NSW Visual Arts Stage 6 syllabus structure, expressed in Dux teaching language.
Dux tracks each dot point separately, so “I did Visual Arts” becomes a list of specific things you can already do and specific things you have never been asked. Open a module for all of its dot points, written out.
The body of work: concept development, experimentation, documentation, refinement and resolution. Assessed through the submitted work and process diary.
The four frames as interpretive lenses, and the conceptual framework of artist, artwork, world and audience that organises how a work is analysed.
Specific artists, movements and works studied in depth, and the craft of writing about art so that an interpretation is argued rather than asserted.
How art engages with politics, identity and institutions, including the gallery, the market and the politics of display.
A Visual Arts paper is not one question type repeated. Each command word asks for a different shape of answer, and each is worth a different number of marks.
| Command word | Question type | Marks |
|---|---|---|
| analyse | Short answer | 4–6 |
| compare | Short answer | 4–6 |
| evaluate | Short answer | 3–5 |
| evaluate | Extended response | 8–10 |
| explain | Short answer | 3–5 |
| explain | Extended response | 6–8 |
| identify | Multiple choice | 1 |
| justify | Short answer | 2–4 |
HSC Visual Arts - Written Paper Shape — 50 marks, 90 minutes. Practice papers in Dux are assembled to this shape rather than invented, so the timing is training too.
Diagnostic first, then questions written in the shape this course uses. Written answers come back marked against the bands, not just scored.