The internal marks are the ones you can still change
Three of the four assessments behind a subject result are drafted at home, against a marking guide you are allowed to read first. ISMGenius reads a draft against that ISMG and shows where each criterion sits before you hand it in. It is free.
No payment details and no account needed to start. ISMGenius gives feedback on your own draft — it never writes it for you.
How it works
How a QCAA subject result is built
Four assessments, one number out of 100. Three of them are written at your school against a marking guide you are allowed to read before you start.
1
Your school marks three tasks
IA1, IA2 and IA3 are set and marked by your school against the ISMG for each task. In most General subjects they carry 75 of the 100 marks; in maths and the sciences, 50.
2
QCAA confirms those marks
Schools send provisional marks to QCAA, which checks samples against the syllabus standard so the same quality of work earns the same mark statewide. Marks can move at confirmation.
3
QCAA sets and marks the exam
The external assessment is written by QCAA, sat on the same day across Queensland, and marked by QCAA. It is worth 25 marks in most subjects and 50 in maths and the sciences.
4
The four marks are added
Confirmed internal marks plus the external mark make one whole number out of 100. That is your subject result, and it is the number QTAC later scales for an ATAR.
Weightings
75 / 25, 50 / 50, and the subjects that are neither
An assessment’s weighting and its maximum mark are the same number, because a subject result is out of 100. A 20 per cent task is a 20-mark task.
75 / 25
Most General subjects
Three internal assessments carry 75 marks between them, and the external assessment carries 25. English, the humanities, the technologies, the arts and HPE all work this way.
50 / 50
Maths and the sciences
The external exam is worth 50 marks on its own. Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Psychology, Marine Science, Earth & Environmental Science and Agricultural Science run 10 / 20 / 20 / 50; the three mathematics subjects run 20 / 15 / 15 / 50.
Varies
And the ones that surprise people
A 75 / 25 subject does not have to be 25 / 25 / 25 / 25. Visual Art is 20 / 25 / 30, Dance and Drama are 20 / 20 / 35, and Film, Television & New Media starts with a 15-mark task. Add your subjects above and the calculator loads the real numbers for each one.
FAQ
Common questions
How is a QCAA subject result calculated?
A General subject result is a whole number out of 100, made of four marks added together: three internal assessments set and marked by your school, and one external assessment set and marked by QCAA. In most subjects the three internal assessments are worth 75 marks between them and the external assessment is worth 25. In mathematics and the sciences the external assessment is worth 50 on its own.
What mark do I need on my external assessment?
Once all three internal assessments are marked, the answer is exact: the mark you are aiming for, minus the internal marks you have already banked. If you have 62 of the 75 internal marks in an English subject and you want an 80, the external assessment has to come back at 18 of 25. Enter your marks and a target above and the calculator states the number — and tells you when the number it would take is higher than the exam is worth.
My teacher gave me a mark on the ISMG. Is that the number I enter?
Yes. A QCAA instrument-specific marking guide is built to total exactly the marks its task carries towards the subject result: English IA1 is a 25-mark guide for a 25-mark task, and Biology’s data test is a 10-mark guide for a 10-mark task. So the mark at the bottom of your ISMG goes straight in, with no converting and no percentages.
How many marks is each IA worth?
It depends on the subject, and the subject’s QCAA syllabus sets it. English is 25 / 25 / 25 / 25. Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Psychology are 10 / 20 / 20 / 50. General Mathematics, Mathematical Methods and Specialist Mathematics are 20 / 15 / 15 / 50. Visual Art is 20 / 25 / 30 / 25, and Film, Television & New Media is 15 / 25 / 35 / 25. Adding a subject above loads the exact maximum marks from the current syllabus.
What is the difference between my subject result and my ATAR?
QCAA calculates subject results — a mark out of 100 in each General subject. QTAC calculates the ATAR, using those results. QTAC first scales every subject result so subjects can be compared, then adds your best five scaled results into a Tertiary Entrance Aggregate and ranks students on it. Two different organisations, two different numbers.
Does this calculator scale my subject result?
No, and deliberately. Scaling happens later, when QTAC turns subject results into an ATAR. Your subject result is not scaled by QCAA and is not scaled here. To see what a subject result would scale to, use the ATAR calculator, which this page can hand your result straight to.
Is a subject result out of 100 the same as a percentage?
Effectively yes, because the four instruments add to exactly 100 marks. That is also why an instrument’s weighting and its maximum mark are the same number: a 20 per cent task is a 20-mark task.
Can my internal assessment marks change?
Yes. The marks your school gives you are provisional until QCAA confirms them. QCAA reviews samples of student work from every school and can adjust a school’s marks so the same standard of work earns the same mark across Queensland. Treat internal marks as firm but not final until your Statement of Results arrives.
What is a good QCAA subject result?
There is no fixed cut-off, because a subject result has no grade boundaries — it is reported as a number, not a band. What a result is worth also depends on the subject, since scaling moves each subject differently on the way to an ATAR. As a rough guide, results in the 80s and 90s are strong in every subject, and the more useful question is which target is still reachable from the marks you have already banked.
What happens if I miss an assessment?
Talk to your school immediately. There are formal processes — Access Arrangements and Reasonable Adjustments, and the Illness and Misadventure application for external assessment — and they have deadlines. A missed assessment with no approved arrangement is marked on the evidence available, which is usually nothing, so it is the one situation worth acting on the same day.
Can I use this before I have any results?
Yes — mark each task as a prediction instead of a result. The calculator keeps the two apart everywhere: banked marks are the ones you have actually been given, and a projection is only ever shown as a projection. That separation is the whole point, because a target built on optimistic predictions is not a target.
Are Applied subjects and Short Courses calculated this way?
No. This calculator covers General subjects, which are the ones reported out of 100 and the ones that count towards an ATAR as General results. Applied subjects are reported as A–E grades, and Short Courses report a grade rather than a mark out of 100.
Which subjects can I calculate?
Every Queensland General subject QTAC publishes scaling for — 49 of them, including the Extension subjects and the languages offered as a Senior External Examination. It is the same subject list as the ATAR calculator, which is what lets a result move between the two.
Where do the maximum marks in this calculator come from?
Straight out of the QCAA syllabus for each subject. Every syllabus lists its summative instruments and the percentage each contributes, and a subject result is out of 100, so that percentage is the maximum mark. The numbers are read from the published PDFs rather than typed in by hand, each subject is checked to total 100 marks, and the syllabus edition a structure came from is shown next to the subject.
The marks behind the result
A subject result is only ever as good as the four assessments underneath it, and three of those are still yours to change.