VCE Vault

VCE Geography past exams 2023–2025

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

2025 Exam

  • Q1 (3 marks, class average 67%): One natural characteristic of a forest, described. Lesson: Land Cover Change — Deforestation, Melting Ice and Desertification
  • Q2a (4 marks, class average 70%): One environmental and one social impact of deforestation in your case study. Lesson: Land Cover Change — Deforestation, Melting Ice and Desertification
  • Q2b (6 marks, class average 48%): A problem that social impact creates, and why responding to it is hard. Lesson: Land Cover Change — Deforestation, Melting Ice and Desertification
  • Q3 (4 marks, class average 78%): Compare where grassland and coniferous forest occur by latitude, using a graph. Lesson: Land Cover Change — Deforestation, Melting Ice and Desertification, Geography Fieldwork and Exam Strategy
  • Q4a (1 mark, class average 48%): Compass direction of flow of an Icelandic glacier, from a map. Lesson: Land Cover Change — Deforestation, Melting Ice and Desertification, Geography Fieldwork and Exam Strategy
  • Q4b (2 marks, class average 65%): Glacier length in 1890 and 2010, read from a cross-section. Lesson: Land Cover Change — Deforestation, Melting Ice and Desertification, Geography Fieldwork and Exam Strategy
  • Q4c (2 marks, class average 55%): The difference between a glacier and an ice sheet. Lesson: Land Cover Change — Deforestation, Melting Ice and Desertification
  • Q5 (10 marks, class average 51%): Evaluate a claim that geospatial technology has done little to assess and manage ice melt at one location. Lesson: Land Cover Change — Deforestation, Melting Ice and Desertification, Geography Fieldwork and Exam Strategy
  • Q6a (2 marks, class average 90%): The land use change at your fieldwork site. Lesson: Land Use Change — Causes and Patterns, Geography Fieldwork and Exam Strategy
  • Q6b (6 marks, class average 62%): How two geographic characteristics have influenced the land use change at your site. Lesson: Land Use Change — Causes and Patterns, Geography Fieldwork and Exam Strategy
  • Q7 (12 marks, class average 68%): Describe forced, voluntary and long-term migration with a different origin and destination for each. Lesson: Migration — Causes, Patterns and Impacts
  • Q8a (2 marks, class average 80%): Use a population pyramid to show a country is in a demographic dividend. Lesson: Human Population — Dynamics and the DTM, Population Challenges — Growing and Ageing Populations
  • Q8b (4 marks, class average 70%): Predict a challenge the dividend will bring in 30 to 40 years, using the pyramid. Lesson: Population Challenges — Growing and Ageing Populations, Human Population — Dynamics and the DTM
  • Q9 (10 marks, class average 53%): Discuss how a growing country's population structure has changed over time, with sketches. Lesson: Human Population — Dynamics and the DTM, Population Challenges — Growing and Ageing Populations
  • Q10a (2 marks, class average 85%): Two issues caused by ageing in a selected country. Lesson: Population Challenges — Growing and Ageing Populations
  • Q10b (2 marks, class average 80%): A strategy that responds to one of those issues. Lesson: Population Challenges — Growing and Ageing Populations, Population Policy and Australia's Demographics
  • Q10c (8 marks, class average 60%): How well that ageing strategy has worked, judged on evidence. Lesson: Population Challenges — Growing and Ageing Populations, Population Policy and Australia's Demographics

2024 Exam

  • Q1a (4 marks, class average 70%): Two reasons for current deforestation at a location you studied. Lesson: Land Cover Change — Deforestation, Melting Ice and Desertification
  • Q1b (6 marks, class average 60%): Two methods used to measure forest loss in your case study, and how each works there. Lesson: Land Cover Change — Deforestation, Melting Ice and Desertification, Geography Fieldwork and Exam Strategy
  • Q1c (6 marks, class average 63%): How well one way of managing forest loss has worked in your case study. Lesson: Land Cover Change — Deforestation, Melting Ice and Desertification, Land Degradation and Rehabilitation
  • Q2 (4 marks, class average 65%): The scale of ice melt over a defined period at a location you studied. Lesson: Land Cover Change — Deforestation, Melting Ice and Desertification
  • Q3 (10 marks, class average 49%): Discuss how natural processes and human activity together cause melting ice at a location. Lesson: Land Cover Change — Deforestation, Melting Ice and Desertification
  • Q4a (3 marks, class average 63%): How satellite images or remote sensing would help identify the road-widening land use change. Lesson: Geography Fieldwork and Exam Strategy, Land Use Change — Causes and Patterns
  • Q4b (3 marks, class average 67%): Another data source for investigating the change, and why it is valuable. Lesson: Geography Fieldwork and Exam Strategy, Land Use Change — Causes and Patterns
  • Q4c (4 marks, class average 70%): A geospatial tool from your own fieldwork and how you used it on the land use change. Lesson: Geography Fieldwork and Exam Strategy, Land Use Change — Causes and Patterns
  • Q5 (4 marks, class average 73%): Two demographic characteristics showing a country has an ageing population. Lesson: Population Challenges — Growing and Ageing Populations, Human Population — Dynamics and the DTM
  • Q6 (6 marks, class average 68%): Describe how the spread of countries with natural population decrease changes between 2000 and 2050 on two maps. Lesson: Human Population — Dynamics and the DTM, Population Challenges — Growing and Ageing Populations
  • Q7a (4 marks, class average 68%): Two reasons for the large share aged 19 and under in Country A's 1970 population structure. Lesson: Human Population — Dynamics and the DTM, Population Challenges — Growing and Ageing Populations
  • Q7b (6 marks, class average 50%): How falling infant mortality could raise Country A's life expectancy over several decades. Lesson: Human Population — Dynamics and the DTM, Population Challenges — Growing and Ageing Populations
  • Q8a (4 marks, class average 50%): The main reasons Malthus gave for rises and falls in population growth. Lesson: Human Population — Dynamics and the DTM
  • Q8b (6 marks, class average 65%): To what extent a scatter graph of fertility and severe food insecurity supports Malthus. Lesson: Human Population — Dynamics and the DTM
  • Q9 (10 marks, class average 54%): Why a fast-growing country faces the problems it does, and what drives them. Lesson: Population Challenges — Growing and Ageing Populations, Human Population — Dynamics and the DTM, Population Policy and Australia's Demographics

2023 Exam

  • Q1a (1 mark, class average 84%): Use a land categories map of New Britain, PNG, to find where rainforest became commercial plantation. Lesson: Land Cover Change — Deforestation, Melting Ice and Desertification, Geography Fieldwork and Exam Strategy
  • Q1b (1 mark, class average 80%): Use the same map to find where rainforest changed to secondary growth. Lesson: Land Cover Change — Deforestation, Melting Ice and Desertification, Geography Fieldwork and Exam Strategy
  • Q1c (1 mark, class average 47%): The main land cover that Kimbe's urban growth will replace in one grid square. Lesson: Land Cover Change — Deforestation, Melting Ice and Desertification, Geography Fieldwork and Exam Strategy
  • Q1d (1 mark, class average 55%): One more limitation on plantation expansion in a grid square near the coast. Lesson: Land Cover Change — Deforestation, Melting Ice and Desertification, Geography Fieldwork and Exam Strategy
  • Q2a (6 marks, class average 60%): Two ways forest clearing has harmed the environment in your case study. Lesson: Land Cover Change — Deforestation, Melting Ice and Desertification
  • Q2b (6 marks, class average 67%): Evaluate how well a response to one of those impacts worked at the same location. Lesson: Land Cover Change — Deforestation, Melting Ice and Desertification, Land Degradation and Rehabilitation
  • Q3 (10 marks, class average 56%): Economic and social effects of melting ice in your case study location. Lesson: Land Cover Change — Deforestation, Melting Ice and Desertification
  • Q4 (4 marks, class average 60%): Describe a local response to one impact from Question 3. Lesson: Land Cover Change — Deforestation, Melting Ice and Desertification, Land Degradation and Rehabilitation
  • Q5a (5 marks, class average 66%): Describe a geospatial technology from your fieldwork and how it helped answer your research question. Lesson: Geography Fieldwork and Exam Strategy, Land Use Change — Causes and Patterns
  • Q5b (5 marks, class average 66%): Evaluate how land use change at your fieldwork site has affected, or will affect, the surrounding region. Lesson: Land Use Change — Causes and Patterns, Geography Fieldwork and Exam Strategy
  • Q6a (5 marks, class average 68%): What Country A's low fertility rate means for its future population structure. Lesson: Human Population — Dynamics and the DTM, Population Challenges — Growing and Ageing Populations
  • Q6b (5 marks, class average 60%): What Country B's falling but high fertility rate means for its future population structure. Lesson: Human Population — Dynamics and the DTM, Population Challenges — Growing and Ageing Populations
  • Q7 (4 marks, class average 73%): Describe where Buenos Aires' informal settlements are, using a satellite image. Lesson: Urbanisation — Growth, Megacities, Liveability, Geography Fieldwork and Exam Strategy
  • Q8 (6 marks, class average 42%): Explain how rural-to-urban migration leads to informal settlements around the world. Lesson: Migration — Causes, Patterns and Impacts, Urbanisation — Growth, Megacities, Liveability
  • Q9 (10 marks, class average 56%): Use one criterion to evaluate a country's strategies for its ageing population. Lesson: Population Challenges — Growing and Ageing Populations, Population Policy and Australia's Demographics
  • Q10a (2 marks, class average 85%): A current demographic issue in a country with a growing population. Lesson: Population Challenges — Growing and Ageing Populations
  • Q10b (8 marks, class average 57%): Discuss cultural and economic causes of that issue. Lesson: Population Challenges — Growing and Ageing Populations, Human Population — Dynamics and the DTM