June 2026
The 2025 VCE English Exam Report made clear that students needed to read topics with precision.
It was not enough to identify the broad theme. Students needed to understand the command term, the topic verb, the relationship between ideas, and the authorial purpose implied by the wording.
This mattered especially in Section A, where topics were framed in different ways. Some asked students to discuss a proposition. Some asked whether they agreed. Some asked to what extent they agreed. Others asked how an author explored, highlighted, warned, mocked, demonstrated or challenged an idea.
These words were not interchangeable.
They shaped the essay.
A student who treated every topic as a generic invitation to write about themes risked missing the task. A student who understood the force of the wording could build a much sharper response.
In VCE English, small words can carry large assessment consequences.
“Discuss” invited exploration
Many 2025 topics used Discuss.
For example:
Love and destruction are inseparable in Flames. Discuss.
In Go, Went, Gone, language has the power to both connect and exclude. Discuss.
Rainbow’s End shows that lasting change requires more than individual effort. Discuss.
In The Memory Police, silence is both a tool of oppression and a tool of resistance. Discuss.
A Discuss prompt does not ask students to merely agree. It invites exploration of the proposition and its complexity.
This is particularly important when the topic contains a relationship between two ideas. In Flames, students needed to examine whether love and destruction are truly inseparable. In The Memory Police, students needed to consider how silence could operate in two apparently opposing ways.
A strong response to Discuss usually tests the proposition.
It might accept part of it, complicate another part, and show how the author presents the relationship in different contexts.
A weak response simply repeats the proposition in each paragraph.
“Do you agree?” required a position
Other 2025 topics used Do you agree?
For example:
In Oedipus the King, there are no right choices. Do you agree?
In Sunset Boulevard, Wilder suggests that individuals can be both victims and villains. Discuss.
In Born a Crime, women exert the most influence on Noah’s life. To what extent do you agree?
In The Complete Stories, Malouf suggests that it is harder to understand yourself than it is to understand others. Do you agree?
Where a topic asks Do you agree?, students need a clear position. That position does not need to be simplistic. It can be qualified, nuanced or conditional. But the essay should make a judgement.
For example, “In Oedipus the King, there are no right choices” contains an absolute claim. A strong response might argue that Sophocles presents choice as tragically constrained, but not entirely meaningless. Oedipus may be trapped by fate, yet the pursuit of truth still carries moral significance.
That kind of response agrees only partly.
But it still answers the question.
The danger is writing around the topic without deciding.
“To what extent” required calibration
To what extent do you agree? was one of the most important command forms in 2025.
It appeared in topics such as:
In Born a Crime, women exert the most influence on Noah’s life. To what extent do you agree?
Ghost Wall warns of the danger of glorifying the past. To what extent do you agree?
To what extent is Sunset Boulevard about the loss of control?
False Claims of Colonial Thieves is a cry for justice. To what extent do you agree?
This command term asks for calibration.
Students need to decide not only whether the proposition is true, but how far it is true. The response should weigh the proposition against other possibilities.
For example, False Claims of Colonial Thieves may be a cry for justice to a large extent, but it may also be a work of solidarity, testimony, cultural memory, grief and connection. A high-scoring response would not flatten the anthology into only one function. It would judge how dominant the cry for justice is within the broader work.
Similarly, Sunset Boulevard may be deeply concerned with loss of control, but also with illusion, performance, exploitation, fame, desire and Hollywood’s cruelty.
A To what extent essay should feel measured.
The final judgement should be more developed than a simple yes or no.
“How” questions demanded method
Several 2025 topics asked How does…
For example:
How does Bad Dreams and Other Stories depict the consequences of crossing boundaries?
How does Brontë highlight the danger of acting on emotion rather than reason in Jane Eyre?
How does False Claims of Colonial Thieves highlight the necessity of solidarity?
How does Ottley challenge traditional notions of masculinity in Requiem for a Beast?
How does The Memory Police suggest that memories are essential to give life meaning?
These questions required more than identifying the idea.
They required students to explain how the text constructed that idea.
This means authorial choices mattered. Students needed to consider characterisation, structure, imagery, symbolism, narrative perspective, language, form, genre, dialogue, dramatic structure or filmic technique depending on the text.
A response to “How does Brontë highlight the danger of acting on emotion rather than reason?” should not simply list moments where Jane experiences emotion. It should analyse how Brontë positions passion, moral judgement, self-control and consequence through Jane’s relationships, narrative voice and internal conflict.
A How question asks for textual construction.
It rewards students who can move from idea to method.
Topic verbs were authorial-purpose signals
The 2025 report specifically highlighted verbs used in topics.
These included:
celebrates
challenges
condemns
demonstrates
displays
explores
highlights
mocks
shows
suggests
depicts
glorifies
warns
These verbs matter because they signal what the author is doing with the idea.
A text that celebrates something is not simply mentioning it. It is affirming, valuing or revering it.
A text that warns of something is presenting risk, danger or consequence.
A text that mocks something is exposing it to ridicule, irony or comic critique.
A text that condemns something is making a moral judgement against it.
A text that challenges something is questioning, destabilising or resisting it.
Students who reduce all these verbs to presents lose precision.
The verb tells the essay what kind of argument to make.
“Warns” required danger and consequence
The topic “Ghost Wall warns of the danger of glorifying the past. To what extent do you agree?” is a clear example of why verbs matter.
The word warns directs students towards danger, caution and consequence.
A response should consider how Moss presents the glorification of the past as harmful: perhaps through ritualised violence, patriarchal fantasy, historical distortion, nationalism, control over women’s bodies, or the transformation of the past into a justification for present cruelty.
A general essay on the past in Ghost Wall would not be enough.
The student needs to explain how the text warns.
What danger does glorification create?
Who is harmed by it?
How does the author make that harm visible?
Does the warning apply only to certain characters, or more broadly to society?
The verb gives the essay its analytical direction.
“Mocks” required attention to ridicule
The topic “To what extent does Shakespeare mock social expectations in Twelfth Night?” required a different kind of thinking.
The verb mocks suggests ridicule, comic exposure, irony, exaggeration or destabilisation.
A response should not merely identify social expectations. It should examine how Shakespeare makes those expectations appear absurd, unstable or performative.
This might involve gender roles, courtship rituals, class ambition, mourning conventions, romantic idealism or self-serious authority. Shakespeare’s comedy often exposes the fragility of social rules by placing characters in situations where identity, desire and status become unstable.
The student needed to analyse how the play’s comic form contributes to mockery.
A response that simply says Shakespeare “shows social expectations” would miss the force of the verb.
“Celebrates” required affirmation
The topic “Oliver’s poems are a celebration of life. Do you agree?” required students to consider whether Mary Oliver’s poetry affirms life, nature, awareness, sensory experience, mortality, wonder or spiritual attention.
The verb celebrates does not mean that every poem is cheerful.
A sophisticated response could recognise that Oliver’s celebration of life often occurs alongside grief, bodily vulnerability, death, transience or sorrow. The celebration may come through attention to the natural world, the acceptance of mortality, or the capacity to love the world despite impermanence.
That is why the verb matters.
To celebrate life is not necessarily to ignore suffering. It may mean finding value through suffering, or insisting on attention despite loss.
A strong response would explore the complexity of affirmation.
“Condemns” required moral judgement
The topic “In Flames, Arnott condemns the isolation caused by modern society. Do you agree?” depended on the verb condemns.
To condemn is stronger than to show or explore. It implies critique or moral disapproval.
A student answering this topic would need to consider whether Arnott presents modern isolation as damaging, unnatural, destructive or spiritually impoverishing. They would also need to test whether the novel’s concern with isolation is caused by modern society specifically, or by grief, family fracture, fear, mythic forces, masculinity, or human refusal to connect.
This is where the topic becomes complex.
The verb condemns sets a critical direction, but students can still challenge whether that is the only or primary way Arnott presents isolation.
“Demonstrates” required proof through the text
A topic such as “Harrison demonstrates this is true for the women in Rainbow’s End” required students to show how the text proves or establishes the proposition.
The quotation “Knowledge is power, ladies” framed the idea. Students needed to consider whether Harrison demonstrates that knowledge empowers the women in the play.
A strong response might explore education, generational aspiration, political awareness, literacy, self-respect and the ability to navigate systems of power. It might also complicate the proposition by arguing that knowledge is powerful but insufficient without social change.
The verb demonstrates suggests that the text provides evidence of the claim.
The essay should therefore show how moments in the play establish, test or complicate that truth.
“Suggests” allowed subtlety
The verb suggests appeared in several topics.
For example:
In Oedipus the King, Sophocles suggests that seeking the truth is dangerous. Discuss.
The Complete Stories demonstrates that it is harder to understand yourself than it is to understand others. Do you agree?
The Memory Police suggests that memories are essential to give life meaning.
Twelfth Night suggests that truth leads to happiness. Do you agree?
Suggests is less forceful than condemns or celebrates. It often invites students to consider implication, pattern, nuance or indirect authorial positioning.
A text may suggest an idea without stating it simply. It may imply the idea through character consequences, structure, recurring imagery or resolution.
Students should not treat suggests as weak. It often gives room for complexity because the author’s position may be subtle or ambivalent.
“Depicts” required representation
The topic “How does Bad Dreams and Other Stories depict the consequences of crossing boundaries?” asked students to consider representation.
Depicts directs attention to how the text portrays, represents or renders something.
In a short story collection, this could involve different kinds of boundaries: social, moral, familial, emotional, sexual, class-based or psychological. The response would need to analyse how Hadley represents the consequences of crossing those boundaries across at least two stories in close detail or several stories more broadly.
A strong response should consider how consequences are depicted through character discomfort, altered relationships, shifts in perception, narrative ambiguity or emotional aftermath.
The verb helps determine the evidence.
“Highlights” required emphasis
The verb highlights appeared in topics such as:
How does False Claims of Colonial Thieves highlight the necessity of solidarity?
In The Erratics, Laveau-Harvie highlights the tension between family obligation and self-preservation. Discuss.
To highlight is to draw attention to something, make it visible, or emphasise its importance.
In False Claims of Colonial Thieves, students needed to consider how the anthology foregrounds solidarity as necessary: through collaboration, dialogue, poetic exchange, cultural connection, resistance to erasure and shared witness.
In The Erratics, students needed to consider how Laveau-Harvie emphasises tension between family obligation and self-preservation. The topic does not merely ask whether both exist. It asks how the memoir makes the tension visible and significant.
Again, the verb is not decorative.
It shapes the analytical task.
Linking verbs created direct relationships
The report noted that linking verbs such as is, are, is not and are not implied direct connection.
For example:
Love and destruction are inseparable in Flames.
In Oedipus the King, there are no right choices.
In The Memory Police, silence is both a tool of oppression and a tool of resistance.
These topics create strong conceptual relationships.
Students need to test those relationships rather than simply discuss each concept separately. If the topic says silence is both oppression and resistance, the essay should examine the duality. If it says love and destruction are inseparable, the essay should examine whether that bond is constant, conditional, symbolic or challenged.
The linking verb holds the ideas together.
Students should not pull them apart into unrelated paragraphs.
New verbs could appear
The report also noted that there was no definitive list of verbs used by assessors and that new terms may be introduced.
This is important for preparation.
Students should not memorise a fixed command-term glossary and assume that will be enough. They need the skill of interpreting verbs in context.
If a future exam uses a verb such as interrogates, undermines, questions, reimagines, exposes, laments or reveres, students should be able to infer the authorial action being asked about.
The method is the same:
What does this verb imply the author is doing?
What kind of evidence would prove that?
What tone or value judgement is embedded in the verb?
Can the proposition be challenged or qualified?
This prepares students for unfamiliar wording.
Command terms and verbs worked together
A topic is not shaped by only one word.
The command term and verb work together.
For example:
Ghost Wall warns of the danger of glorifying the past. To what extent do you agree?
Here, warns asks students to consider authorial caution and danger. To what extent asks them to judge how far that warning defines the text’s treatment of the past.
A student must respond to both.
Similarly:
To what extent does Shakespeare mock social expectations in Twelfth Night?
Here, mocks asks students to analyse comic critique. To what extent asks them to decide how far the play’s treatment of social expectations is mocking, rather than merely playful, restorative, sympathetic or conventional.
High-scoring responses read the full topic, not just one key word.
Why command-term mistakes limit essays
Command-term and verb mistakes limit essays because they change the task.
A student might write a knowledgeable essay about a text’s themes, but if the prompt asks whether one idea causes another, the essay needs to address causation. If the prompt asks how a text warns, the essay needs to address danger and consequence. If the prompt asks to what extent, the essay needs a calibrated judgement.
These mistakes are especially costly because they affect the entire response.
The essay may be fluent, but misdirected.
The evidence may be accurate, but not relevant enough.
The conclusion may sound polished, but fail to resolve the proposition.
That is why the smallest words in the topic deserve careful attention.
What future English students should learn from 2025
The 2025 VCE English exam shows that students need to practise command terms and topic verbs deliberately.
Students should be able to:
- distinguish Discuss, Do you agree? and To what extent do you agree?
- recognise when a topic requires exploration, position or calibration
- interpret verbs such as warns, mocks, celebrates, condemns, demonstrates, depicts, highlights and suggests
- choose evidence that matches the topic verb
- identify direct relationships created by linking verbs
- test absolute claims
- read topic quotations as part of the invitation
- respond to unfamiliar verbs by inferring authorial purpose
- build arguments that answer the whole topic, not just the theme
These skills make essays sharper.
They help students write to the task.
How ATAR STAR teaches command terms and topic verbs
At ATAR STAR, Section A topics are taught as precise instructions.
Students learn to decode command terms, interpret topic verbs, identify conceptual relationships and build arguments that respond to the exact wording of the task. They practise adapting their textual knowledge to unfamiliar topics rather than relying on broad memorised essays.
The 2025 Examination Report confirms why this matters. High-scoring students did not simply recognise themes.
They understood what the topic was asking them to do.