ISO 25964 defines a scope note as a "note that defines or clarifies the semantic boundiaries of a concept as it is used in the structured vocabulary. ... A term used to label a concept can have several meanings in normal usage. A scope note is used to restrict the concept to only one of those meanings, and where necessary refers to other concepts that are included or excluded from the scope of the concept being clarified."

GACS includes some scope notes inherited from AGROVOC, CABT, and NALT. It was suggested that these inherited note be dropped from GACS because their "use other term" references typically refer only to terms in AGROVOC, CABT, and NALT, whereas they should refer to other terms in GACS. For now, however, the notes have been retained for their possible future revision.