All students enrolled in a General Year 12 course and/or a Foundation Year 12 course are required to complete the externally set task (EST) developed by the Authority for that course. The EST is compulsory and forms part of the school-based assessment and is included as a separate assessment type with a weighting of 15% for the pair of units.

The ESTs are administered in schools during designated weeks in Term 2 under standard test conditions. The EST will take 50 minutes. The Authority informs schools during Term 3, in the previous year, of the Unit 3 syllabus content on which the task will be based. This notification will enable schools to ensure that the identified content is taught prior to the administration of the EST. The ESTs are marked by teachers in each school using a marking key provided by the Authority.

Information about disability adjustments can be found in the Equitable Access to Assessment Policy and Guidelines.