VCE Geography exam 2026Exam: Thu 12 Nov · VCAA timetable
Your VCE Geography exam:
When and how long
- Geography2.00 pm to 4.15 pm2 h plus 15 min reading time
VCAA: the reading period is included in the times shown, and each examination starts with a 15-minute reading period unless otherwise specified. Arrive at least 30 minutes before the start time. A few language exams run earlier in October.
Source: 2026 VCE examination timetable (VCAA), 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
- Check the start time of each exam; the 15-minute reading period is included in the timetable times.[2]
- Pack a transparent pencil case: pens, pencils, highlighters, erasers, sharpener and a ruler.[1]
- Pack your approved calculator and spare batteries (CAS only where allowed: General Maths, Methods Exam 2, Specialist Exam 2).[1]
- Still water in a clear plastic bottle, labels removed, no more than 1500 mL (it stays off your table).[1]
- Stop revising around 8 pm, set two alarms and sleep.[1]
Exam morning
- Eat a real breakfast.[1]
- Arrive at least 30 minutes before the start time.[2]
- If you are up to 30 minutes late you still get full writing time, but no reading time.[1]
- Leave phones, smart watches and fitness trackers outside the exam room.[1]
- In reading time: read and plan, but don't write or use your calculator.[1]
- You can't leave before 30 minutes of writing time or in the last 5 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
VCE Geography cram sheet
Key formulas, definitions and facts copied from our Geography syllabus pages. One page when printed.
Unit 3: Changing the land
Bright sea ice reflects most of the sunlight that hits it, while open ocean absorbs most of it. As Arctic sea ice melts, the darker ocean absorbs more heat and warms further, melting more ice. This ice-albedo feedback is a self-reinforcing loop that makes the polar regions warm faster than the global average.
Roughly 17 to 20 percent of the original Amazon rainforest has already been cleared. Scientists warn that if loss reaches a tipping point of around 20 to 25 percent, the forest could begin to dry out and transition toward savanna, a self-reinforcing change that would be very difficult to reverse.
The United Nations estimates that desertification and drought affect the livelihoods of well over one billion people worldwide, and that drylands cover around 40 percent of the Earth's land surface, making this one of the most widespread forms of land cover change.
Greater Melbourne's population is projected to grow toward around eight million people by the 2050s, and much of that growth is housed on the urban fringe, converting agricultural and grassland land cover into residential and commercial land use at the city's edge.
Unit 4: Human population - trends and issues
Net overseas migration accounts for the majority of Australia's annual population growth, far outweighing natural increase. Most migrants are working-age adults, which is why migration both fuels population growth and slows the ageing of Australia's population.
The global total fertility rate has fallen from around five children per woman in 1950 to roughly 2.3 today, close to the replacement level of about 2.1, which is why world population growth is slowing even as the total continues to rise.
More than half of the world's population now lives in urban areas, and the United Nations projects this share to rise toward two-thirds by 2050, with almost all of the increase occurring in the cities of Africa and Asia. The fastest-growing megacities are in the developing world.
The world's population passed eight billion in late 2022, yet people are crowded into a small fraction of the land: large clusters in South and East Asia alone hold over a third of humanity, while deserts and polar regions covering huge areas hold very few people.