QCAA External Exam Timetable 2026: Dates, Times & Weightings

Queensland's 2026 external assessments, the externals or EAs, run from Monday 26 October to Tuesday 17 November. The searchable timetable below covers all 46 General and General (Extension) subjects, with every exam's date, session, length and the share of your 100 subject marks it decides. After the timetable is the arithmetic that turns a date into a plan: the mark your external assessment has to return for you to finish on the subject result you are aiming at.

The 2026 QCAA external exam timetable

Star the subjects you take and the table builds your own run of exam dates, which you can download as a calendar file, print, or send to a parent who wants the dates. Each row also links into the subject result calculator with that subject already loaded.

Four columns carry everything the timetable decides. Here is one row read in full.

When externals start, and which week yours falls in

The block spans four weeks and 17 exam days. Most subjects sit inside the first three.

1. Week 1, 26–30 Oct

   Economics opens the block on Monday morning, with Aerospace Systems, Health and Music that afternoon. English and English as an Additional Language sit Tuesday morning and Ancient History Tuesday afternoon. Wednesday is the week's busiest day: Chinese, Philosophy & Reason and Physical Education in the morning, Spanish and Visual Art in the afternoon. Literature and Legal Studies sit Thursday, and Chemistry takes both papers on Friday 30 October.

2. Week 2, 2–6 Nov

   Biology sits both papers on Monday 2 November. Tuesday brings Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Studies, German, Study of Religion, Business and Music Extension. Wednesday 4 November is the heaviest day of the whole block with seven sittings, including Film, Television & New Media, the Chinese, French and German Extension subjects, Accounting, Drama and Italian. Modern History sits Thursday morning, then General Mathematics and Specialist Mathematics take Paper 1 Thursday afternoon and Paper 2 Friday morning. Design closes the week on Friday afternoon.

3. Week 3, 9–13 Nov

   Physics takes both papers on Monday 9 November. Dance, Digital Solutions and English & Literature Extension sit Tuesday morning, with Psychology Paper 1 that afternoon and Paper 2 on Wednesday morning. Earth & Environmental Science splits across Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning, alongside Engineering and Food & Nutrition on the Wednesday and Geography, French and Japanese on the Thursday. Mathematical Methods closes the week with both papers on Friday 13 November.

4. Week 4, 16–17 Nov

   Two subjects remain. Marine Science sits both papers on Monday 16 November, and Agricultural Science both papers on Tuesday 17 November, the last exam of the 2026 block.

What QCAA fixes and what your school sets

QCAA sets the day and the session. Your school sets the clock time, anywhere in a window that opens fifteen minutes before the scheduled start and closes fifteen minutes after it, and your school confirms the room. Plan your morning around the personal timetable your school issues, and treat the dates here as the fixed frame around it.

The length column prints two numbers, and only one of them is writing time. Two hours plus fifteen minutes means fifteen minutes of planning followed by two hours of working. The planning allowance is set by subject: five minutes in the sciences, the mathematics subjects, the languages and the technology subjects; fifteen in English, the humanities, Health, Design and the business subjects; twenty in Dance, Drama, Music, Visual Art, Film, Television & New Media and the language extension subjects; and thirty in English & Literature Extension, the longest planning window on the timetable.

Ten subjects sit two papers: the seven sciences and the three mathematics subjects. Chemistry, Biology, Physics, Marine Science, Agricultural Science and Mathematical Methods take both papers on the same day, morning and afternoon. Psychology, Earth & Environmental Science and the General and Specialist Mathematics pair split theirs across two days. Either arrangement produces one external assessment result from the two papers combined.

How much your external assessment is worth

The external assessment is one of the four instruments behind a General subject result out of 100. Its share is set by your syllabus, and it is not the same everywhere.

• Most General subjects25 marks
• Sciences and mathematics50 marks

Ten subjects put 50 marks on the exam: Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Psychology, Earth & Environmental Science, Marine Science, Agricultural Science, General Mathematics, Mathematical Methods and Specialist Mathematics. In those ten the exam carries as much as all three internal tasks combined. Every other General subject weights it at 25, leaving 75 marks with internal assessment. The same effort on the same three internal tasks therefore leaves you in two very different positions.

One assumption catches people out before they even start: internal assessment is not always three equal pieces. English weights all four instruments at 25. The sciences run 10 for the data test and 20 for each of the two remaining internal tasks. General Mathematics, Mathematical Methods and Specialist Mathematics run 20 for the problem-solving and modelling task and 15 for each internal exam. Visual Art and the languages run 20, 25 and 30. Dance, Drama, Music and English & Literature Extension run 20, 20 and 35. Film, Television & New Media runs 15, 25 and 35. Read your own four numbers off your syllabus before you subtract anything, and how your QCAA subject result is built works through the four instruments in full.

Working out the mark you need on your EA

The calculation is one subtraction. Take the subject result you are aiming at, subtract the internal marks you have actually been given, and the remainder is what the exam has to deliver.

1. Write down your target

   A number out of 100. If you are working back from an ATAR, convert it into the subject results you need first, because the subtraction only runs on the QCAA scale.

2. Add up the marks you have been given

   Only marks your teacher has returned. A task you have submitted but not had back does not count yet, and neither does one you expect to go well.

3. Subtract

   Target minus banked marks is what the external assessment has to contribute. It is already expressed in marks out of 100, which is the scale your EA is reported on.

Here is the same subtraction in three subjects.

English, aiming at 80

English weights all four instruments at 25. Say IA1, IA2 and IA3 came back at 19, 21 and 20, so 60 marks are banked. Reaching 80 needs 20 of the exam's 25, which is a strong analytical essay. The internal marks have already carried three quarters of the subject.

Biology, aiming at 85

Biology weights the data test at 10, the student experiment at 20, the research investigation at 20 and the exam at 50. Marks of 7, 16 and 17 bank 40 of the 50 available internally. An 85 then needs 45 of 50 across the two papers. Internal results that leave an English student needing a good exam leave a Biology student needing a near-perfect one, because half the subject is still unmarked.

Mathematical Methods, aiming at 90

Methods weights the problem-solving and modelling task at 20 and the two internal exams at 15 each, with 50 on the external. Marks of 17, 12 and 13 bank 42. A 90 needs 48 of 50 across Paper 1 and Paper 2 on 13 November. That is reachable, and it calls for a different revision plan from the one a student needing 35 would write.

Calculate yours

Six subjects means six subtractions and six sets of weightings to look up first. The calculator already holds every General subject's instrument structure, so you enter the marks you have and it returns the rest.

It keeps marks you have been given separate from marks you are predicting, so a target resting on three optimistic guesses looks visibly different from one resting on returned results. Feed the subject results into the ATAR calculator to see where the whole set of six lands.

When the mark you need is out of reach

Sometimes the subtraction returns a number larger than the exam is worth. With 40 banked in Biology and a target of 95, the exam would have to return 55 out of 50, and no amount of preparation recovers that. Write down two numbers for each subject before the block starts.

• Your maximum achievable result: banked marks plus full marks on everything outstanding. In the Methods example above that is 42 plus 50, so 92 was the ceiling and a 95 was never available.
• Your realistic result: banked marks plus an exam mark in line with what you have scored on comparable tasks. This is the number to build a plan on.

A ceiling in one subject does not cap your ATAR. QTAC calculates it from your best five scaled subject results, so a capped subject can be absorbed by the others, and knowing which subjects still have room tells you where the weeks before the block should go. How the Queensland ATAR is calculated covers what scaling does to a subject result on the way through.

How to prepare for the external assessment

The exam is set against the same Unit 3 and 4 syllabus objectives your internal assessment was, and marked against a published marking guide. Match your preparation to those two documents: turn the Unit 3 and 4 subject matter into a checklist, sit QCAA's past papers to time, and mark your own attempts against the guide rather than reading your notes again.

That is a plan rather than a tip, and it has its own guide. QCAA external exam preparation, week by week works through the five windows between the end of Term 3 and the last paper, including where the past papers and subject reports live, how to use the planning window at the start of your exam, and what to do in the turnaround between two sittings.

If you still have an internal assessment to submit before the block, an internal mark is movable right up to the moment you hand it in, so moving that draft up a mark band is often a cheaper way to gain marks than the same hours spent on revision. You can check a draft against its ISMG first.

Results day, and what the exam cannot change

Your papers leave the school and go to QCAA-appointed markers, who work from a marking guide written for that paper. Your own teachers do not mark them. Marking is anonymous and centrally moderated, so the same quality of response earns the same mark across the state.

1. 17 November

   The last external assessment is sat, and central marking finishes.

2. 16 December

   Subject results and your Senior Education Profile are released from 9:00 am through the QCAA student portal. Each subject comes back as a mark out of 100 and an A to E grade.

3. 18 December

   QTAC releases ATARs from 9:00 am, calculated from your best five scaled subject results.

The exam does not reach back into your internal marks. Your school's provisional internal marks go through QCAA's confirmation process separately, and that process finishes before results are released, so a confirmed mark can differ from the one written on your task. The external assessment result is then added to the confirmed marks.

Recommended

• the QCAA subject result calculator
• how your QCAA subject result is built from IA1, IA2, IA3 and the EA
• the Queensland ATAR calculator
• AARA and illness and misadventure: what to do if you are unwell for an exam
• the QCAA senior assessment glossary
• the night-before-submission checklist
• rubric-aligned feedback on your assignment drafts