The regulator's own register entry, the assessment-objective weightings by paper, and AQA's February 2025 change to how alkyl-group questions are marked
Book a Free ConsultationAQA A-level Chemistry (7405) is a linear science A-level regulated by Ofqual under qualification number 601/5731/8, currently carrying 360 guided learning hours against the companion AS Chemistry's (7404) 180. AQA's own specification — “AS and A-level Chemistry Specification for AS and A-level exams in 2016 onwards” — is a single live edition, now at Version 1.2, July 2026, with no separate “Current” or “Updated” split of the kind that exists for some other AQA qualifications.
Studying AQA A-level Chemistry (7405)?
Our expert A-level Chemistry tutors help students work through AQA's actual specification — the assessment-objective weightings, the Practical Endorsement, and the topics AQA itself now flags for revised marking — rather than a generic revision timetable.
Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppAQA's specification pages describe what the course covers. They do not carry the regulatory data that sits, instead, on Ofqual's own register of regulated qualifications — and that register states more plainly, in the regulator's own words rather than AQA's marketing copy, what the qualification actually is.
Searching Ofqual's Find a Regulated Qualification service for “A-level Chemistry AQA” returns three results: two entries for an older Advanced GCE in Chemistry, both marked “No longer awarded,” and one current entry — AQA Level 3 Advanced GCE in Chemistry, qualification number 601/5731/8 — marked “Status: Available to learners.” That confirms 7405 is the live, accredited successor, not simply a specification AQA still happens to publish.
The register entry for 601/5731/8 lists guided learning hours (GLH) of 360 and total qualification time (TQT) also of 360, a regulation start date of 27 February 2015 and an operational start date of 1 September 2015. Its assessment methods are recorded as “Multiple Choice Examination, Written Examination” — both together, not one or the other — and its grading scale runs A*/A/B/C/D/E, with national availability given as “England, International.”
| Ofqual register entry | AS Chemistry (7404) | A-level Chemistry (7405) |
|---|---|---|
| QAN | 601/5730/6 | 601/5731/8 |
| Guided learning hours (GLH) | 180 | 360 |
| Total qualification time (TQT) | 180 | 360 |
| Regulation start date | 27 February 2015 | 27 February 2015 |
| Operational start date | 1 September 2015 | 1 September 2015 |
| Assessment methods | Multiple Choice Examination, Written Examination | Multiple Choice Examination, Written Examination |
| Grading scale | A/B/C/D/E | A*/A/B/C/D/E |
Source: Ofqual Find a Regulated Qualification register, retrieved 9 September 2026.
The companion AS Chemistry (7404) carries its own register entry, qualification number 601/5730/6, with exactly half the guided learning hours of the A-level: 180 against 360. Its grading scale stops at A/B/C/D/E — there is no A* at AS. Both qualifications share the same regulation start date, 27 February 2015, and the same operational start date, 1 September 2015: the AS and the full A-level were regulated together from the outset, not staged one after the other.
None of this — the QAN, the GLH figure, the exact regulation date, or Ofqual's own two-method assessment classification — is stated this plainly on AQA's own subject pages, which describe the course but do not carry the regulator's record of it.
Ofqual sets three assessment objectives — AO1 (knowledge and understanding), AO2 (application) and AO3 (analysis, interpretation and evaluation) — and AQA's own specification states plainly that these are “the same across all AS and A-level Chemistry specifications and all exam boards.” What is not common across boards, and what AQA's specification does publish for itself, is how heavily each objective is weighted, paper by paper.
AQA's published weighting table for the full A-level puts AO1 at 30% on Paper 1, 30% on Paper 2 and 32% on Paper 3 (30% overall); AO2 at 48%, 48% and 34% (45% overall); and AO3 at 22%, 22% and 34% (25% overall). Paper 1 and Paper 2 carry near-identical AO profiles — heavy on AO2, light on AO3. Paper 3 does not: its AO3 share, 34%, is over half as much again as the 22% carried by each of the other two papers, while its AO2 share drops from 48% to 34% to make room for it.
| Assessment objective | Paper 1 | Paper 2 | Paper 3 | Overall |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AO1 — knowledge and understanding | 30% | 30% | 32% | 30% |
| AO2 — application | 48% | 48% | 34% | 45% |
| AO3 — analysis, interpretation, evaluation | 22% | 22% | 34% | 25% |
| Component weighting | 35% | 35% | 30% | 100% |
Source: AQA A-level Chemistry specification (7405), Version 1.2, retrieved 9 September 2026.
That shift matters practically. AO3 marks are not won by recalling content; they are won by interpreting unfamiliar data, evaluating an experimental method, or drawing a conclusion the specification itself does not supply the answer to. A student who revises Paper 3 the same way as Papers 1 and 2 — by consolidating content — is preparing for the wrong 34% of the paper.
One scoping point is worth stating precisely, because it is easy to over-claim: AQA's specification confirms the AO1/AO2/AO3 definitions themselves are common to every board by Ofqual's own mandate. It does not state, and this research has not independently checked, whether the percentage split above — AQA's own 30/45/25 overall balance — is identical at OCR, Pearson Edexcel or WJEC/Eduqas. What is published here is AQA's own table for its own specification, not a claim that the split is unique to AQA.
Building a Paper 3 revision plan?
Our expert A-level Chemistry tutors build revision around AQA's actual AO3 weighting on Paper 3, not a generic past-paper rotation, so analysis and evaluation questions get the practice time they are actually worth.
Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppAQA published guidance, still linked directly from the live 7405 specification page, describing a change to how two specification points are marked following external research. In November 2024, the Royal Society of Chemistry published research suggesting alkyl groups are not inductively electron-releasing — a departure from the explanation A-level Chemistry has taught for decades. AQA's own guidance, published 5 February 2025, states plainly that the finding “affects the following AQA specification areas of AS and A-level Chemistry (7404 and 7405): 3.3.4.2 Alkenes — Addition reactions of alkenes” and “3.3.11.2 Amines — Base properties (A-level only).”
AQA's short-term fix protects students on both sides of the change. Its guidance confirms mark schemes “will still give credit to students who use the historically accepted approach,” and that “students will also get marks if they attempt to answer in light of the Royal Society of Chemistry's research.” Both answers are credited until AQA next reforms the specification, at which point 3.3.4.2 and 3.3.11.2 will be reviewed and updated.
This is not on the parent A-level Chemistry board-comparison page, on either the Year 12 or Year 13 AQA Chemistry page, or on any of the top five results checked for this page — including a lengthy competitor guide that covers all three papers, the required practicals and the practical endorsement in detail, and mentions this guidance nowhere. A tutor working from a syllabus written before November 2024, or a student revising from an older textbook, has no reason to know that an answer using the older explanation still earns full marks — or that the newer explanation now does too.
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Two separate questions, and AQA's specification answers both more plainly than most revision guides suggest.
On options: AQA's A-level Chemistry has none. Every one of the specification's 96 pages was searched for the word “option” and it does not appear once. Subject content runs as three compulsory strands — physical chemistry, inorganic chemistry and organic chemistry — and every student following 7405 covers all three, whichever school or teacher they have. Some other A-level specifications ask a school to choose between named options; A-level Chemistry does not, so a student cannot be revising the wrong strand because their school chose differently from a friend's.
On entry requirements: AQA states, in its own specification, “There are no previous learning requirements. Any requirements for entry to a course based on these specifications are at the discretion of schools and colleges.” AQA does add a recommendation — that students should have “the skills and knowledge associated with at least GCSE Combined Science or GCSE Chemistry (or equivalent qualifications)” — but a recommendation is not a rule, and AQA sets no grade threshold at all.
That corrects a claim made in a competitor revision resource covering this exact specification, Cognito, which states as its own editorial view that “a grade 6 in GCSE maths is the unofficial minimum to keep up.” AQA's specification names no numeric grade, for maths or for chemistry. A school may set its own entry bar, and often does, but that bar is the school's decision, not AQA's.
No optional content means no gaps to fill later
Our expert A-level Chemistry tutors work through AQA's full three-strand specification — physical, inorganic and organic chemistry — building consistent coverage across all three rather than favouring whichever strand a school taught last.
Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppBoth questions matter directly to families studying outside a conventional school timetable, and AQA answers both in its own specification.
A private candidate, in AQA's own definition, is “someone who enters for exams through an AQA-approved school or college but is not enrolled as a student there.” AQA's specification states explicitly that a private candidate “may be self-taught, home-schooled or have private tuition, either with a tutor or through a distance learning organisation” — the route stays open whether a student's chemistry is taught entirely by a tutor, entirely independently, or through a mix of school and outside support. The one hard condition AQA sets is geographic, not academic: “You must be based in the UK.”
On re-sits, AQA's rule is unusually simple: “Students can re-sit these qualifications as many times as they wish, within the shelf life of the qualifications.” There is no cap on attempts — a shelf-life limit, not an attempts limit, governs whether a re-sit is possible at all.
Neither rule appears on the parent A-level Chemistry board-comparison page or on either year-specific AQA Chemistry page, both of which are built around the standard two-year school route rather than the private-candidate route.
Our expert A-level Chemistry tutors work with AQA 7405 students across every route into the qualification — students in a conventional school sixth form, students being tutored privately as AQA's own private-candidate route allows, and students who have changed school or exam board mid-course. Every programme is built around AQA's actual specification: the AO3 weighting that makes Paper 3 disproportionately about analysis and evaluation rather than recall, the Practical Endorsement evidence a school or a private-candidate centre still has to sign off, and the alkyl-groups mark-scheme change covered above, so a student is never revising against a version of the specification that is a year or two out of date.
For a private candidate without a school chemistry department behind them, that structure matters more, not less: there is no teacher setting a scheme of work, so the tutor's own planning has to cover the full three-strand specification — physical, inorganic and organic chemistry — in the right order and to the right depth, working to AQA's own assessment weighting rather than a generic syllabus. This sits alongside our wider Chemistry tutoring support, for students at GCSE as well as A-level.
91% of Leading Tuition students achieve their desired grades. Book a free consultation to discuss an AQA A-level Chemistry programme built around your child's own route into the qualification, whichever paper or route it runs through.
Studying AQA A-level Chemistry as a private candidate, or in a school sixth form?
Our expert A-level Chemistry tutors build every programme around AQA's actual specification — the AO3-heavy Paper 3, the Practical Endorsement, and the current mark-scheme guidance — whichever route into the qualification your child is taking.
Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppAQA A-level Chemistry is regulated by Ofqual under qualification number 601/5731/8, listed on Ofqual's own Find a Regulated Qualification register as “AQA Level 3 Advanced GCE in Chemistry,” status “Available to learners.” The register confirms a regulation start date of 27 February 2015, an operational start date of 1 September 2015, and assessment methods of “Multiple Choice Examination, Written Examination.” Two older AQA Chemistry entries on the same register are marked “No longer awarded,” confirming 601/5731/8 is the current, live specification rather than a superseded one.
Ofqual's register lists 360 guided learning hours (and 360 total qualification time) for A-level Chemistry (7405), against exactly half — 180 — for the companion AS Chemistry (7404). Both figures come from Ofqual's own register, independent of AQA's specification document, and both qualifications share the same regulation and operational start dates: 27 February 2015 and 1 September 2015 respectively. The AS is not a shortened trial version taught first and regulated later — both were accredited together from the start.
AQA's specification publishes AO1 (knowledge and understanding), AO2 (application) and AO3 (analysis, interpretation and evaluation) weightings for each paper. Paper 1 and Paper 2 both run 30% AO1, 48% AO2, 22% AO3. Paper 3 is different: 32% AO1, 34% AO2 and 34% AO3 — its AO3 share is over half as much again as either of the other two papers. Overall across the full A-level, the weightings are 30% AO1, 45% AO2 and 25% AO3. AQA states the AO definitions themselves are common to every exam board; the percentage split is AQA's own published figure for its own specification.
AQA published guidance on 5 February 2025, still linked from its live specification page, following November 2024 Royal Society of Chemistry research suggesting alkyl groups are not inductively electron-releasing. The guidance names two specification points affected — 3.3.4.2 (Alkenes, addition reactions) and 3.3.11.2 (Amines, base properties, A-level only) — and confirms mark schemes “will still give credit to students who use the historically accepted approach,” while “students will also get marks if they attempt to answer in light of the Royal Society of Chemistry's research.” Both answers are credited until the specification is next reformed.
No. A full-text search of all 96 pages of AQA's A-level Chemistry specification finds zero occurrences of the word “option.” Subject content runs as three compulsory strands — physical, inorganic and organic chemistry — that every student following 7405 covers in full, regardless of school or teacher. Some other A-level specifications ask a school to choose between named options; A-level Chemistry asks a school to choose nothing.
None, formally. AQA's specification states plainly: “There are no previous learning requirements. Any requirements for entry to a course based on these specifications are at the discretion of schools and colleges.” AQA recommends — but does not require — that students have the skills and knowledge of at least GCSE Combined Science or GCSE Chemistry. This contradicts an unsourced claim in a competitor revision guide, Cognito, that “a grade 6 in GCSE maths is the unofficial minimum to keep up”: AQA's own specification names no numeric grade threshold, for maths or for chemistry.
Yes. AQA defines a private candidate as someone entering through an AQA-approved school or college without being enrolled there, and its specification confirms a private candidate “may be self-taught, home-schooled or have private tuition, either with a tutor or through a distance learning organisation,” provided they are based in the UK. On re-sits, AQA's specification states students “can re-sit these qualifications as many times as they wish, within the shelf life of the qualifications” — there is no cap on the number of attempts, only on how long the qualification remains current.
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