Command terms by state: what analyse, evaluate and discuss ask for in your exam

Exam questions carry two kinds of information. The content words tell you what the question is about. The command term tells you what to do with it. "Describe the process of transcription" and "Explain why transcription is necessary" share every content word and ask for different answers: the first wants the stages in order, the second wants a reason chained to a consequence.

Markers write their guides around the verb. A describe question earns marks for accurate features; an explain question earns them for the causal link; an evaluate question earns them for the judgement and the evidence behind it. Answering the wrong verb well is one of the most common ways strong students lose marks, and it is entirely fixable.

It helps to think of command terms on a ladder. At the bottom, recall verbs (define, identify, state) want a fact. Description verbs (describe, outline, summarise) want features or main points. Explanation verbs (explain, account for, interpret) want a how or a why. Analysis verbs (analyse, compare, distinguish) want the thing taken apart and its parts related. At the top, evaluation verbs (evaluate, assess, justify, discuss) want a judgement backed by evidence.

Be clear about where that ladder comes from. No Australian board publishes a five-level grouping. Every current official glossary is a flat alphabetical list. The closest thing to an official grouping is a 2018 Queensland sheet that sorts verbs into three categories, and QCAA has since replaced its glossary with a flat framework. The ladder is a study tool, useful for sequencing practice from easy to hard, not a marking scheme. When a board's definition places a verb higher or lower than you would expect, the board wins.

Victoria (VCE): VCAA Glossary of command terms

One glossary of 39 terms, used across F–10 and every VCE study design. There is no grouping and no study-specific additions; the study designs simply link to it. The VCAA's own advice is worth taking literally: learn terms in the context of the questions you are working on, do not read the definitions too prescriptively, and expect a verb like evaluate to demand something different in Mathematics than in History. Notable absences from the list include "to what extent", "critically analyse" and "design".

New South Wales (HSC): NESA Glossary of key words

NESA calls them key words, not command terms. The glossary sits in the HSC Student Guide and is current: NESA amended two entries in April 2025, changing "apply" to mean use in a new or unfamiliar situation and splitting "critically analyse" from "critically evaluate". The other entries are unchanged in substance from the Board of Studies list of the early 2000s. NESA also says plainly that HSC questions will keep using self-explanatory forms such as "how", "why" and "to what extent", and verbs outside the list, so the glossary is a floor, not a ceiling.

Queensland (QCE): QCAA Cognitive verb framework

Queensland changed the most recently. In August 2025 QCAA replaced its 2018 Glossary of cognitive verbs with a Cognitive verb framework of 117 verbs. The entries are purpose statements rather than dictionary definitions, describing what each verb is for and the subject-specific processes it involves. There is no level grouping in the framework; the older three-category sheet (retrieval and comprehension, analytical processes, knowledge utilisation) is still hosted. QCAA's handbook tells schools to unpack cognitive verbs with students against the marking guides, and its subject reports tell students to read the verb and the marks together.

Western Australia (WACE): SCSA Glossary of key words used in the formulation of questions

One generic glossary, linked from every ATAR, General and Foundation course page, and the document SCSA uses to write ATAR examination questions. A new edition came into force in 2026 with ten added terms (including derive, judge, prove and solve) and several rewordings. The glossary notes that definitions are generic across courses but that some terms take a course-specific meaning from the syllabus.

South Australia and the Northern Territory (SACE and NTCET): no glossary

The SACE Board publishes no glossary of command words, board-wide or within any subject outline. The verbs still matter: assessment design criteria and performance standards turn on analyse, evaluate, apply and justify, and past external assessments use describe, explain, discuss and compare heavily. Captivate's SACE set is built from those documents with definitions written by us, and it says so on the page. Check your subject outline and past papers on the SACE website.

Australian Capital Territory: BSSS Glossary of verbs

The ACT does publish a list, contrary to a common claim. The Board of Senior Secondary Studies keeps a Glossary of Verbs in its Policy and Procedures Manual and reproduces it in every course framework and course document, so the same 36 definitions apply across ACT courses, with "critically analyse" added in the humanities framework. Several definitions differ from the Australian Curriculum wording.

Tasmania (TCE): no single list

TASC publishes no system-wide glossary. Its exam development manual asks question writers to match command terms to the intended demand but defines only "evaluate". Individual course documents carry their own glossaries of uneven depth, and some defer to the Australian Curriculum senior secondary glossary. Captivate uses that ACARA glossary as the Tasmanian base and layers course notes on top.

The differences are at the margin, and the margin is where marks live. A few that matter:

• Discuss. Victoria wants a balanced argument weighing strengths against weaknesses. NESA and SCSA ask for issues and points for and/or against. QCAA and the ACT frame it as examining a subject while taking in different perspectives, with no for-and-against structure required.
• Compare. Victoria requires you to say why the similarities and differences are significant. NESA asks only how things are similar or different. SCSA says similar and different, so a WA answer needs both.
• Apply. Since April 2025, NESA means use in a different, new or unfamiliar situation. WA and the ACT keep the older reading of using something in a particular situation.
• Examine. Victoria treats it as analysis: surface assumptions, possibilities and relationships. NESA defines it as inquiring into, which reads closer to a deep description.
• Justify. NESA asks you to support an argument or conclusion. Victoria specifies reasoning and evidence drawn from the data or information given, so cite the material in the question.
• Evaluate in mathematics. The Australian Curriculum glossary and the VCAA both flag that evaluate in Mathematics means calculate a value, not make a judgement.

The Command Terms trainer has a compare-states view that lists these divergences for any two systems, drawn from the same verification as this guide.

Command terms are a vocabulary problem with a schema attached: you need to know what the word means and what shape of answer it triggers. The memory research on vocabulary applies directly, and two findings dominate. Retrieval practice, testing yourself rather than re-reading, produces memory that is still there weeks later. Spacing, revisiting at expanding intervals, beats massed cramming on every delayed test. Combined, spaced retrieval is the most reliably effective study method in the literature.

1. Read your board's official glossary once, in the context of questions from your subjects rather than as a list. Every board says this in its own words.
2. Make a card for each verb with a definition, one example question from your subject, and the response structure it demands. Drill them in short sessions across weeks, not in one sitting.
3. In every practice question, box the command term before you plan, and read the marks as a depth cue. Make the habit mechanical so it survives exam stress.
4. Mine past papers for their command terms and group your practice by verb, not just by topic. Mark your answers against the official marking guide or examiner report, which shows exactly what shape earned the marks.
5. Quiz a study partner and explain your response structure aloud. Keep revisiting verbs you have already mastered on a lengthening schedule.