Our offer for AS and A Level English Literature

Balanced and accessible assessment structure. Two papers with equal weighting, the same number of questions and the same exam duration, to ease the cognitive burden on students.

Choice for students and teachers. Students will study Shakespeare, pre-1900 poetry and drama, and select from five different contextual strands of post-1900 prose (each with eleven possible text choices).

Sensible ways of marking. We adopt a genuinely holistic approach to marking, and we tailor the ways in which the assessment objectives are applied, so that there is a fair and sensible approach to examining all responses. For ‘unseen’ material, there is no AO3 requirement, and for Shakespeare, we explicitly reward commentary on the text in performance.

Diversity is key. Working with Lit in Colour, we’ve added new and exciting diverse text options and associated supporting resources for five additional texts in component 02, including Passing, Girl, Woman, Other and The Lonely Londoners.

Creative freedom for the NEA. Our coursework is unique in offering the choice of close analysis or creative writing for one task, and for a post-1900 focus overall encompassing drama, poetry and prose. There are no set texts, and any new text can be submitted for approval to OCR.

Refining skills and building expertise. Students are encouraged to engage with set texts and wider reading, enhancing their understanding and articulating fresh, individual responses to texts. These skills provide students with thorough preparation for careers and/or further study.

We offer plenty of support. Practice papers, mark schemes and candidate exemplars, as well as resources for teaching and learning and CPD course bookings are all available on Teach Cambridge. We also offer free subject specialist support to all centres via our subject advisor team.