What's new on ExamExplained
The 50 most recently updated study pages, grouped by week. Each entry shows the state, the subject (where it applies), and the date the page was last updated. Want the same feed as JSON? /whats-new.json.
This week
A deeper HSC Engineering Studies Telecommunications Engineering answer on analogue-to-digital conversion. Sampling theorem, quantisation noise (6.02N + 1.76 dB), PCM, delta and sigma-delta modulation, companding (mu-law, A-law), line codes (NRZ, Manchester, 8B/10B), and error detection vs correction (parity, CRC, Hamming, Reed-Solomon, LDPC).
A focused HSC Engineering Studies Telecommunications Engineering answer on safety and regulation. Electrical, RF, optical, heights, trenching safety; ACMA spectrum regulation; ARPANSA and ICNIRP RF exposure limits; ITU-T, IEEE, Standards Australia; consumer protections (TIO); Privacy Act 1988; the 2018 Huawei 5G ban and the engineering trade-offs between security, privacy, performance and cost.
A focused HSC Engineering Studies Telecommunications Engineering answer on materials and components. Copper, aluminium and silica glass as transmission materials; semiconductor materials (silicon, gallium arsenide, indium phosphide); components (amplifiers, filters, antennas, transceivers); the material properties that drive selection.
A complete guide to the Ecosystems and global biodiversity focus area in HSC Geography 11-12 (2022). Covers ecosystem structure and function, biodiversity patterns and hotspots, ecosystem services, the HIPPO framework, conservation strategies, and the Great Barrier Reef case study. Marker advice and inquiry skills.
A complete guide to the Global sustainability focus area in HSC Geography 11-12 (2022). Covers climate change, demographic transition, economic inequality, globalisation, resource use and circular economy, and the architecture of international agreements. Marker advice and integration with geographical concepts and inquiry skills.
A complete guide to the Rural and urban places focus area in HSC Geography 11-12 (2022). Covers rural settlement patterns and decline, urbanisation and mega-cities, urban morphology and land use, economic activities, liveability, and planning and management. Marker advice and integration with geographical concepts and inquiry skills.
A focused HSC Geography (2022 syllabus) answer on ecosystem structure and function. Defines biotic and abiotic components; explains energy flow through trophic levels and biogeochemical cycling; surveys major terrestrial and aquatic ecosystem types and their global distribution patterns.
A focused HSC Geography (2022 syllabus) answer on threats to biodiversity. Uses the HIPPO framework (Habitat loss, Invasive species, Pollution, Population, Overharvesting); integrates climate change as a cross-cutting driver; covers IUCN Red List categories and named Australian examples (cane toad, fox, koala, Tasmanian tiger).
A focused HSC Geography (2022 syllabus) answer on globalisation and global trade. Covers flows of goods, capital, labour and information, named trade agreements (WTO, RCEP, CPTPP), supply chain fragility (COVID-19, Suez 2021), deglobalisation pressures, and impacts on Australia.
A practical guide to structuring QCE English extended responses across all four instruments. The architecture shared across the written IA1, the spoken IA2, the imaginative IA3 examination, and the analytical EA examination, the conventions assessors look for, and the structural moves that lift a piece from B-band to A-band.
A complete guide to QCE English IA1 (extended written response for a public audience). What QCAA wants in this 1000 to 1500 word piece, how to engage a school-identified wider audience in a conversation about representations in literary texts, the structure that earns A-band, and how IA1 differs from the other IAs and the EA.
A complete guide to QCE English IA3 (imaginative written response, supervised examination). What QCAA wants in 800 to 1000 words of creative writing produced under exam conditions, the craft moves that score under time pressure, and how to prepare across the term so the supervised sitting goes well.
A complete guide to the QCE English External Assessment. What QCAA tests under exam conditions, how to prepare for the unseen-text analytical task, the structure that scores under time pressure, and how the EA differs from the IAs.
A focused answer to the VCE Biology Unit 4 dot point on pathogens and disease management. Covers the structure and reproduction of bacteria, viruses, protozoa, fungi and prions; how vaccines produce active immunity and herd immunity; the role and limits of antibiotics and antivirals; and the emergence of antibiotic resistance.
A focused VCE Biology Unit 4 AoS 3 answer on the student-designed practical investigation. Covers the Key Science Skills, scientific poster format, logbook expectations, and how to choose a research question grounded in Unit 3/4 biology.
A focused VCE Biology Unit 4 AoS 3 answer on evaluating the investigation. Defines validity, reliability, precision and accuracy in VCAA's sense; categorises sources of error (random, systematic, gross); walks through worked examples of error analysis on enzyme and ecology investigations.
A focused answer to the VCE Biology Unit 4 dot point on speciation. Covers the biological species concept, allopatric and sympatric speciation, the role of geographical and reproductive isolation, and prezygotic and postzygotic reproductive isolating mechanisms with examples.
A focused VCE Chemistry Unit 4 answer on food chemistry. Covers the structures and condensation/hydrolysis reactions of carbohydrates, proteins and lipids; vitamins and coenzymes; enzymes (active site, lock-and-key vs induced fit, temperature and pH); and the determination of food energy by bomb calorimetry plus the role of macronutrient composition and glycaemic index.
A focused VCE Chemistry Unit 4 answer on mass spectrometry and IR spectroscopy. Covers the molecular ion peak and fragmentation in MS, isotope clues (M+1 for C, M+2 for Cl/Br), the characteristic IR bands for O-H, N-H, C=O, C-O and C-H, and the combined workflow for identifying organic compounds.
A focused VCE Chemistry Unit 4 answer on medicinal chemistry and sustainable (green) chemistry, both added in the 2023-2027 Study Design. Covers drug action and SAR, the 12 principles of green chemistry, and atom economy calculations.
A focused VCE Chemistry Unit 4 answer on medicinal chemistry. Drug-target interactions via intermolecular forces (hydrogen bonding, ionic, hydrophobic, dispersion); structure-activity relationships (SAR); the effect of common functional-group modifications on binding, lipophilicity, and metabolic stability; worked examples from aspirin and the penicillin family.
A focused VCE Chemistry Unit 4 answer on proton and carbon-13 NMR, and HPLC. Covers TMS reference and chemical shift, number of environments, the n+1 splitting rule with examples, integration, ^13C NMR for counting carbon environments, and HPLC retention time with quantitative calibration curves.
A focused VCE Chemistry Unit 4 answer on organic chemistry foundations. Covers the main functional groups (alkane, alkene, haloalkane, alcohol, aldehyde, ketone, carboxylic acid, ester, amine, amide), IUPAC naming rules including parent chain and locants, primary/secondary/tertiary classification, and the three types of structural isomerism.
A focused VCE Chemistry Unit 4 answer on organic reactions. Covers substitution of alkanes and alcohols, addition to alkenes, oxidation of primary and secondary alcohols, esterification by condensation, hydrolysis of esters and amides, and the construction of multi-step reaction pathways with reagents and conditions.
A focused VCE Chemistry Unit 4 AoS 3 (2023-2027 Study Design) answer on the student-designed practical investigation. Covers VCAA's required focus areas, the scientific poster + logbook format, Key Science Skills, and the contemporary-challenge framing.
A focused VCE Chemistry Unit 4 answer on sustainable (green) chemistry. The 12 principles of green chemistry as a designed framework, atom economy as a quantifiable sustainability metric (with worked calculations), the distinction between atom economy and percentage yield, renewable feedstocks, and case studies of greener vs traditional processes.
A focused VCE English (2024-2027 Study Design) Unit 4 AoS 1 answer on close study of a single List 1 text. Defines explicit vs implicit ideas, authorial choices, evidence integration, and the difference between Unit 3 and Unit 4 close-study expectations.
A focused VCE English (2024-2027 Study Design) answer on writing the Section A analytical response. Covers the 60-minute time budget, prompt analysis, contention building, paragraph architecture, evidence integration and editing.
A focused answer to the VCE Modern History Unit 1 dot point on the rise and consolidation of authoritarian regimes. Mussolini's March on Rome (1922), the Matteotti crisis (1924), the Acerbo Law, the Lateran Treaties (1929), Hitler's appointment as Chancellor (1933), the Reichstag Fire Decree, the Enabling Act, the Night of the Long Knives, and the verdicts of Robert Paxton and Ian Kershaw.
A focused answer to the VCE Modern History Unit 1 dot point on the collapse of collective security 1931 to 1939. Manchuria, Abyssinia, the Rhineland, the Spanish Civil War, Anschluss, the Munich Agreement, the Nazi-Soviet Pact, the invasion of Poland, and the verdicts of A.J.P. Taylor and Richard Overy.
A focused answer to the VCE Modern History Unit 1 dot point on the consequences of WWI. The collapse of the German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian and Ottoman empires, the Treaty of Versailles, the territorial settlement, reparations, the League of Nations, and the verdicts of Margaret MacMillan and Ruth Henig.
A focused answer to the VCE Modern History Unit 1 dot point on art, modernism and mass culture between 1918 and 1939. The high modernism of the 1920s, the Bauhaus and surrealism, the rise of radio and Hollywood, jazz across the Atlantic, the Great Depression's cultural impact, and the verdicts of Modris Eksteins and Eric Hobsbawm.
A focused answer to the VCE Modern History Unit 1 dot point on the rise of ideologies between 1918 and 1939. Liberal democracy in retreat, the core ideas and texts of fascism, Nazism and communism, the social bases of each movement, and the verdicts of Robert Paxton and Ian Kershaw.
A focused answer to the VCE Modern History Unit 1 dot point on Stalinist social and cultural change. The First Five-Year Plan, collectivisation and dekulakisation, the Holodomor, urbanisation, the Stakhanovite movement, the 1936 Constitution, the Great Terror, socialist realism, women's lives, and the verdicts of Sheila Fitzpatrick and Robert Service.
A focused answer to the VCE Modern History Unit 1 dot point on cultural change in Germany 1919 to 1939. Weimar Berlin cabaret, the Bauhaus, expressionist cinema (Caligari, Metropolis, M), the New Woman, Nazi Gleichschaltung after 1933, the Reich Chamber of Culture, the Degenerate Art exhibition (1937), and the verdicts of Peter Gay and Peter Fritzsche.
A focused answer to the VCE Modern History Unit 1 dot point on women's experience between 1918 and 1939. Women's suffrage after WWI, the New Woman, women's work, fascist and Nazi reversal, Soviet women under Stalin, American women in the Depression and New Deal, and the verdicts of Susan Kingsley Kent and Mary Nolan.
A focused answer to the VCE Modern History Unit 2 dot point on the major Cold War crises between 1956 and 1962. The Secret Speech, the Hungarian Uprising, the U-2 incident, the Berlin Wall, the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Moscow-Washington hotline, and the verdicts of Robert Service and Michael Dobbs.
A focused answer to the VCE Modern History Unit 2 dot point on the extension of the Cold War to Asia. The Chinese Civil War, Mao's victory, the Sino-Soviet Treaty, the Korean War, Inchon, Chinese entry, the Panmunjom Armistice, and the verdicts of Odd Arne Westad and Bruce Cumings.
A focused answer to the VCE Modern History Unit 2 dot point on decolonisation in Asia and Africa. Indian partition, Indonesia, Dien Bien Phu, the Suez Crisis, the Algerian War, Ghana, the Year of Africa, the Congo Crisis, the Non-Aligned Movement, and the verdicts of Frederick Cooper and Odd Arne Westad.
A focused answer to the VCE Modern History Unit 2 dot point on the end of apartheid in South Africa. The 1948 National Party victory, Sharpeville, the Rivonia Trial, Soweto, Steve Biko, international sanctions, the de Klerk reforms, the 1994 election, the TRC, and the verdicts of Saul Dubow and Hermann Giliomee.
A focused answer to the VCE Modern History Unit 2 dot point on the end of the Cold War. Gorbachev's reforms, the Reykjavik summit, the INF Treaty, the Sinatra Doctrine, the 1989 revolutions, the fall of the Berlin Wall, German reunification, the 1991 August coup, and the verdicts of Gaddis, Sarotte and Zubok.
A focused answer to the VCE Modern History Unit 2 dot point on the origins of the Cold War. Yalta and Potsdam, the iron curtain, Kennan's Long Telegram, the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan, Cominform, the Czech coup, the Berlin Blockade and Airlift, NATO, and the verdicts of John Lewis Gaddis and Melvyn Leffler.
A focused answer to the VCE Modern History Unit 2 dot point on the US civil rights movement. Brown v Board, the Montgomery bus boycott, Little Rock, the SCLC and SNCC, the Freedom Rides, the March on Washington, the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, the Watts riot, Black Power, the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr, and the verdicts of Taylor Branch and Manning Marable.
A focused answer to the VCE Modern History Unit 2 dot point on the Vietnam War. Dien Bien Phu, Geneva, Diem and the Republic of Vietnam, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, the air war and search-and-destroy, the Tet Offensive of 1968, Vietnamisation, the Paris Peace Accords of 1973, the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975, and the verdicts of Fredrik Logevall and Lien-Hang Nguyen.
A Year-11-level focused answer to the VCE Modern History Unit 2 key knowledge point on the Vietnam War, framed for Year 11 SAC writing. For the fuller treatment (more historiography, more named historians, more evidence), see the sister page vietnam-war-1954-1975.
A focused answer to the VCE Modern History Unit 2 dot point on the women's liberation movement. Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women, the contraceptive pill, the Equal Pay Act, the Civil Rights Act Title VII, NOW, consciousness-raising, the women's strike, Title IX, Roe v Wade, the ERA, and the verdicts of Sara Evans and Ruth Rosen.
A focused VCE Physical Education Unit 3 AoS 1 answer on biomechanics. Newton's laws applied to sport, lever systems in the body, projectile motion, force application and stability, fluid mechanics, qualitative and quantitative analysis, and how a coach uses biomechanical insight to change technique.
A focused VCE PE Unit 4 AoS 2 (2025-2029 Study Design) answer on chronic adaptations to training and how to evaluate training programs. Covers cardiovascular, respiratory, muscular and metabolic adaptations; evaluation methods (testing, monitoring, comparison to baseline).
A focused VCE Physical Education Unit 4 AoS 3 answer on the integrated movement experience. AoS 3 is new to the 2025-2029 Study Design; it asks students to use primary data from a chosen physical activity to integrate skill acquisition, biomechanics, energy production and training, and to evaluate the impacts on performance.
A focused answer to the VCE Physics Unit 4 dot point on polarisation. Defines polarised and unpolarised light, explains why polarisation requires a transverse-wave nature, applies Malus's law , and works through both the unpolarised-to-polariser and polariser-to-second-polariser cases.