QCE Geography exam 2026Exam: Thu 12 Nov · QCAA timetable
Your QCE Geography exam:
When and how long
- GeographyMorning session2 h plus 15 min perusal or planning time
QCAA's timetable sets the day and the morning (AM) or afternoon (PM) session, not a start time: your school tells you when to arrive. Durations are working time plus perusal or planning time.
Source: QCAA external assessment timetable 2026 (QCAA), checked Wednesday 23 September 2026. Where a start time, reading time or duration isn't shown, the timetable doesn't publish it: check your personal timetable and the front of your paper.
What the exam covers
We don't have past-paper frequency data for this exam, so here is the course, module by module. Make sure every module is covered.
Night-before and exam-morning checklists
The night before
- QCAA's timetable fixes the day and the AM or PM session only: confirm the start time and venue with your school.[2]
- Check your calculator is on QCAA's approved list for the subject.[1]
- Pack a clear plastic container or zip-lock bag: black or blue pens, pencils, eraser, sharpener, a highlighter.[1]
- An ordinary watch only if you want one (no smart watch or fitness tracker); it goes on the desk.[1]
- Pack a water bottle (it stays on the floor).[1]
Exam morning
- Arrive at least 30 minutes before the start.[1]
- Switch your phone off and leave it in your bag outside the room.[1]
- More than 40 minutes late needs permission, and you lose perusal and planning time.[1]
- During perusal and planning time, don't write in the response book or touch your calculator.[1]
- You can't leave in the first 40 minutes or the last 10 minutes.[1]
Exam-week survival kit: The last 7 days · The night before and exam morning · What to bring, and what's banned · How to use reading time · If you're sick or something goes wrong · Handling exam-week stress.
Last-week revision
QCE Geography cram sheet
Key formulas, definitions and facts copied from our Geography syllabus pages. One page when printed.
Unit 3: Responding to land cover transformations
Land cover is the observed biophysical cover on the Earth's surface, such as forest, grassland, water or built-up area. Land use is the social and economic purpose for which people use that land. A single land cover type can support several land uses.
Globally, agriculture (cropland plus pasture) is the single largest anthropogenic land cover, occupying roughly a third to a half of habitable land. This is why agricultural expansion is the dominant driver of forest and grassland loss, and why managing food demand is central to slowing land cover change.
Permafrost holds roughly twice as much carbon as is currently in the atmosphere. Even a partial thaw would release a large amount of carbon dioxide and methane, which is why the permafrost carbon feedback is one of the most closely watched amplifying loops in the climate system and a core example for this dot point.
Australia has one of the highest rates of mammal extinction in the world, and habitat loss and fragmentation from land cover change are the leading drivers. This is why vegetation management law and habitat connectivity are central themes in Unit 3.
Unit 4: Managing population change
By the 2020s, more than half the world's people lived in urban areas, a threshold crossed around 2008. The shift from a rural to a predominantly urban species is the single largest distributional change of the modern era and is driven mainly by internal rural-to-urban migration plus urban natural increase.
Across the global south, a large share of urban residents live in informal settlements, and the United Nations projects that almost all future urban growth will occur in Africa and Asia. This is why megacity management is a central twenty-first century challenge and a core Unit 4 case-study theme.