QCE Essential English: Units 3 and 4, the common internal assessment and how the course is assessed
A guide to QCE Essential English, the QCAA Applied (Essential) English subject: Unit 3 (Language that influences) and Unit 4 (Representations and popular culture texts), the QCAA common internal assessment on seen and unseen media texts, the spoken, multimodal and written tasks, and how the subject counts towards the QCE and an ATAR.
QCE Essential English is the Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority's (QCAA) Applied (Essential) English subject. It builds the reading, writing, speaking and viewing skills people use every day: understanding how texts try to influence us, and creating texts that communicate clearly with a real audience.
This page covers Year 12 (Units 3 and 4), the common internal assessment (CIA) and the other assessments, with links to our dot point answers.
Course structure
Essential English has four units of about 55 hours each. Units 1 and 2 come first; Units 3 and 4 are studied as a pair in Year 12.
| Unit | Title | Focus |
|---|---|---|
| Unit 1 | Language that works | Responding to and creating texts used in everyday and work contexts |
| Unit 2 | Texts and human experiences | Responding to and creating texts about people's experiences |
| Unit 3 | Language that influences | Creating and shaping perspectives on community, local and global issues in texts; responding to texts that seek to influence audiences |
| Unit 4 | Representations and popular culture texts | Responding to popular culture texts; creating representations of Australian identities, places, events and concepts |
What the course asks you to do
The syllabus objectives ask you to use the patterns and conventions of genres, adopt appropriate roles and relationships with audiences, construct and explain representations of identities, places, events and concepts, explain how language features and text structures shape meaning and invite responses, select and sequence subject matter, use cohesive devices, and make language choices suited to purpose, audience and context.
What we could verify. QCAA's website blocks automated access, so we confirmed the unit titles, the assessment types and the CIA description from search results of QCAA's official pages and from schools' published course overviews, rather than reading the full syllabus. Task conditions (such as word counts and presentation times) are not shown here because we could not verify them; your school's task sheets give them.
How Essential English is assessed
There is no external exam. In Units 3 and 4 you complete four summative assessments: three set by your school and the common internal assessment (CIA) set by QCAA.
| Assessment | Unit | Technique |
|---|---|---|
| IA1 | Unit 3 | Spoken response |
| IA2 | Unit 3 | Common internal assessment (CIA) |
| IA3 | Unit 4 | Multimodal response |
| IA4 | Unit 4 | Written response |
The common internal assessment (CIA)
- Written by QCAA, the same for every school, and marked by your school using QCAA's marking guide.
- A short response to stimulus: 90 minutes of writing plus 15 minutes planning, in one session or spread over up to three consecutive sessions.
- A stimulus book with one seen and one unseen media text.
- You respond to how a community, local and/or global issue is represented in the seen media text, and how an identity, place, event or concept is represented in the unseen media text, explaining how the elements of each text shape meaning.
- In 2026 the CIAs run in Term 2, in two phases. Depending on its phase, your school's paper focuses on the internet or print media.
Results
Applied subjects are reported on a five-point scale (A to E). Essential English counts towards the QCE and is one of the subjects students use to meet the QCE literacy requirement. For an ATAR, QTAC can include one Applied subject alongside four General subjects.
Syllabus, dot point by dot point
Our dot point pages cover how texts influence audiences, perspectives on issues, reading media texts for the CIA, representations in popular culture, and how to plan spoken, multimodal and written responses. Practice questions and sample texts are written by us, not taken from QCAA assessments.
Browse the full set at /qce/essential-english/syllabus.
Study strategy
- Read media every week. Pick a news website, an advertisement and a social media post, and ask: what issue or group is shown, how, and why? This is the core CIA skill.
- Name the technique, then explain its effect. "The close-up of the tired nurse makes the audience sympathise with health workers" beats "there is a close-up".
- Use a simple paragraph structure such as TEEL (topic sentence, evidence, explanation, link) for short responses.
- Practise spoken delivery. For IA1 and IA3, rehearse with a timer, vary your voice and use eye contact and gesture deliberately.
- Draft and get feedback. Your teacher can give feedback on a draft; use it.
Related QCE pages
- TEEL paragraphs for QCE English
- Internal vs external assessment in the QCE
- QCE English (General) if you are comparing English subjects.
For the official syllabus
QCAA publishes the Essential English Applied senior syllabus and the CIA information on its website. Your school's assessment schedule sets the dates and conditions for IA1, IA3 and IA4.