QCAA Philosophy & Reason study guide
QCAA Philosophy & Reason · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
Philosophy & Reason is a General senior syllabus published by the Queensland Curriculum & Assessment Authority (QCAA) for Queensland senior secondary students. The current syllabus is the Philosophy & Reason General senior syllabus 2025 (v1.3), and the QCAA states it is for implementation with students who will complete their study of the course in 2026 or beyond. The syllabus page lists an associated document, Key senior subject changes: For external assessment in 2026, which signals that external assessment arrangements change from 2026, so candidates should confirm which version applies to their cohort rather than relying on older past papers alone. Assessment in this subject combines school-based internal assessment with a QCAA external assessment. The QCAA Philosophy & Reason study guide has 3 sections and about 1,263 words.
01Unit 3 IA1: The Examination - Extended Response in Philosophy and Reason
The IA1 extended response asks you to construct and defend a sustained philosophical argument under timed conditions. You are not being tested on memorising a canon of names; you are being tested on whether you can identify a philosophical problem, take a defensible position, support it with reasons, and answer the strongest objection to it.
435 words, about 2 min02Unit 3 IA2: The Analytical Essay - Reconstructing and Assessing Arguments
The IA2 analytical essay is a close-reading exercise. Rather than defending your own thesis, you reconstruct an argument - usually from a short passage or a stated position - in standard form , then assess it.
412 words, about 2 min03Unit 4 IA3: The Analytical Essay - Philosophical Problems and Critical Assessment
The Unit 4 IA3 analytical essay raises the level of expectation: you must engage with a substantive philosophical problem, situate your treatment within a recognised debate, and assess competing positions critically rather than merely describing them. The concepts you must understand include: the problem of induction , the is–ought gap , the nature of knowledge and justification (including Gettier-style cases) , free will and determinism (compatibilism versus incompatibilism) , personal identity over time , moral relativism versus objectivism , and the principle of sufficient reason .
416 words, about 2 min