Command terms in HSC, WACE, SACE and TCE exams: which verbs head each subject, state by state

Every Australian exam board writes its questions to a list of verbs, and each list is different: NESA’s key words, SCSA’s key words, the ACARA-based glossaries that Tasmanian courses lean on, and no published list at all for the SACE. What they share is the effect: the verb sets the shape of the answer, and students who know the content but answer the wrong verb lose marks they could have kept.

So we counted, as we did for Queensland and Victoria. Across 155 recent examination papers from the four boards, we split every paper into its written items and matched each item’s opening sentence against the board’s own verb list, plus the verbs the lists leave out but the papers use anyway (“find”, “show that”, “sketch”, “calculate” where it is missing). Those are marked with an asterisk. Counts are items whose stem opens with the verb, multiple choice excluded; the marks are the range covering most of those items. Only counts were kept: none of these papers is openly licensed, so no question text is stored or shown.

40 HSC papers, 2021–2025, eight subjects. 78% of written items open with a verb we could name; the rest open with a question word, which NESA says it will keep using. Two patterns stand out. The extended-response subjects run on judgement verbs at very high marks: “assess” heads 21 Legal Studies items at 25 marks each, and “evaluate” heads 34 Modern History items. And Mathematics Advanced runs on “find” (72 items), a verb the NESA glossary never defines. Chemistry is an “explain” subject (27 items, 3–5 marks).

Meanings, traps and the full NESA list in our words: the HSC key words guide.

80 ATAR course papers, 2021–2025, fourteen courses. WA has the best fit between glossary and papers of any board: 90% of written items open with a counted verb, almost all of them in SCSA’s own list. Mathematics Methods runs on “determine” (109 items, 1–3 marks), Physics on “calculate” (57), Human Biology on “explain” (52), and Politics and Law on “discuss” (29 items). “State” and “name” carry more items in WA than anywhere else, and SCSA’s “state” can be a sentence, not a word.

Meanings, traps and the full SCSA list in our words: the WACE key words guide.

21 Stage 2 papers, 2023–2025, the seven subjects the SACE Board still examines on paper (Biology, Psychology, the humanities and most others are e-exams and are not published). The SACE Board publishes no glossary, so the asterisks here mark verbs outside Captivate’s working list rather than a board’s. 88% of written items open with a counted verb. Chemistry is an “explain” subject (34 items, 1–3 marks); General Mathematics is a “state” and “calculate” paper (41 items open with “state”); Mathematical Methods leads with “determine” (33) and “show that”. The NTCET is the SACE delivered in the Northern Territory, so the same numbers apply.

Working meanings and the performance standards behind them: the SACE guide and the NTCET guide.

14 Level 4 papers, 2021–2025, in the three courses TASC publishes past papers for (Chemistry, Mathematics Methods, Physics). TASC has no single glossary; its course documents defer to the ACARA senior secondary glossary, which defines “explain”, “analyse” and “evaluate” but not “calculate”, “state” or “sketch”. That is why only about one written item in five opens with a glossary verb, while 74% open with a counted one. Physics is a “calculate” paper (145 items); Chemistry is an “explain” paper (70 items, 2–4 marks).

Meanings and TASC’s quality words: the TASC assessment verbs guide.

The ACT has no external exams: grades come from school-based assessment written against the BSSS Glossary of verbs, with the ACT Scaling Test on top. There are no papers to count, so the verbs matter through your teachers’ task sheets and the achievement standards instead. The BSSS verbs guide covers them.

• Box the verb in reading time. Mark the verb in every stem before you write.
• Read the verb with the marks. A 25-mark “assess” in HSC Legal Studies and a 2-mark “state” in a WACE science paper are different tasks with the same grammar.
• Learn your board’s set, not the national one. The free Command Terms trainer drills each board’s list separately, with spaced repetition and no account.

Captivate Exam Hub’s past-paper practice is live for Queensland today, with the verb on every real question a tap away; other states are coming next.

Papers were downloaded from each board’s public past-papers pages (NESA HSC exam packs; SCSA past ATAR course exams; SACE Board subject external-assessment pages; TASC course pages) and split into items using each paper’s own numbering, parts and printed marks; each stem’s opening sentence was matched against the board’s verb list plus the shared set of verbs listed above. Items headed by two verbs count once for each; compound items with three or more verbs are counted but their marks are not attributed to any single verb. All four boards’ papers are copyright of their authorities; only counts were kept and no question text is reproduced. Verb meanings on this site are Captivate’s paraphrases with each board’s document linked from its guide. Captivate Exam Hub is not affiliated with or endorsed by NESA, SCSA, the SACE Board or TASC.