General Maths Paper 1 and Paper 2: what to expect in 2026

General Maths Paper 1 is on Thursday afternoon, and Paper 2 is on Friday morning. Two papers in less than a day is a lot, so I wanted to give you a clear picture of what each one tends to ask before you sit down to revise tonight.

I went back through every past QCAA General Mathematics external exam from 2020 to 2025: 151 Paper 1 questions and 42 Paper 2 questions, each sorted by topic. Some question types turn up almost every year. Even better, the multiple choice pages on this site show how Queensland students actually answered, so we can see exactly where the marks have gone missing.

First, a quick reminder of how the papers are set out. You have a scientific calculator and the QCAA formula book for both.

• Paper 1 is all simple familiar. Questions 1 to 15 are multiple choice, and 16 to 25 are short response, 57 marks in all. (2020 had one extra short response question.)
• Paper 2 is seven longer questions, 38 marks in all since 2021. Since then, Questions 1 to 4 have been complex familiar and Questions 5 to 7 complex unfamiliar.

Keep in mind that a pattern is a guide, not a guarantee. Where a pattern has already broken, I will point it out.

Paper 1 at a glance

These are the Paper 1 short response questions that keep coming back. Every question number below opens the worked solution.

By marks, networks and bivariate data are the two biggest parts of Paper 1, at about a quarter each. Loans and investments come next, at about a fifth, then Earth geometry and time zones at about one in seven.

Paper 1: the loan question you can count on

A reducing balance loan has been in the Paper 1 short response every year since 2020. Some years you find a monthly repayment (2020 Q20, 2021 Q17, 2023 Q17). In three of the last four years, though, you were asked to write a recurrence relation for the balance (2022 Q25 and the two below), and in the last two you also had to run it.

• 2024 Q22: a $15 000 loan at 8.4% p.a. with $250 a month. Write the recurrence relation using the monthly rate, then find the balance after two months.
• 2025 Q20: a $24 000 loan at 5.4% p.a. with $557 a month, with the same two steps.

The rule looks like \(A_{n+1}=rA_n-d\), where \(r=1+i\) and \(i\) is the rate per period. Two slips to watch for are using the yearly rate every month, and writing 1.045 when the monthly rate is 0.45%, so \(r\) should be 1.0045. My advice is to write \(i\) on its own line before you do anything else, because it earns a mark of its own.

The multiple choice questions that caught Queensland out

Every General Maths multiple choice page on this site shows how Queensland students answered it. When I sorted them from hardest to easiest, the same four traps kept coming up.

The effective annual rate

Three of the 20 hardest multiple choice questions since 2021 are about the effective rate.

• 2025 MC13: 3.64% p.a. compounding quarterly, for a two-year investment. Only 44.9% of students got this one right. One in five chose 7.28%, which doubles the rate for the two years. The effective annual rate is always for one year, and the two years in the question is there to tempt you.
• 2021 MC15: which investment gives the best return? 34.0% got it right. More students chose daily compounding, because it feels like more compounding should always win. That option had the lowest nominal rate, so it did not.
• 2024 MC14: which change does not affect the effective rate? 44.3% got it right.

The method is the same every time. Find \(i\) for one period, count the periods in one year as \(k\), and use \(i_{\text{effective}}=(1+i)^k-1\). Then check the size of your answer, because compounding more than once a year only lifts the rate a little above the nominal rate. For the short response versions, try 2020 Q25 and 2023 Q19, which both compare two investments, and 2025 Q22, which asks for the effective rate of a perpetuity.

Distances on the Earth

The formula itself is simple, but choosing the right version of it is where students come unstuck.

• 2022 MC15: which two cities are 556 km apart? Only 29.8% got it right. The most popular wrong answer put the two cities on the same parallel and left the cosine off.
• 2025 MC12: one place at 18.7° N and one at 12.4° S. 48.5% got it right. Subtracting the latitudes only works when both places are on the same side of the equator, so here you add them.
• 2021 MC10: when does the sun rise in a city 45° further west? 33.2% got it right. Many students found the right size, 3 hours, but went the wrong direction. The sun rises in the east first, so the city further west sees it later.

Before you calculate anything, decide whether you are on a meridian (same longitude, \(111.2\times\) the angle) or a parallel (same latitude, \(111.2\cos(\text{latitude})\times\) the angle), and whether you cross the equator. Then give 2025 Q18 and 2021 Q21 a go. Both name a place from its coordinates and then find a distance along a parallel.

What \(t_1\) and \(n\) actually mean

The hardest General Maths multiple choice question since 2021 is a sequences question.

• 2021 MC9: a staircase 1.2 m high gets \(n\) extra 25 cm stairs. Only 17.5% got it right! Nearly half put 1.2 and 25 straight into the formula, without converting the metres or checking what the first term is.
• 2023 MC6: 40 fish in January 2022, doubling each year until January 2030. 36.2% got it right. More students chose \(n=8\), because 2030 − 2022 = 8, but that counts the doublings rather than the terms.
• 2023 MC15: a boat losing value geometrically. 41.4% got it right. About a quarter shrank the drops by a fixed amount instead of by the ratio.

A habit that helps here is writing out \(t_1\), \(t_2\) and \(t_3\) as a list before you choose a rule. Then check that your rule gives you back those three numbers.

Reading bivariate statistics carefully

2024 MC3 asked what \(R^2=0.36\) means. Only 24.6% got it right, and the most popular answer swapped the explanatory and response variables. 2021 MC4, on what a confounding variable is, sat at 37.5%. It is worth learning how to describe \(r\), \(R^2\), the slope and the intercept in context, because the short response asks for it too (2025 Q24, 2024 Q20).

Paper 1: the rest of the short response

Networks

There has been at least one network short response question every year, and usually two or three. These are the ones that come back most often:

• Critical path analysis, with ESTs, LSTs and float times: 2021 Q19, 2023 Q24 and 2025 Q25.
• Minimum spanning trees used to test a claim: 2024 Q23 and 2025 Q23.
• Planar graphs and Euler’s formula: 2023 Q20 and 2024 Q17.
• Adjacency matrices: 2023 Q23 and 2024 Q24.

Scatterplots

Four of the six papers asked you to construct a scatterplot and describe the association by its direction, form and strength. Try 2022 Q24 and 2024 Q19, and remember to put the explanatory variable on the horizontal axis.

Time zones

2025 Q16 asks for the time and day in Santa Cruz (GMT −8) when it is 2:00 pm Monday in Nagano (GMT +9). The day is a separate mark, so check whether you have crossed midnight. 2020 Q23 and 2021 Q25 add a flight time on top.

Time series

Seasonal indices turned up in the short response in 2024 and 2025 (2024 Q25, 2025 Q19), and a moving average has been a multiple choice question in most years.

Paper 2: what the seven questions look like

Paper 2 is where the longer questions with less scaffolding live. Many of them finish with a claim to test or advice to give: “at least $3000 better off”, “at least $138 000 can be saved”, “in under 15 minutes”, “more than $4 million”. In those questions, the last mark is for a clear decision backed by a number, so make sure you finish with one after your calculation.

Sequences: the complex unfamiliar question to expect

For five years running, one of the three complex unfamiliar questions has been built on a sequence:

• 2021 Q7: song plays growing exponentially, and whether the songwriter is owed $1000 after 60 days.
• 2022 Q6: the slopes and intercepts of a pattern of lines form two sequences.
• 2023 Q5: a security patrol where the road lengths form an arithmetic sequence.
• 2024 Q6: meals growing arithmetically and accommodation growing geometrically.
• 2025 Q6: two hikers walking towards each other along the same track.

Three of those five put two sequences side by side and ask when they meet, cross or add to a target. I would strongly recommend practising how to set up both rules with the same \(n\) and compare them term by term.

Least-squares lines from summary statistics

Make sure you can get the line from \(r\), the means and the standard deviations, without the raw data (2021 Q5, 2022 Q3). 2023 Q6 and 2025 Q7 are the complex unfamiliar versions, where you need to decide which model to trust before you make a prediction.

Networks

Expect two or three network questions. Routes through a network (2022 Q4, 2024 Q2, 2025 Q4), minimum spanning trees with a cost attached (2021 Q2, 2022 Q5, 2023 Q3) and the Hungarian algorithm (2020 Q5, 2021 Q6, 2023 Q1, 2024 Q5) have each come up at least three times.

Time zones as a complex unfamiliar question

When Earth geometry has appeared on Paper 2, it has usually been one of the harder questions. 2022 Q7 sends a cruise ship across the International Date Line, and 2024 Q7 asks for the Sydney time partway through a flight to Los Angeles.

A pattern that has already broken

Loans and annuities were on Paper 2 every year from 2020 to 2023, and then not at all in 2024 or 2025. I would not drop them, though. They are on Paper 1 every year, and they could easily come back on Paper 2. 2023 Q7, on funding a perpetuity in retirement, is a good one to revisit.

Two papers in less than a day: a revision plan

If I were sitting these papers this week, this is how I would use the time. Do every question with your calculator and formula book, the way you will on the day, and give yourself about a minute and a half per mark. Then check your work against the marking guide, one mark at a time.

I have also written a full General Maths mock exam for 2026, with both papers, and it will always be free. You can download and print the question books, sit each paper in 90 minutes, and then check every question on the site with hints, a worked solution and the marking guide one mark at a time. Each mock question also links to the past QCAA questions it was modelled on. If you would rather sit a whole paper than work through a list, my advice is to do the mock Paper 1 tonight and the mock Paper 2 on Thursday night, in place of the lists below.

Tonight: Paper 1

• The loan recurrence relation: 2024 Q22, then 2025 Q20.
• The three effective rate questions: 2025 MC13, 2021 MC15 and 2024 MC14. These only take a few minutes all up.
• Earth distances: 2022 MC15, 2025 MC12, then 2025 Q18.
• A critical path from start to finish: 2025 Q25.
• The two sequence traps: 2021 MC9 and 2023 MC6.

Thursday night: Paper 2

• Two sequences side by side: 2024 Q6 and 2025 Q6.
• A least-squares line from summary statistics: 2022 Q3.
• A network with a claim to test: 2022 Q5.
• A time zone question across the date line: 2022 Q7.
• After that, put the books away and get a good night’s sleep, because Paper 2 is first thing in the morning.

If you still have time, press “Pick one at random” in the Paper 1 bank and do whatever comes up. Mixing topics is much closer to how the exam feels than working through one topic at a time.

The General Maths game plans and topic guides are free until 13 November, so make the most of them while they are!

Best of luck

Nobody can promise what will be on Thursday’s or Friday’s paper. Loans have already dropped off Paper 2, and the 2026 papers might surprise us in other ways too. Still, six years of past papers tell us a lot about where your last few hours of study will help the most.

You have put in two years of work to get here. Be kind to yourself this week, trust what you know, and remember that your best effort will be good enough. Best of luck on Thursday and Friday!

If you are a Year 11 student starting Units 3 and 4 and want help building these skills earlier, that is what tutoring is for.