plan a 12-mark response to question 9 ("Evaluate the Ottawa Charter for a priority issue"). State a thesis and five action-area examples. (12 marks)
What the marker wants: a judgement, all five action areas, one Australian example each, one consistent priority issue. - Plan an 8-mark response to question 21 ("Analyse the energy systems in a sport"). State the sport and the role of each system. (8 marks)
What the marker wants: one sport carried through, fuel, duration and fatigue per system, recognition that the systems overlap. - Write the thesis and three paragraph topics for question 22 ("Evaluate the principles of training for a named athlete"). (5 marks)
What the marker wants: a named athlete, the principles clustered, an explicit judgement. - For question 8 ("Why is mental health a priority?"), list four reasons drawn from the priority criteria. (4 marks)
What the marker wants: prevalence, DALYs and morbidity, social justice lens, and costs. - For question 17 ("How does aerobic training lower resting heart rate?"), outline the physiological chain. (4 marks)
What the marker wants: a stronger left ventricle, higher stroke volume, fewer beats needed for the same resting cardiac output.
- 1
- Thesis: applied to CVD, the Charter is highly effective because its five action areas work together, evidenced by falling age-adjusted CVD mortality, though mental health shows it is not always sufficient. Examples: personal skills (Heart Foundation Walking), supportive environments (Health Star Rating), community action (community-led Indigenous screening or ACCHOs), reorienting services (Chronic Disease Management Plans), healthy public policy (plain packaging and excise). Judgement: effective because no single area would have produced the decline alone.
- 2
- Sport: 800m run. ATP-PC fuels the explosive start (creatine phosphate, roughly 10 seconds, fatigue from depletion). Lactic acid fuels the fast first lap and finishing kick (glycogen anaerobically, 30 seconds to 3 minutes, fatigue from hydrogen-ion accumulation). Aerobic supplies the body of the race and recovery between surges (full oxidation, sustainable for minutes, fatigue from glycogen depletion). The systems overlap continuously; proportions shift with pace.
- 3
- Athlete: 1500m runner. Thesis: the coach applies all seven principles together for running-specific adaptation while controlling injury risk. Paragraph topics: (a) progressive overload and specificity as the engine; (b) thresholds and variety for calibration and motivation; (c) reversibility justifying periodisation, with warm-up and cool-down for protection. Judgement: effective because the principles reinforce one another.
- 4
- (1) High prevalence, roughly 1 in 5 Australians in any year; (2) high morbidity and DALY burden despite low direct mortality, driven by years lived with disability; (3) the social justice lens, since young men, rural Australians and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people experience higher rates; (4) large indirect costs through lost productivity and caring burden.
- 5
- Aerobic training strengthens the left ventricle, which increases stroke volume (more blood ejected per beat). Because resting cardiac output (heart rate times stroke volume) must meet the same resting oxygen demand, a higher stroke volume means fewer beats per minute are needed, so resting heart rate falls.
Past papers
These practice questions complement NESA past papers; they do not replace them. NESA publishes HSC PDHPE papers and marking guidelines, which are the best guide to the verb-driven marking style this subject uses. Aim for several full timed short-answer blocks and extended responses per core through Terms 3 and 4.