If you think the QCAA marked your external exam wrongly, you can apply for reassessment: you submit a form and a fee through your Student Portal learning account by the closing date in the QCAA's calendar, and the QCAA says the result may go down, stay the same or go up. If you disagree with a school-marked (internal) result, the QCAA does not take that request from students; the route runs through your teacher and your school's own assessment policy.
Those are two different questions with two different systems behind them, and "appeal", "review" and "remark" get used for both. This page separates them, and covers the fee and deadline, whether a result can drop, what counts as a marking error, what your school must provide for internal work, and what a change means for QTAC. If you are not yet sure a mark is wrong, start with what to do after a low mark and come back once you know what you are questioning.
Which result are you questioning: the exam or a school task?
A General subject result is built from three internal assessments marked by your school and one external assessment marked by the QCAA, as how your QCAA subject result is built explains. Who marked the piece decides who can look at it again.
| External assessment (the exam) | Internal assessment (school task) | |
|---|---|---|
| Marked by | QCAA-trained markers using a common marking scheme | Your teacher, then sampled and checked through QCAA confirmation |
| Can the QCAA re-mark it if you ask? | Yes: reassessment, if you believe there was a marking error | No. The handbook says verification is not a route to review or reassess the three internal assessments |
| Who applies? | You, through the Student Portal | Not you. Start with your teacher and your school's policy |
| Can the mark go down? | Yes. Reassessment may decrease, confirm or increase it | Yes. A review of a confirmed result can end higher, lower or unchanged |
Two neighbouring processes are not reassessment. Verification of information is a data check, covered below. Illness and misadventure is for something that went wrong on or around the day, and your school lodges it; the AARA, illness and misadventure guide has the rules.
Can I get my exam remarked in Queensland? How reassessment works
Yes, for an external assessment. The rule is in section 11.4.4 of the handbook:
Notice who the applicant is. For AARA your school lodges everything; for reassessment you do it yourself and you pay the fee. The SEP is the Senior Education Profile, and its calendar sets the date. The same rule covers Senior External Examination scripts; this page is about General subject external assessments. The Education (Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority) Regulation 2025 behind it says the request must be in the approved form, made within 28 days after you are issued your statement of results, and accompanied by the fee.
Decide what you think was marked wrongly
Reassessment marks your script again and can lower your result. Be able to name the subject, the paper and the response you are questioning before you pay. The marking-error section below sorts strong grounds from weak ones.
Find the closing date
You apply after your results are issued. As of October 2026, the QCAA's pages for 2026 results give 13 January 2027 as the final date for reassessment applications, which is 28 days after the 16 December 2026 release. Dates are reset every year, so confirm it in the SEP calendar and in your Student Portal, and work from the published date rather than counting days yourself: the QCAA's 2025 student guide gave 16 January 2026 for results released on 17 December 2025, which is 30 days.
Submit the form and pay the fee
Sign in to your learning account through the Student Portal on the myQCE website. The QCAA's 2025 student guide and its 2026 pages both name a Verification and reassessment tab there. Complete the reassessment form and pay.
Wait for the outcome email
The handbook says the QCAA will advise you of the outcome by email within 28 days of receiving your application. The regulation adds a backstop: if no reassessment is done within 28 days, the QCAA is taken to have decided not to change your result and must give you notice.
What does QCAA reassessment cost?
The regulation states the fee in fee units, 66.10 of them, and the dollar value of a fee unit is reset each year. As of October 2026 the QCAA's fees and charges page lists $72.45, which is 66.10 units at the 2026 unit value of $1.096. The Acts Interpretation (Fee Unit) Regulation 2022 sets the unit value at $1.133 from 1 January 2027, so the same 66.10 units works out to about $74.89 (our arithmetic, not a figure the QCAA has published). An application in December and one in January may therefore be charged different amounts. Pay the amount the form shows.
Does reassessment lower my mark?
It can. The handbook's wording is that reassessment “may decrease, confirm or increase the result the QCAA originally awarded.” We did not find any QCAA figures on how often each outcome happens, so treat a percentage quoted elsewhere with caution.
| Outcome | What the handbook says happens |
|---|---|
| Increase | A new Senior Statement or Statement of Results is issued, QTAC is informed of the amended result and the fee is refunded (when your subject result changes; see below) |
| Confirm (no change) | You are notified. The handbook promises a refund only where the QCAA changes the result, so do not count on the fee coming back |
| Decrease | The same new statement, QTAC notification and refund apply, and you may apply for an internal review |
The regulation words the trigger a little differently from the handbook. It ties the replacement statement and the refund (section 74(4)) to an increase or decrease in your result for the senior subject, and treats that as separate from your result for the external assessment. As we read it, a re-mark that shifts some exam marks but leaves your subject result where it was counts as no change: you get a notice and no refund. If you are unsure which applies, ask the QCAA before you pay.
If you are still dissatisfied with the internal review, section 82 of the QCAA Act lets you apply for an external review by the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
What counts as a marking error, and what is only a disagreement?
The rule says “a marking error”. In the pages we could read, the QCAA does not define the term, so the sorting below is our reading of that wording, not an official list. In our reading, a re-mark can correct a mistake in applying the marking scheme, and it is a poor tool for a view that a response deserved more credit than a marker gave it.
| What you think | How we would sort it |
|---|---|
| A question or page was not marked, or marks were added up wrongly | Fits the wording and is the clearest kind of error, but you cannot see it from a result alone. |
| My answer makes the points the published marking guide asks for, and I lost marks on it | Can fit, if you can point to specific guide wording and the matching lines of your answer. The re-marker may still disagree. |
| The marker was too harsh on my extended response | Mostly a judgement call. Weak on its own, with a real risk of a decrease. |
| The paper was harder or longer than I expected | Not a marking error. Reassessment re-marks your script, not the paper. |
| I was unwell, or something went wrong on the day | A different process, which your school lodges around the exam period. See the illness and misadventure guide. |
| My exam mark is far below my internal marks | Not an error in itself. The handbook's ratification section says some variation between internal and external results is expected within every subject. |
A useful test: can you write one sentence naming a specific question, the evidence for it and the marking-guide wording it meets? If not, reassessment is probably the wrong tool. If so, the subject result calculator shows how many of your 100 marks are in play, to weigh against the chance of a decrease.
What if the numbers on my statement look wrong? Verification of information
Verification is the process for a processing mistake, not a marking one. Section 11.4.3 of the handbook says students may apply for verification of the internal assessment results, VET and other information in their SEP, using an online form in the Student Portal with a fee, by the date in the SEP calendar. The QCAA then asks the school or learning provider to check it supplied the correct information. The same section draws a firm line:
So if a criterion mark your teacher gave you has gone missing from your results, verification is the check. If you think your teacher should have given more, it is not.
What can I do if I disagree with my internal assessment result?
The QCAA checks school marking through confirmation, but it does not re-mark one student's internal task on request. What you get instead is your school's policy, and section 8.4 of the handbook sets the frame. It requires every school to develop an assessment policy from the handbook and the syllabuses, to communicate it “clearly to teachers, students and parents/carers,” and to enact it “consistently across all subjects within the school.” For what the same policy says about due dates and extensions, see the late-work and non-submission guide.
That is a duty to have a policy and apply it evenly. The summary table in section 8.4 lists content schools may include, and the handbook text we read (version 6.0) does not set out a step-by-step appeal for a student's internal mark. The detail is your school's, and it varies. Two published examples show the range; neither is a rule for your school:
- Cairns State High School's senior assessment policy (the copy on its website is headed April 2020 and was written against an early handbook version, so check for a newer one) says “A student can appeal the decision of a teacher if they have evidence to support that the school has not properly followed QCAA policies and procedures.” Its appendix sets a ladder: teacher, Head of Department, an appeals panel, then the principal.
- Brisbane South State Secondary College's assessment policy (dated 2 August 2024) tells students to “Seek help from teacher before appealing any result.”
Both start with the teacher, and Cairns asks for evidence. Frame your concern around the ISMG and the evidence in your response, not around how the grade feels.
How does confirmation fit in?
Internal marks in a General subject are provisional until the QCAA confirms them; the assessment glossary defines both terms. Confirmers review a sample of responses to check that the school applied the ISMG accurately and consistently, and the QCAA makes the final decision. Where it finds a pattern in a school's marking, it can adjust criterion marks for every student in the cohort, so a confirmed mark can differ from your teacher's without anyone re-reading your response.
Section 9.6.6 covers a confirmed result that looks wrong for one student. A school may request a review when the confirmed result differs from the school's provisional mark in one or more criteria and the school considers it an anomaly or exception to the cohort pattern. Four details matter to you:
- The handbook says “A student or parent/carer cannot directly request a review.” The principal's delegate lodges it.
- The request is typically due about five days after the confirmation decision is released to schools, so the window is short.
- The outcome may be a change to the mark, higher or lower than the confirmed result, or the confirmed mark may stand. The handbook tells the school to advise you and your parent or carer that the result may end up lower.
- The confirmation process does not include an opportunity for further review.
How do I question an internal result, in order?
Read the marked ISMG against your response
Go criterion by criterion. Note each mark, the descriptor it matches and the passage you think meets the next one up. How to read an ISMG and the ISMG rubric guide show how the descriptors work.
Ask your teacher to explain the mark against the ISMG
Do this first, in writing, and be specific. Most disagreements are settled here, either because the teacher shows evidence you missed or because you point to something they did.
Check for plain errors
Criterion marks that do not add up, a criterion with no mark, part of your work not marked, or an ISMG that differs from the one issued with the task are quick for a teacher to fix.
Use your school's process if you still disagree
Find the policy, follow its form and dates, and keep everything in writing. Ask how its timing relates to confirmation, because the window for a confirmed-result review is short.
Know where the road ends
After confirmation, the QCAA will not reassess an internal assessment at your request, and a school-requested review can lower a mark as well as raise it.
A request your teacher can answer from the page works better than a general one. The criterion and bands in this example are illustrative.
Hard to answer
I think I deserved a higher mark. Can you look at it again?
Easy to answer
For Analysis you placed me in the 4 to 5 band. Which line of the 6 to 7 descriptor does my response not meet, and which passage did you match to the 4 to 5 descriptor?
What evidence should I gather?
For a school task, gather what the marker also holds or can see:
- The task sheet and its conditions, including length and mode.
- Your marked ISMG, with each criterion mark and any annotations.
- Your submitted response and the submission receipt or time stamp.
- Your draft and any dated feedback on it; why drafts matter before submission covers saving versions you can compare.
- Your own note matching descriptor lines to passages, and the dates of any emails or conversations with your teacher.
For an external exam your evidence is thinner: your result, your internal marks for context, any published marking guide for the paper (the QCAA publishes them for past external assessments), and whatever you wrote down about your answers straight after the exam. Memory in January is weaker evidence than a note made on the day.
The dates in one place (as of October 2026; confirm in your portal)
- 16 December 2026
Results and your Senior Education Profile are released through the Student Portal; the 2026 external assessment guide covers results day.
- 18 December 2026
QTAC releases ATARs. Its own appeal period for ATAR calculations runs from this date to 31 January 2027.
- 13 January 2027
Closing date, per the QCAA's pages, for reassessment, script inspection and verification applications on 2026 results.
- Within 28 days of the QCAA receiving your application
The QCAA advises the outcome by email. An application lodged on the closing date could be decided as late as the second week of February. The QCAA's pages say script inspections take place in February 2027.
What does a changed result mean for my ATAR and QTAC offers?
QTAC calculates your ATAR from the subject results the QCAA sends it, so a changed subject result changes the input. When the QCAA changes a result after reassessment, the handbook says it informs QTAC. QTAC's understanding ATAR page describes what follows: it usually receives result amendments from the QCAA on Mondays, usually processes them within 24 to 48 hours, recalculates the ATAR. QTAC's ATAR amendments factsheet (a 2020 document that the page still links to) says students are notified of the new ATAR by email and that it replaces the original as the valid ATAR. Because the ATAR is calculated from the subject results, a decrease in a subject result can lower it as well.
You do not lodge a QTAC ATAR appeal for this. QTAC says you need not appeal where your ATAR is likely to change because of amendments to your QCE results, for example after a review; its appeal is for a calculation that did not follow its approved rules. How the Queensland ATAR is calculated explains the calculation, and the ATAR calculator lets you test what a different subject result would do.
Offers are the part we could not settle. QTAC's pages do not say how an offer you already hold is treated when an ATAR is amended, and each institution sets its own rules. What QTAC's FAQ does say is that you can receive one offer in each round, and that if you receive an offer for a lower preference you continue to be considered for higher preferences in future rounds, provided you have conditionally responded to it. Because the QCAA can take up to 28 days to decide, a reassessment may land after an offer round you care about. Ask QTAC and the institution directly before you accept, decline or defer on the strength of a result that has not changed yet, and plan around the result you hold today.
The handbook wording on this page is from the QCAA's QCE and QCIA policy and procedures handbook. The current edition is version 7.0, released on 14 January 2026. The quotations from sections 9.6.6, 11.4.3 and 11.4.4 are from version 6.0 (January 2025), a copy of which we opened and read; the QCAA's current online pages returned the same wording for 11.4.4 when we searched, but we could not open them, so check the current text before relying on a quotation. The section 8.4 wording is as cited in the late-work guide, which reads it from version 7.0. The sections used are 8.4 on school assessment policies, 9.6 on confirmation, and 11.4 on verification and reassessment. The fee basis, the 28-day request period and the refund rules come from the Education (Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority) Regulation 2025. Closing dates, fees and arrangements change between years, so the SEP calendar and your Student Portal take precedence over anything here. This is general information, not advice on your own case.
