Help & FAQs

A self-serve exam-revision app for VCE students. It builds you a daily revision loop from real past-exam questions and flashcards, schedules reviews with spaced repetition so you remember what you study, runs timed practice sits, and tracks your exam readiness subject by subject.

Individual students preparing for their end-of-year exams. You own your account — there are no school logins, class codes, or teacher dashboards. You pick your subjects and study at your own pace. New accounts start with a 3-day free trial, no card required. (If you're under 15, a parent or guardian confirms consent at signup — see “I'm under 15 — how does parent/guardian consent work?”.)

You can start with a 3-day free trial — no payment method required and no automatic charge. After the trial, a Premium subscription unlocks full access, including all AI practice, premium content, and advanced analytics, priced per subject. See “How much does it cost?” below.

Exam content differs by state — past papers, study designs and command terms all come from your local exam authority. Picking your state means you practise on the exams you'll actually sit.

During onboarding (or any time from the Subjects page) you select the subjects you're studying this year. Your selection drives everything: which past exams and flashcards you see, what the daily loop schedules, and — if you subscribe — what you pay. Note that subjects lock for the calendar year (see “Why can't I swap a subject?”).

Each subject can have an exam date, which powers countdowns and your exam-day readiness projection. We prefill a sensible default and you can edit dates per subject at any time — they're optional, but the forecasts are sharper with real dates.

Each day the app composes one finishable session for you, following a research-backed sequence: learn → retrieve → mark the gap → revisit → timed. In practice that means quick flashcard recall first, then the reviews that are due today, then targeted questions on your weakest knowledge points. The session is snapshotted when it's built, so refreshing the page won't shuffle your work.

Finishing your daily loop keeps your streak alive, and the daily-goal ring on the Today page fills with the study time you actually put in. Small, consistent sessions beat occasional marathons — that's the whole point of the loop.

Because forgetting is normal — and reviewing something just before you'd forget it is the most efficient way to make it stick. We schedule every question and flashcard with a modern spaced-repetition algorithm (FSRS), which models how well each item has settled into your memory and brings it back just as your chance of recalling it dips toward 90%. The better you know something, the longer it waits before returning; struggle with it and it comes back sooner.

An item is due when its scheduled review date has passed. Due reviews are the highest-value work you can do each day, which is why the daily loop puts them near the front and the Flashcards page surfaces them at the top.

Your marks and ratings are the only signal the scheduler and readiness forecast have. Rate a card “Easy” when it wasn't, and it disappears for weeks while the gap stays; mark a question generously and your readiness score inflates. Being tough on yourself here literally makes the app work better for you.

It's an estimate of how prepared you are for each subject's exam, built from how much of the course you've covered, how well you're answering, and how recently you've practised — including a likely-score range and a projection to exam day. Treat it as a compass, not a promise: it guides where to focus, it doesn't guarantee a grade.

Three levers, in order: clear your due reviews (protects what you already know), work your weakest knowledge points (closes gaps), and do timed sits (converts knowledge into exam performance). Consistency moves the score more than volume.

Reading a subject's Progress page top to bottom: your exam plan spreads weak and uncovered knowledge points across the weeks left; Exam readiness scales your marks-weighted score by how much of the subject you've covered (untried material counts as not ready), with a calibrated likely-score range; Flashcard mastery shows what your card reviews add to that forecast; Momentum counts topics improving or slipping on re-attempts; By question type shows which format costs you marks; Memory & recall projects where your score lands by exam day if you stop reviewing; and the error-pattern cards show why marks were lost. Every card also has a “?” icon explaining how it's calculated, and tapping any chip gives its definition.

Decks are built automatically, one per key knowledge point (KKP) of your subjects — covering the definitions, terms, formulas and concepts in that dot point. If a knowledge point has no cards yet, you can generate them from the Flashcards page.

Flip — browse cards freely and flip for the answer. Confidence — flip, then rate your recall 1–5; this drives your review schedule. Write — type the answer and check it. Match — a timed game pairing prompts with answers. Test — an auto-generated multiple-choice quiz over the deck.

Only Confidence. Your 1–5 ratings (No idea → Easy) feed the spaced-repetition scheduler and your readiness evidence. Flip, Write, Match and Test are pure practice — play them as much as you like without touching your schedule.

Cards you've rated come back when their review date passes; “Study all due” on the Flashcards page works through them oldest-first, capped at 20 per sitting so sessions stay finishable. Within a deck, Confidence rounds also study your weakest cards first.

On the Exams page, pick a subject and the topics or knowledge points you want, and the builder assembles a practice exam from past-exam and generated questions. You can save practice exams and sit them whenever you're ready.

A timed sit mirrors real exam conditions: reading time first (no answering), then writing time with a countdown. It's the best way to train pacing before the real thing.

You self-mark against the provided solutions and examiner guidance when the sit ends. Your marks feed your readiness and review schedule, so mark honestly — see “Why does honest self-marking matter?”.

Captivate Exams are full practice exams written for the current study design. Their questions are deliberately held out of your drills, the exam builder and daily sessions, so when you finally sit one it's a true exam-day rehearsal on questions you've never seen. They unlock per subject once you've done two things: attempted every key knowledge point that has exam questions attached, and held a subject average of 70% or higher. These are the same numbers shown on the Exams page card, the subject header on Subjects, and the readiness card on Progress — and when you're close, a next-step appears on Today. Once a subject's Captivate Exams unlock, they stay unlocked — sit them under timed conditions for the truest read on exam day. Sitting the full exams is part of the paid plan; free and trial accounts can see the goals and their progress toward them, but need a subscription to sit the papers.

Command terms are the opening verbs examiners use to signal the depth of answer required — “identify” wants a name, “describe” wants features, “analyse” wants components and the relationships between them, “evaluate” wants a judgement backed by evidence. When a question starts with a command term, tap the highlighted chip above it for the official VCAA definition and the marks typically attached. Matching your answer's depth to the command term is one of the fastest ways to stop losing marks you actually know.

Yes — many subjects are better practised on paper. During a sit you can scan the QR code with your phone to photograph your handwritten working and attach it to the question, then self-mark as usual.

All Australian states and territories will be supported. Queensland (QCE) is rolling out first, followed by the others in sequence. Until your state is fully live, you'll still see VCE-aligned baseline content so you can start practising right away.

Subjects lock to your account for the calendar year: each one stays locked until 31 December of the year you added it, and all locks reset on 1 January. You can add subjects at any time, but you can't substitute a locked one mid-year. If you stop paying for a subject, billing stops but the slot stays locked to that subject until the reset. This keeps per-subject pricing fair — without it, one subscription could rotate through every subject.

Premium is $7 per subject per month, automatically capped at $17.99/month when you have 3–6 subjects, then +$7 per subject beyond 6. All prices AUD. You always pay the cheaper of per-subject vs the cap — most VCE students with 5–6 subjects pay $17.99.

Full access to AI-generated questions, feedback and summaries, premium content and past exams for your chosen subjects, and advanced analytics. All access requires an active subscription or a live free trial.

3 days of full Premium access to your chosen subjects, no card required. Nothing is charged automatically when it ends — if you don't subscribe, your full access ends and you can subscribe any time to pick up where you left off.

Account → Manage subscription opens the secure Stripe billing portal, where you can update payment details or cancel. Cancelling stops billing at the end of the current period, and you keep Premium access until then.

The marginal price: while you're inside the 3–6 subject cap it costs $0 extra (you're already at $17.99), otherwise $7/month, prorated by Stripe from the day you add it.

Generating questions, feedback and flashcards with AI has a real compute cost, so your subscription includes a monthly credit allowance sized to your subjects: 120 credits for one subject, 240 for two, 300 for 3–6, then +120 for each subject beyond 6 — resetting on the 1st of each month. A daily usage cap keeps the service fair for everyone. You can also buy credit packs any time (they last 3 years). See your balance in the sidebar, on the Today page, or on the Account page.

For the QCE English and EAL External Assessment you can sit a past essay task, write in the app or photograph your handwritten pages (you check the transcript before anything is marked), then reveal the official QCAA marking guide and pick a band for every criterion yourself. Once every criterion is marked, you can compare with an AI examiner. It suggests its own band and a short comment per criterion, shows where it differs from you, and lists improvements, sometimes drawing on that year's QCAA subject report. Nothing is applied automatically — you adopt a band only if you agree, and you can record that a teacher reviewed the mark. Each AI comparison uses credits from your monthly allowance (see “How do AI credits work?”).

Yes. AI-generated questions, feedback and summaries can contain errors, so always check important points against your official study design and course materials. See our AI Use & Accuracy notice at /legal/ai-disclaimer for the full picture.

Either you've used this month's included credits (they reset on the 1st) or you've hit the daily usage cap (more of your credits unlock tomorrow). You can buy a one-off credit pack on the Account page — purchased credits last 3 years and are used after your included ones. Everything already generated stays available regardless.

With your email and password. If you don't have an account yet, you can create one on the sign-in page.

Only to work out whether a parent or guardian needs to consent to your account. Students aged 15 and over manage their own accounts; if you're under 15, we ask for a parent or guardian email at signup so they can confirm their consent — see the next question.

When you sign up, we send a consent email to the parent or guardian address you provide. They confirm by giving their full name and ticking a consent declaration — your study access starts once that's done. You can verify your own email address in the meantime. After it's confirmed, the Account page shows a Parent/guardian card with the verified address, and you can resend the consent email from there if it went missing. For the full policy, see /legal/minors.

Parents and guardians can ask to access or correct a student's information, or ask how it's handled, using the request form at /guardian/request — no login needed. Requests from a verified guardian email (the address that confirmed consent) are treated as already verified; requests from other addresses may need extra verification. You can also email contact@captivateexamhub.com.au. See /legal/minors for details.

Account emails (verification, password resets, billing receipts) always come through — they're part of running your account. Study emails — a weekly progress summary and revision reminders — are optional and off by default. You choose at signup and can change your mind any time in your Account settings; every study email also carries its own unsubscribe link.

Use the “Forgot password?” link on the sign-in page. We'll email you a secure link to set a new one.

Your account details, subject selections and study activity (attempts, ratings, progress) — that's what powers your schedule and readiness. For the full picture, including how we handle students under 18, see our Privacy Policy at /legal/privacy and /legal/minors.

Email contact@captivateexamhub.com.au from the address on your account and ask us to delete it. We'll confirm and remove your account and study data. If you have an active subscription, cancel it first via Account → Manage subscription.

Fastest: the “Send feedback” button (on this page when signed in, or under Account → Help & support) — it's tracked in-app and we reply right there. Otherwise email contact@captivateexamhub.com.au; include a screenshot and the page URL so we can help faster.