1. A student measures the current flowing through a wire at eight different voltages, giving eight pairs of readings. Which display shows the relationship between the two measurements best?
ICAS Science Paper E (Year 7)
Paper E is sat by Year 7 students — the first ICAS Science paper after the move to high school. It keeps Paper D's 40 questions and adds five minutes: 40 questions in 60 minutes.
Last updated: 5 October 2026
What high school adds
The vocabulary of experimental design. Independent variable, dependent variable, control, reliability, validity. Year 7 is where these get named properly at school, and Paper E assumes them.
The questions do not simply ask for definitions. They ask which variable is which in an unfamiliar experiment, or what would need to change to make a result more reliable — which is a different question from making it more accurate, and the paper knows the difference even when students do not.
What Year 7 content provides
Classification of living things, separating mixtures, forces and simple machines, the water cycle, and Earth's resources. As at every level these are settings; the question underneath is about the reasoning.
The gap that catches Year 7 students
High school science in Year 7 spends much of the year on laboratory routines and safety before moving deep into content. ICAS does not wait. Paper E assumes the experimental-design language and stretches past it, so a student doing well in class can meet a paper that feels ahead of where they are.
That is what the paper is for, not a sign of a problem.
Where marks go
- Naming variables in an unfamiliar set-up — the concept is known, the application to a new context is not
- Reliability versus accuracy. Repeating a measurement improves one, not the other, and questions turn on which is being asked about.
- Multi-step reasoning, where a conclusion depends on combining two separate results
- Questions about what the experiment cannot tell you — a Paper E speciality that has no equivalent in most classrooms
What the mark will look like
ICAS marks run lower than school tests by design. The paper keeps stretching students well past year level, so a result that looks disappointing on a school scale can be a strong ICAS result — read it against the distribution rather than as a percentage.
How to prepare for Paper E
Take any experiment description and practise three sentences: what was changed, what was measured, what was kept the same. Being able to produce those three quickly for an unfamiliar experiment is most of Paper E.
Then sit full papers against the clock — 40 questions in 60 minutes with several data sets still does not leave much room for rereading.
Common questions
Which year level sits ICAS Paper E?
Year 7. ICAS names its papers by letter rather than by year — Paper A is Year 3 and Paper F is Year 8 — so a Year 7 student sits Paper E.
How long is Science Paper E?
40 questions in 60 minutes.
What should a Year 7 student be able to do quickly?
Say what was changed, what was measured, and what was kept the same — for an experiment they have never seen before. Producing those three sentences fast is most of Paper E.
Year 7 also sits: Maths Paper E · English Paper E · Spelling Paper E
Sample questions
Try each one first, then open the answer and worked solution under it.
Answer and worked solution
Correct answer: D
Notice that every reading is a pair: one voltage together with one current.
A display that keeps the pairs together and spreads them out lets any relationship show as a shape.
Plotting each pair as a point, with one measurement on each axis, does exactly that.
A scatter plot with one measurement on each axis shows the relationship best.
2. A model of the body says that the circulatory system carries both oxygen from the lungs and glucose from the gut to every cell. A person swallows food normally but their airway becomes partly blocked. According to the model, what does the blood carry less of?
Answer and worked solution
Correct answer: B
The model gives each cargo its own source: oxygen from the lungs, glucose from the gut.
The blockage is in the airway, which is the route to the lungs, and eating is unaffected.
So the oxygen supply falls while the glucose supply carries on.
The blood carries less oxygen while the glucose supply continues.
3. Density is the mass of an object divided by its volume. A solid metal cube has sides of 4 cm and a mass of 512 g. What is its density?
Answer and worked solution
Correct answer: B
The relationship needs a volume, and only the side length is given, so work the volume out first.
A cube of side 4 cm has a volume of 4 × 4 × 4 = 64 cm³.
Density is then 512 ÷ 64 = 8 g/cm³.
The cube has a density of 8 g/cm³.
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Related papers: Science Paper D (Year 6) · Science Paper F (Year 8)
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