What the 2025 VCE Health and Human Development Exam Report reveals about high-scoring responses
June 2026 The 2025 VCE Health and Human Development Exam Report made one thing very clear: high-scoring responses were specific. Students needed to do more than recognise the topic. They needed to answer the exact command, use correct terminology, apply concepts to the stimulus, make clear links to health and wellbeing or human development, and […]
Why the bound reference mattered in the 2025 VCE General Mathematics exams
June 2026 The 2025 VCE General Mathematics exams showed that the bound reference should not be treated as a safety blanket. It should be a working tool. Students were permitted one bound reference in both examinations, alongside approved CAS technology. But the reports show that many of the errors students made were not caused by […]
What the 2025 VCE General Mathematics exams show about how students should prepare
June 2026 The 2025 VCE General Mathematics exams showed that preparation needs to go beyond learning procedures. Students need procedures, of course. They need to know how to calculate standard deviation, use a least squares regression line, apply the 68–95–99.7 rule, write recurrence relations, use finance solver, multiply matrices, interpret transition matrices, find shortest paths, […]
The most avoidable mistakes in the 2025 VCE General Mathematics exams
June 2026 The 2025 VCE General Mathematics exams showed that many marks were lost in avoidable ways. This is not to suggest that the exams were simple. They covered a wide range of content: Data analysis, Recursion and financial modelling, Matrices, Networks and decision mathematics. Students had to work across multiple-choice and written-response formats, use […]
Why CAS use in the 2025 VCE General Mathematics exams still required mathematical judgement
June 2026 The 2025 VCE General Mathematics exams showed that CAS technology is powerful, but not automatic. Students were permitted to use approved CAS technology in both examinations. This mattered across Data analysis, Recursion and financial modelling, Matrices, and Networks and decision mathematics. CAS could calculate standard deviations, regression equations, correlation coefficients, finance values, matrix […]
Why Examination 1 in the 2025 VCE General Mathematics exam rewarded strategic multiple-choice thinking
June 2026 The 2025 VCE General Mathematics Examination 1 showed that multiple-choice does not mean easy. It means efficient. Students had 40 questions across Data analysis, Recursion and financial modelling, Matrices, and Networks and decision mathematics. Each question was worth one mark. There were no method marks. A correct answer scored one, and an incorrect […]
Why Examination 2 in 2025 rewarded clear working and exact communication
June 2026 The 2025 VCE General Mathematics Examination 2 showed that written mathematics is not just about getting the answer. It is about showing the reasoning that leads to the answer. This is one of the biggest differences between Examination 1 and Examination 2. In Examination 1, students select an answer from multiple-choice options. In […]
Why Networks and Decision Mathematics in the 2025 VCE General Mathematics exams required methodical reasoning
June 2026 The 2025 VCE General Mathematics exams showed that Networks and Decision Mathematics was not a topic students could approach by memory alone. Students needed to inspect graphs carefully, follow algorithms in the correct order, interpret paths and cycles accurately, identify bridges, calculate cuts and maximum flow, determine shortest paths, apply the Hungarian algorithm, […]
Why Matrices in the 2025 VCE General Mathematics exams required structural thinking
June 2026 The 2025 VCE General Mathematics exams showed that matrices were not assessed as isolated calculator operations. Students needed to understand what the matrices represented. They needed to know whether a matrix was binary, permutation, identity or diagonal. They needed to identify whether a matrix operation was defined. They needed to interpret rows and […]
Why Recursion and Financial Modelling in the 2025 VCE General Mathematics exams required more than calculator use
June 2026 The 2025 VCE General Mathematics exams showed that Recursion and Financial Modelling was not simply a matter of entering numbers into a CAS calculator. Students needed to understand the model. They needed to recognise whether a situation involved simple interest, compound interest, flat rate depreciation, reducing balance depreciation, recurrence relations, explicit rules, amortisation […]