Year 9 study guides

Year 9 guides build on Year 8. Maths covers the full Year 9 content (including quadratics and trigonometry), and History runs from the Industrial Revolution to World War I.

There are 37 guides across five subjects. In each subject, start with the revision hub: it maps every topic, gives a two-week study plan and ends with a full mock exam. Then work through the topic guides in order. Guides marked Free can be read without a subscription.

Maths

1. Exam revision hubStart here
   Start here for Year 9 Maths exams: a topic map linking every guide section, a formula sheet, a two-week plan, every key term as flashcards, and a 70-mark mock exam with full worked answers.
2. Real Numbers and Scientific NotationFree
   The real number system, exact and approximate values, locating square roots on the number line, scientific notation, SI prefixes from pico to tera, significant figures and very large and very small measurements. Worked examples, answer-checkers and exam-style practice.
3. Index Laws, Expanding and Factorising
   Index laws with variables, zero and negative indices, simplifying, the distributive law, binomial products, perfect squares, the difference of two squares and factorising monic quadratics. Worked examples, answer-checkers and exam-style practice.
4. Linear Relations, Coordinate Geometry and Direct Proportion
   Solving linear equations, sketching straight lines, gradient, midpoint and distance on the Cartesian plane, direct proportion, rates, simple interest and linear models. Worked examples, answer-checkers and exam-style practice.
5. Quadratic Functions and Equations
   Recognising quadratics, tables and parabolas, turning points and intercepts, solving graphically and numerically, the null factor law, solving monic quadratic equations, how changing parameters moves a graph, and quadratic models.
6. Surface Area, Volume and Measurement Error
   Area, volume and capacity units, surface area of prisms and cylinders, volume of prisms and cylinders, composite objects, finding missing dimensions, and absolute, relative and percentage error with upper and lower bounds.
7. Similarity, Pythagoras and Trigonometry
   Enlargements and scale factors, similar figures, scale drawings, Pythagoras' theorem and the triangle inequality, sine, cosine and tangent, finding sides and angles, angles of elevation and depression, and geometric algorithms.
8. Statistics and Probability
   Reading survey reports, sampling methods and bias, back-to-back stem-and-leaf plots, skew and outliers, choosing displays, statistical investigations, two-step chance experiments with and without replacement, 'and' and 'or' probabilities, and simulations.

English

1. Exam revision hubStart here
   Start here for Year 9 English exams: a skills map linking every guide section, a two-week plan, every key term as flashcards, and a 67-mark mock exam with an original unseen story, language questions, podcast and visual analysis and a writing task.
2. Language for Effect
   Year 9 language skills that lift analysis and writing: language and relationships, direct and indirect evaluation, vocabulary, style, mood and tone, deliberate fragments, cohesion and text connectives, abstract nouns and nominalisation, punctuation for quoting and citing, and spelling for effect.
3. Analysing Argument, Media and Multimodal Texts
   Year 9 critical literacy: how language builds a perspective, bias and representation, comparing two opinion pieces, spoken argument, symbols in images, film techniques and sound, parody and subversion, and checking claims with SIFT.
4. Imaginative and Reflective Writing
   Year 9 creative writing that experiments: narrative voice, unreliable and second-person narrators, non-linear and frame structures, hybrid forms, motif, pacing, reflective essays, transformations, writer's statements and editing in layers.
5. Literary Analysis and Comparing Texts
   Year 9 text response for novels, poetry, drama and film: representation and context, metonymy, allegory, symbolism and intertextuality, style, personal response, analytical essays and comparative essays, with an original poem and scene.
6. Speaking, Listening and Presenting
   Year 9 oral skills: audience and formality, structuring a talk, features of voice, body language, slides, speeches, podcasts, panels and debating roles, critical listening and discussion, with an original annotated speech.

Science

1. Exam revision hubStart here
   Start here for Year 9 Science exams: a topic map linking every guide section, the key equations, a two-week plan, every key term as flashcards, and a 61-mark mock exam with full answers.
2. Coordination and Homeostasis
   How the nervous, endocrine and immune systems detect and respond to change: stimulus–response pathways, neurons and reflexes, hormones, negative feedback for temperature, glucose and water, and how the body defends against disease. Diagrams, checkers and exam practice.
3. Reproduction
   Sexual and asexual reproduction in animals and plants: gametes and fertilisation, the human reproductive system, flowers, pollination and seeds, cloning and propagation, and how each strategy helps a species survive, with Australian case studies and exam practice.
4. The Carbon Cycle
   How carbon moves between Earth's four spheres: photosynthesis, respiration, combustion, decomposition, ocean exchange and rock formation, fast and slow carbon, and what Australia's Kennaook/Cape Grim records show about rising carbon dioxide. Diagram, data skills and exam practice.
5. Energy Transfer, Waves and Efficiency
   Particle and wave models of energy transfer: conduction, convection and radiation, wave features and v = fλ, sound, ultrasound and echoes, light and the electromagnetic spectrum, conservation of energy and efficiency calculations, with Australian technology stories.
6. Atoms, Isotopes and Radioactivity
   How the model of the atom changed from Dalton to Chadwick, protons, neutrons and electrons, atomic and mass numbers, isotopes, alpha, beta and gamma decay, half-life calculations, and how Australia uses radioisotopes in medicine and dating.
7. Chemical Reactions and Conservation of Mass
   How atoms rearrange in chemical reactions: word equations, formulas, particle models and balanced equations, the law of conservation of mass, combustion, acids with metals, carbonates and bases, and reaction types and rates as extension. Worked examples, checkers and practice.
8. Science Inquiry and Human Endeavour
   Year 9 investigation skills and the nature of science: hypotheses and models, valid and reproducible methods, sample size and precision, processing data, anomalies and errors, evaluating claims, peer review, and how society shapes and adopts science, with Australian examples.

History

1. Exam revision hubStart here
   Start here for Year 9 History exams: a topic map linking every guide section, a two-week plan, every key term as flashcards, and a mock exam with knowledge questions, source analysis using invented sources and real referendum data, and an extended response.
2. Historical Skills: Sources, Perspectives and Interpretations
   Year 9 history skills for 1750–1918: inquiry questions, chronology, analysing and corroborating sources, accuracy, reliability and usefulness, absent voices, contested interpretations, causes and consequences, significance and writing a sustained argument, with invented practice sources.
3. The Industrial Revolution
   Why industrialisation began in Britain, the machines and steam power that built factories and railways, life and work for men, women and children, factory and mines laws, Chartism, new ideas from capitalism to socialism, and the links to Australia.
4. Movements of People: Slavery, Convicts, Settlers and Indentured Labour
   Why people moved, 1750–1914: push and pull factors, the transatlantic slave trade and abolition, the Irish Famine, convict transportation, free and assisted settlers, the gold rush migrations, Pacific Islander indentured labour, and the effects on colonised peoples.
5. Colonisation, Frontier Conflict and First Nations Perspectives
   Australia 1788–1900 from many perspectives: First Nations Countries before 1788, why Britain colonised, Cook's instructions and terra nullius, expanding settlement, frontier conflict and massacres, contested figures, protection laws, resistance and survival.
6. Making a Nation: Gold, Democracy, Federation and White Australia
   Australia 1851–1914: the gold rushes, Eureka and colonial democracy, non-European experiences, nationalism, the steps to Federation, the White Australia policy, votes for women, the 'social laboratory' reforms, life around 1900, and the debates historians have about them.
7. World War I: Australians at War and at Home
   Australia and the First World War, 1914–1918: causes, why Australians enlisted, Gallipoli, the Western Front and the Middle East, trench warfare and new weapons, the home front, conscription referendums, returned soldiers, Versailles, and debates about Anzac.
8. Asia and the World: Japan's Transformation, 1750–1914
   The Asia option for Year 9: Tokugawa Japan and sakoku, Perry's ships and the unequal treaties, the Meiji Restoration and its reforms, the Satsuma Rebellion, the Meiji Constitution, wars with China and Russia, Korea, and a comparison with Qing China.

Geography

1. Exam revision hubStart here
   Start here for Year 9 Geography exams: a topic map linking every guide section, a two-week plan, every key term as flashcards, and a 50-mark mock exam with knowledge questions, real data analysis and an extended response, with full marking guides.
2. Biomes of the World and Australia
   What biomes are and why they sit where they do: climate, soils and vegetation, land and water biomes, productivity, reading climographs, Australia's biomes compared with Indonesia's, and how the four spheres and human activity change them.
3. Food Production and its Environmental Effects
   How people turn biomes into farms, what drives crop yields in Australia and Asia, the wheat and rice stories in real FAO and ABS data, agricultural innovation, and the environmental costs: clearing, soil and water degradation, salinity and runoff to the Reef.
4. Food Security and Feeding the Future
   What food security means, how many people go hungry in the world and in Australia, population projections to 2100, the environmental, economic and political constraints on feeding everyone, food waste, First Nations food knowledge, and strategies that work.
5. Interconnections: Transport, Technology and Tourism
   How transport and digital technologies connect people to services, information and each other; the digital divide in the world and in Australia; services delivered across borders; the growth and impacts of tourism; managing Uluṟu-Kata Tjuṯa; and how trends and diseases spread.
6. Interconnections: Trade, Production and Consumption
   Why places trade, Australia's trading partners and exports in real DFAT data, how trade changes over time and at every scale, the effects of producing and consuming goods on places, embodied carbon, e-waste and supply chains, and strategies for more sustainable production and consumption.
7. Geographical Skills: Inquiry, Data and Fieldwork
   The Year 9 skills toolkit: writing inquiry questions, primary and secondary data, planning fieldwork, choosing the right graph or map, reading choropleths and scatter graphs, calculating percentage change and population density, drawing conclusions and evaluating strategies.