Insights provides a data-driven playground for analysing past QCAA external exams, helping both students and educators identify trends and focus effectively. Here, you can explore all available data and apply filters to see exactly what matters to you—whether it’s question frequency, mark distribution, or cognitive verb trends. Every data point is interactive, allowing you to drill down into specific topics, question formats, and difficulty levels, eliminating guesswork so students can study smarter and educators can guide learning more strategically.

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Where to Find Insights

Finding the Insights page is simple, with two easy ways.
Want a better understanding of how Exam Insights is structured? Check out our Quick Start Guide to see how our pages are organised and where to find key features.

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Option 1: From the Homepage

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Go to your My Subjects (Home)

This is where all of your enrolled subjects are listed.
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The My Subjects (Home) Page

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Select a Subject

Click on the subject you want to view Insights for.

The QCAA Physics Subject Home Page

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Click Insights

Once inside the subject, you’ll see the Insights option.

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Option 2: Using the Sidebar

  • When you’re inside a subject, the Insights tab is always available in the left sidebar for quick access, or by clicking the menu button on the top right of the screen for smaller devices.
  • Simply click on Insights.
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The Sidebar Found on the Left Side of the Screen

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Using Insights

Enjoy this feature for free—no sign-in required. Filtering options are available with Plus.
Insights helps you uncover trends in past exams, showing patterns in:
  • Unit Coverage – See how often each unit has appeared in past papers.
  • Question Format – Understand how frequently different question types (i.e. multiple choice, short response) are used.
  • Topic & Sub-Topics – Identify which areas within a unit have been tested the most.
  • Question Distribution – Find out how many questions were asked on certain topics in different exams.
  • Difficulty – Track whether past exams leaned towards easier, medium, or harder questions.
  • Cognitive Verbs – Analyse which cognitive verbs (i.e. explain, evaluate, justify) are commonly used.
  • Learning Objectives – See which learning objectives have been tested most commonly multiple years.
  • Question Coverage - The proportion of selected vs. all available questions in our question bank (useful when filtering)
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The QCAA Physics Insights Page

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Filtering

This feature is available with a Plus plan.
Filters work in two ways:
  • AND – When you select multiple filters from different categories, the results must match all selected filters.
Example: Choosing Calculate questions AND Hard difficulty will show only questions that are both Calculate and Hard.
  • OR – When you select multiple options within the same category, the results can match any of them.
Example: Choosing Medium OR Hard difficulty will show all questions that are either Medium or Hard.
You can also combine AND & OR to refine your search even further.
Example: Selecting Topic 1 AND (Medium OR Hard difficulty) will show all Topic 1 questions that are either Medium or Hard.
This gives you full control over your search, letting you narrow down results with AND or expand them with OR to find exactly what you need.
Filtering is like a custom search playground—giving you full flexibility to combine different filters and quickly find the exact questions you need.
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Filtering on the QCAA Physics Insights Page

Just like in Questions, you can filter Insights based on:
  • Unit, Topic, Sub-Topic, Learning Objective – Find syllabus-aligned questions.
  • Question Format – Multiple choice, short response, extended response.
  • Cognitive Verbs – Identify, Explain, Evaluate, etc.
  • Difficulty Level – Choose easy, medium, or hard questions.
  • Paper / Technology – Find questions that require a calculator or specific tools.
  • Year – Select questions from specific past external exams.
This helps both students and educators explore specific trends—allowing students to focus their study efforts on what matters most and educators to gain deeper insights into question patterns.

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Mark Distribution

This feature is available with a Plus plan.
The Insights page doesn’t just track question trends—it also analyses mark distribution, showing where the most marks are typically awarded in an exam.
When you filter, you’ll first see questions, but you can easily switch to mark distribution. This lets you explore both how often questions appear and where the most marks are awarded, all in one place.
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Mark Distribution on the QCAA Physics Insights Page