What AQA's current 7712 and 7717 specifications, reissued October 2025, actually require — text by text, paper by paper.
Book a Free ConsultationAQA English Literature A (7712) and AQA English Literature B (7717) are AQA's two A-level English Literature specifications, each reissued as Version 1.7.1 and Version 1.5.1 on 1 October 2025 for AS and A-level exams from June 2026 onwards. Both scale to 375 marks across two exam papers and a non-exam assessment, and from September 2025 both carry additional set texts examined for the first time in summer 2027.
Our expert A-level English Literature tutors work with students taking both AQA specifications, building each programme around the specific paper, option and set texts a school has actually chosen — whether that is Specification A's Love through the ages or Specification B's Aspects of tragedy.
This site's A-Level English Literature hub already sets out, paper by paper, which AQA, Edexcel and OCR papers are open book and which are closed, and weighs AQA's Specification A against Specification B in general terms; what follows here is each of AQA's own specifications in full — the actual texts, options, assessment objectives and non-exam assessment a 7712 or 7717 student faces.
Literature A's Love through the ages component gives students a choice of one of four Shakespeare plays. AQA's own specification explains the reasoning: "The four Shakespeare plays on offer allow students to study Shakespeare’s representations of love in a range of different dramatic genres: tragedy, comedy, problem play or late play" (AQA English Literature A specification, Version 1.7.1, 1 October 2025), and the four are Othello, The Taming of the Shrew, Measure for Measure and The Winter's Tale.
Alongside the play, students study two further texts from a list of two AQA poetry anthologies and ten named prose titles running from Jane Austen's Persuasion to Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca — one poetry and one prose text, one of which must be pre-1900. The A-level list adds one further prose option not on the AS list: Elif Shafak's The Island of Missing Trees, marked in the specification as first assessment 2027.
Literature B takes the same play-plus-list structure but organises it by genre rather than period. In Aspects of tragedy, students choose Othello or King Lear, then two further texts including one pre-1900 drama title. In Aspects of comedy, the choice is The Taming of the Shrew or Twelfth Night, again with two further texts, one a pre-1900 drama (AQA English Literature B specification, Version 1.5.1, 1 October 2025).
Students typically arrive at either specification from AQA GCSE English Literature, which sets out its own separate list of set texts at Key Stage 4; nothing on that list carries over automatically to either A-level specification's own choices above.
| Specification and option | Shakespeare choice | Further texts required |
|---|---|---|
| Literature A (7712) — Love through the ages | One of four: Othello / The Taming of the Shrew / Measure for Measure / The Winter's Tale | Two further texts — one poetry, one prose, one pre-1900 |
| Literature B (7717) — Aspects of tragedy | Othello or King Lear | Two further texts, one a pre-1900 drama |
| Literature B (7717) — Aspects of comedy | The Taming of the Shrew or Twelfth Night | Two further texts, one a pre-1900 drama |
Literature A's second A-level paper, Texts in shared contexts, offers two historical options. Option A, WW1 and its aftermath, requires at least one of six core texts — Pat Barker's Regeneration, Sebastian Faulks's Birdsong, Joan Littlewood's Oh! What a Lovely War, R.C. Sherriff's Journey's End, and the anthologies Up the Line to Death and Scars Upon My Heart — plus two comparative texts, one of which is now Anna Hope's Wake. Option B, Modern times, requires at least one of six core texts — Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Graham Swift's Waterland, Caryl Churchill's Top Girls, Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire, Carol Ann Duffy's Feminine Gospels and Owen Sheers's Skirrid Hill — plus two comparative texts, one of which is now Bernardine Evaristo's Mr Loverman (AQA English Literature A specification, section 4.2).
Literature B's second paper, Texts and genres, works the same way across two further options. Elements of crime writing sets students three texts — one post-2000 prose text, one pre-1900 poetry text and one further text — from a list running from Agatha Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd to Ian McEwan's Atonement, now joined by Colin Walsh's Kala. Elements of political and social protest writing follows the same three-text structure and now includes V. V. Ganeshananthan's Brotherless Night (AQA English Literature B specification, section 4.2).
Across all four papers, the timing, marks and weighting are the same shape on both specifications:
| Component | Time | Raw marks | Weighting |
|---|---|---|---|
| Literature A Paper 1: Love through the ages | 3 hours | 75 | 40% |
| Literature A Paper 2: Texts in shared contexts | 2 hours 30 minutes | 75 | 40% |
| Literature B Paper 1: Literary genres | 2 hours 30 minutes | 75 | 40% |
| Literature B Paper 2: Texts and genres | 3 hours | 75 | 40% |
| Non-exam assessment (both specifications) | Set by the school | 50 | 20% |
Our A-level English Literature tutors work through the exact core and comparative texts a student's own school has set — from Regeneration and Wake on Literature A's WW1 option to Kala and the wider crime-writing list on Literature B — rather than a generic reading list.
AQA's own dedicated news page describes the 2025 change as introducing five new additional texts, not the three most commonly reported: "We're excited to announce the introduction of five new additional texts to our A-level English Literature specifications (A) and (B), which will be available for first teaching in September 2025. The first examination of these new texts will take place in summer 2027. We are not replacing or removing any of the existing A-level texts" (AQA, A new chapter in A-level English Literature). Three of the five sit on Literature A: Elif Shafak's The Island of Missing Trees (Paper 1, Love through the ages), Anna Hope's Wake (Paper 2, WW1 and its aftermath) and Bernardine Evaristo's Mr Loverman (Paper 2, Modern times). Two sit on Literature B: Colin Walsh's Kala and V. V. Ganeshananthan's Brotherless Night (both Paper 2, Texts and genres). Most searches for this change surface only the Literature A trio; Mr Loverman and Brotherless Night, sitting in the less-searched Modern times and political-protest options, are still absent from some published summaries.
The specification PDFs confirm four of the five with an explicit annotation. AQA's Literature A specification marks Shafak's, Hope's and Evaristo's texts "(first assessment 2027)" in their set-text tables, and the Literature B specification does the same for Walsh's Kala: "Colin Walsh Kala (first assessment 2027) Post-2000" (AQA English Literature B specification, Version 1.5.1, 1 October 2025). Ganeshananthan's Brotherless Night is the exception: its row in the same specification's Elements of political and social protest writing table reads "V. V. Ganeshananthan Brotherless Night Post-2000" with no "(first assessment 2027)" annotation at all. The 2027 date for this specific title therefore rests on AQA's news page alone, not on the specification's own table. Both documents are AQA's; they simply say different things about the same title, and a family checking this page against the specification directly should be able to see that distinction rather than find it dropped.
Which of the five a given student meets depends entirely on which option their school has chosen. A student sitting Modern times or the political-protest option should expect Mr Loverman or Brotherless Night on their reading list; a student sitting WW1 and its aftermath or the crime-writing option should expect Wake or Kala instead; and Love through the ages absorbs only Shafak's title, alongside the texts that were already on the list before 2025.
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Both specifications assess the same five Assessment Objectives, defined in identical wording: AO1 covers articulate, informed, personal and creative responses to literary texts; AO2 covers how meanings are shaped; AO3 covers the significance and influence of context; AO4 covers connections across texts; and AO5 covers different interpretations (AQA English Literature A specification, section 5.2).
The weighting is identical across both specifications too: AO1 is worth 28% of the full A-level, AO2 and AO3 24% each, and AO4 and AO5 12% each, split 40% to Paper 1, 40% to Paper 2 and 20% to the non-exam assessment. The two papers and the coursework scale to a combined 375 marks at A-level — 150 for each exam paper and 75 for the non-exam assessment — against 100 marks at AS, where each of the two AS papers is worth 50.
AO1's 28% weighting means precise, well-supported argument construction carries more marks than any other single objective across both specifications — a fact that shapes how a tutor prioritises essay technique regardless of which specification or option a student is taking.
Many schools that teach AQA English Literature also teach AQA A-Level English Language alongside it; the two are separate specifications with separate Assessment Objectives, and the weighting set out above applies to English Literature only.
Preparing for AQA English Literature's assessment objectives takes different technique for different papers. Our A-level English Literature tutors help students target AO1's argument-writing weight under timed exam conditions and the sustained independent analysis the non-exam assessment rewards, whichever specification their school teaches.
Literature A's non-exam assessment, Independent critical study, is a 2,500-word comparative essay on two texts by different authors, at least one of them pre-1900; a bibliography sits outside the word count, and a text already used for an exam paper cannot be reused: "The word count is 2,500 words… one text must have been written pre-1900… two different authors must be studied… set texts listed for the A-level exam components cannot be used for non-exam assessment" (AQA English Literature A specification, sections 4.3 and 4.3.1).
Literature B's non-exam assessment, Theory and independence, is built differently: two essays of 1,250 to 1,500 words each, one responding to a poetry text and one to a prose text, both informed by AQA's Critical Anthology, and one of the two essays may be re-creative, provided it comes with a commentary (AQA English Literature B specification, non-exam assessment). Both non-exam assessments are worth 50 marks — 20% of the full A-level — and both are marked first by the student's own teacher, then moderated by AQA rather than marked externally from scratch.
Because neither task is externally examined, timing sits with the school rather than a national exam-board timetable — a centre sets its own internal deadline for each piece, so a student's actual submission date depends on their own school's schedule rather than one date shared across the country.
The two tasks reward different skills. Literature A's single long essay tests sustained comparative argument across two authors and two periods; Literature B's two shorter essays test range across genre and, in the re-creative option, a different kind of critical thinking — justifying creative choices in a commentary rather than analysing someone else's.
Our expert A-level English Literature tutors build every programme around the specification, option and set texts a student's school has actually chosen, rather than a generic A-level English Literature syllabus. That means working through Othello and the Love through the ages comparative pairing with a Literature A student, or building comparative essay technique across Kala and the wider crime-writing list with a Literature B student — built around the paper, the option, and, where either specification has moved a new 2027 text onto a family's reading list, tutoring built around that specific text from the outset.
For the non-exam assessment, tutors work alongside a student's own teacher rather than in place of them — since both tasks are internally assessed and AQA-moderated, our role is building the independent comparative and analytical skills the mark scheme rewards, whether that is Literature A's single 2,500-word study or Literature B's two shorter essays. Across all subjects, 91% of Leading Tuition students go on to achieve their desired grades.
AQA's own dedicated news page states that five new additional texts have been introduced across its two A-level English Literature specifications, first teaching September 2025 and first examination summer 2027: three on Literature A (7712) — The Island of Missing Trees, Wake and Mr Loverman — and two on Literature B (7717) — Kala and Brotherless Night. AQA states clearly that no existing text has been removed or replaced.
Not in the same way. AQA's news page states it is. Its own specification PDF is less explicit: the set-text table for Elements of political and social protest writing lists V. V. Ganeshananthan's Brotherless Night without the “(first assessment 2027)” annotation carried by the other four new texts in the same document. The 2027 date for this title currently rests on the news page rather than on the specification's own annotation.
AQA does not publish which schools teach Literature A versus Literature B — that decision sits with each school's English department. The quickest way to check is the paper codes on a timetable or a mock exam paper: 7712 papers are Literature A (Love through the ages and Texts in shared contexts), and 7717 papers are Literature B (Literary genres and Texts and genres). This page sets out what each specification actually contains once you know which one applies.
Literature A's Independent critical study is a single 2,500-word comparative essay, with a bibliography excluded from that count. Literature B's Theory and independence comprises two essays of 1,250 to 1,500 words each, one on poetry and one on prose, and one of the two may be re-creative provided it is accompanied by a commentary. Both are worth 50 marks, 20% of the full A-level, and both are teacher-assessed and AQA-moderated rather than marked externally.
AO1 is worth 28% of the full A-level, AO2 and AO3 are worth 24% each, and AO4 and AO5 are worth 12% each, on both Literature A and Literature B. The weighting splits 40% to Paper 1, 40% to Paper 2 and 20% to the non-exam assessment, scaling to a combined 375 marks across the two years.
Love through the ages (Literature A) offers a choice of Othello, The Taming of the Shrew, Measure for Measure or The Winter's Tale. Aspects of tragedy (Literature B) offers a choice of Othello or King Lear. Aspects of comedy (Literature B) offers a choice of The Taming of the Shrew or Twelfth Night. A student only studies one Shakespeare play in total, decided by which specification and option their school has chosen.
Our specialist tutors work with AQA English Literature A and B students at every stage, from choosing comparative texts to preparing the non-exam assessment for AQA moderation. Rated 4.8 out of 5 on Trustpilot from 58 reviews, read on 7 September 2026.
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