VCE Drama past exams 2023–2025

Every question from the last three VCE Drama exams, matched to the lesson that teaches it, with class averages from the examiners' reports and worked solutions. VCE Drama (Year 12) lessons.

2025 Exam

A1a (3 marks, class average 83%): How the actor or actors used space at one chosen point in a 2025 playlist play, and its effect on the audience. Lesson: Analysing and Evaluating a Professional Production, Dramatic Elements, Conventions and Performance Styles
A1b (5 marks, class average 68%): Evaluate how two production areas were applied or manipulated to communicate meaning in the same moment. Lesson: Analysing and Evaluating a Professional Production, Dramatic Elements, Conventions and Performance Styles
A1c (4 marks, class average 70%): Analyse how one actor set up the actor-audience relationship and used another performance skill to engage early on. Lesson: Analysing and Evaluating a Professional Production, Expressive Skills and Performance Skills — The Actor’s Toolkit
A1d (8 marks, class average 60%): Evaluate how the same actor created mood to enhance the performance, using two listed aspects of their craft. Lesson: Analysing and Evaluating a Professional Production, Dramatic Elements, Conventions and Performance Styles
B1a (2 marks, class average 95%): How you'll use movement or voice to bring a household object to life as a character. Lesson: Devising Ensemble Performance — From Stimulus to Structure, Expressive Skills and Performance Skills — The Actor’s Toolkit
B1b (4 marks, class average 70%): Explain how you'll develop your object-character through improvisation with two interactions and two changes. Lesson: Devising Ensemble Performance — From Stimulus to Structure, Expressive Skills and Performance Skills — The Actor’s Toolkit
B1c (4 marks, class average 65%): Analyse an improvisation that explores a chosen quote through live sound or rhythm. Lesson: Devising Ensemble Performance — From Stimulus to Structure, Dramatic Elements, Conventions and Performance Styles
B1d (3 marks, class average 73%): Explain why the ensemble chose a particular non-realistic performance style, linked to the idea and audience. Lesson: Devising Ensemble Performance — From Stimulus to Structure, Dramatic Elements, Conventions and Performance Styles
B1e (5 marks, class average 60%): Explain a moment of pathos built from the ensemble's energy, recreating a chosen stimulus image. Lesson: Devising Ensemble Performance — From Stimulus to Structure, Expressive Skills and Performance Skills — The Actor’s Toolkit
B1f (7 marks, class average 56%): Analyse how the ensemble creates a climax using two style conventions, props or costume, and a dramatic element. Lesson: Devising Ensemble Performance — From Stimulus to Structure, Dramatic Elements, Conventions and Performance Styles
C1a (2 marks, class average 95%): Briefly describe the Time Traveller character, linked to one aspect of a chosen stimulus image. Lesson: Solo Performance — Working With the Prescribed Structure
C1b (3 marks, class average 73%): Describe how you'll experiment with transforming time and place using one technique and expressive skills. Lesson: Solo Performance — Working With the Prescribed Structure, Expressive Skills and Performance Skills — The Actor’s Toolkit
C1c (4 marks, class average 55%): Script the Time Traveller's arrival at the 2025 conference, with two conventions and a second technique. Lesson: Solo Performance — Working With the Prescribed Structure, Dramatic Elements, Conventions and Performance Styles
C1d (6 marks, class average 47%): Analyse how you performed the final transformation of character, using symbol and production areas. Lesson: Analysing Your Solo Performance — Writing About Your Own Choices, Solo Performance — Working With the Prescribed Structure

2024 Exam

A1a (3 marks, class average 80%): How an actor used one production area to make meaning at a single point in a 2024 playlist play. Lesson: Analysing and Evaluating a Professional Production, Dramatic Elements, Conventions and Performance Styles
A1b (5 marks, class average 64%): Analyse an actor's expressive skill and performance skill in portraying a character at a climax. Lesson: Analysing and Evaluating a Professional Production, Expressive Skills and Performance Skills — The Actor’s Toolkit
A1c (7 marks, class average 57%): Evaluate how one actor established an actor-audience relationship and then kept or changed it. Lesson: Analysing and Evaluating a Professional Production, Expressive Skills and Performance Skills — The Actor’s Toolkit
B1a (2 marks, class average 95%): One idea from the achievement stimulus images and how a chosen image inspires its dramatic potential. Lesson: Devising Ensemble Performance — From Stimulus to Structure
B1b (4 marks, class average 63%): How the ensemble will develop a moment by trialling a symbolic use of a production area. Lesson: Devising Ensemble Performance — From Stimulus to Structure, Dramatic Elements, Conventions and Performance Styles
B1c (3 marks, class average 67%): How the ensemble will use improvisation to explore one convention of its style for a second moment. Lesson: Devising Ensemble Performance — From Stimulus to Structure, Dramatic Elements, Conventions and Performance Styles
B1d (5 marks, class average 62%): Analyse how the ensemble manipulates space, another dramatic element and a new convention in a third moment. Lesson: Devising Ensemble Performance — From Stimulus to Structure, Dramatic Elements, Conventions and Performance Styles
B1e (4 marks, class average 65%): Analyse how the ensemble refines a moment using live sound and recorded sound design. Lesson: Devising Ensemble Performance — From Stimulus to Structure, Analysing Your Ensemble Performance
B2a (2 marks, class average 95%): How the stimulus images inspired the relationship between the two solo characters. Lesson: Solo Performance — Working With the Prescribed Structure
B2b (3 marks, class average 77%): Describe how the actor develops one character by manipulating expressive skills through improvisation. Lesson: Solo Performance — Working With the Prescribed Structure, Expressive Skills and Performance Skills — The Actor’s Toolkit
B2c (4 marks, class average 60%): Brainstorm or script a short opening moment that uses space and shows the characters' relationship. Lesson: Solo Performance — Working With the Prescribed Structure, Dramatic Elements, Conventions and Performance Styles
B2d (5 marks, class average 64%): Analyse a transformation of character using three expressive skills, a production area and one technique. Lesson: Solo Performance — Working With the Prescribed Structure, Expressive Skills and Performance Skills — The Actor’s Toolkit
B2e (3 marks, class average 60%): Describe the moment the characters' relationship changes, using one style convention and one performance skill. Lesson: Solo Performance — Working With the Prescribed Structure, Dramatic Elements, Conventions and Performance Styles

2023 Exam

A1a (2 marks, class average 85%): An actor's use of focus at a single point in a 2023 playlist production. Lesson: Analysing and Evaluating a Professional Production, Expressive Skills and Performance Skills — The Actor’s Toolkit
A1b (5 marks): Judge an actor's use and manipulation of two dramatic elements in a playlist production. Lesson: Analysing and Evaluating a Professional Production, Dramatic Elements, Conventions and Performance Styles
A1c (8 marks, class average 59%): How actors used a convention of the play's performance style, with production areas, to shape the audience relationship. Lesson: Analysing and Evaluating a Professional Production, Dramatic Elements, Conventions and Performance Styles
B1a (2 marks, class average 95%): Choose four zodiac animals from the stimulus and describe their dramatic potential for an ensemble. Lesson: Devising Ensemble Performance — From Stimulus to Structure
B1b (4 marks): Brainstorm how each actor will use expressive skills to communicate their animal character. Lesson: Devising Ensemble Performance — From Stimulus to Structure, Expressive Skills and Performance Skills — The Actor’s Toolkit
B1c (3 marks, class average 70%): How one actor will manipulate a costume or prop to symbolically communicate a character, idea or theme. Lesson: Devising Ensemble Performance — From Stimulus to Structure, Dramatic Elements, Conventions and Performance Styles
B1d (5 marks, class average 60%): Analyse how the ensemble uses improvisation to explore energy, space and one convention for an impact. Lesson: Devising Ensemble Performance — From Stimulus to Structure, Expressive Skills and Performance Skills — The Actor’s Toolkit
B1e (4 marks, class average 63%): Analyse how the ensemble refines its scene, through space and energy, after feedback that the impact is unclear. Lesson: Devising Ensemble Performance — From Stimulus to Structure, Analysing Your Ensemble Performance
B2a (1 mark, class average 99%): Briefly describe the two characters in the solo performance. Lesson: Solo Performance — Working With the Prescribed Structure
B2b (4 marks, class average 70%): Describe one transformation technique from the first character to the second, with contrasting expressive skills. Lesson: Solo Performance — Working With the Prescribed Structure, Expressive Skills and Performance Skills — The Actor’s Toolkit
B2c (3 marks, class average 57%): Explain how the actor shows a transformation of time using mood, sound or tension. Lesson: Solo Performance — Working With the Prescribed Structure, Dramatic Elements, Conventions and Performance Styles
B2d (5 marks, class average 58%): Analyse a transformation of place using rhythm, a convention of the chosen style, and sound design or set pieces. Lesson: Solo Performance — Working With the Prescribed Structure, Dramatic Elements, Conventions and Performance Styles
B2e (4 marks, class average 63%): Script the final moment, in which a character directly addresses the audience about the idea or theme. Lesson: Solo Performance — Working With the Prescribed Structure, Analysing Your Solo Performance — Writing About Your Own Choices