The elastic earthquake response of reinforced concrete (RC) frame-core wall structures with high thick-slab transfer storeys was studied. The response spectrum analysis method of mode decomposition was used to investigate the influence of the earthquake intensity, location of the thick-slab transfer storeys, transfer slab thickness and lower storey stiffness on the structural response of these parameters as the structural vibration period, inter-storey displacement and storey shear force. The results demonstrated that the inter-storey displacement and the storey shear force increase with an increase in earthquake intensity. The translational period decreases and the torsion period increases for higher transfer storeys. The structural dominant displacement is increasingly changed from the displacement in upper storeys to the displacement in lower storeys, and a share of the storey shear force increases in frame-supporting columns adjacent to transfer storeys. An overly large transfer slab thickness is disadvantageous to lower storeys because it can amplify the torsion effects of global structure. The structural period ratio increases with an increase in the thickness of core walls, while the structural period ratio decreases with an increase in the cross-section of frame-supporting columns.