WACE Earth and Environmental Science exam 2026Exam: Fri 13 Nov · SCSA timetable
Your WACE Earth and Environmental Science exam:
When and how long
- Earth and Environmental Science9.20 am start3 h plus 10 min reading time
SCSA: arrive 30 minutes before the examination start time. Every ATAR written exam has 10 minutes reading time and 3 hours working time unless otherwise indicated. The timetable is final, and no allowance is made for misreading it.
Source: 2026 Year 12 ATAR course written examinations timetable (SCSA), 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
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
WACE Earth and Environmental Science cram sheet
Key formulas, definitions and facts copied from our Earth and Environmental Science syllabus pages. One page when printed.
Unit 3: Managing Earth resources
Ecosystem service: a benefit people obtain from ecosystems. Natural capital: the stock of natural assets that yields ecosystem services. Valuation: estimating the economic worth of services to inform decisions. Trade-off: a gain in one service at the expense of another.
Maximum sustainable yield occurs at an intermediate population size, often around half the carrying capacity, because that is where the population grows fastest and so produces the largest harvestable surplus each year. Harvesting either a near-empty or a near-full population yields less.
Overburden: rock and soil removed to reach ore. Waste rock: uneconomic rock excavated with the ore. Tailings: fine processing waste, usually stored as slurry. Subsidence: sinking of the ground over underground voids. In-situ recovery: dissolving and pumping ore without bulk excavation.
Reservoir: a store of carbon. Flux: a transfer of carbon between reservoirs. Sink: a reservoir taking up more carbon than it releases. Source: a reservoir releasing more than it takes up. Sequestration: long-term storage of carbon out of the atmosphere.
Unit 4: Earth hazards and climate change
Forcing: a factor that pushes the climate to warm or cool. Feedback: a response that amplifies (positive) or dampens (negative) a change. Proxy: a natural record that stands in for a past climate measurement. Albedo: the fraction of sunlight a surface reflects.
Because P waves outrun S waves, the time gap between their arrivals at a station shows how far away the earthquake was. Combining distances from three or more stations pinpoints the epicentre, the basis of how seismologists locate earthquakes.
Mitigation: reducing emissions or increasing carbon uptake to limit warming. Adaptation: adjusting to climate impacts that are already occurring. Carbon sink: a reservoir that absorbs more carbon than it releases. Ocean acidification: falling ocean pH as it absorbs carbon dioxide.
An identical-magnitude earthquake can be a minor event in one place and a catastrophe in another. The difference is risk, set by exposure and vulnerability, not by the hazard itself. This is the single most important idea in hazard management and the reason mitigation is possible.