AQA A-Level History Tutors (7042)

AQA’s A-level History is specification 7042, a two-year course built from a Breadth Study, a Depth Study and an independent Historical Investigation, taught from September 2015 and first examined in 2017. AQA’s current edition is Version 1.5, dated 1 September 2021. Which two periods of history a student studies is fixed by which Breadth and Depth options their school has entered them for, and by two pairings AQA does not allow at all.

Which Breadth and Depth options does AQA 7042 actually offer?

A school teaching AQA 7042 does not teach “A-level History” in the abstract. It chooses one Breadth Study option for Component 1 and one Depth Study option for Component 2 from AQA’s own published lists, and those two choices fix almost everything a student will read, write about and be examined on for two years. AQA’s own subject page names a single example — 1A, The Age of the Crusades — without setting out either list in full; the two tables below do. The option codes run 1A to 1L for the Breadth Study and 2A to 2T for the Depth Study, and in both lists the letter I is skipped entirely, so 1H is followed directly by 1J and 2H by 2J. Whichever pair a school has chosen, AQA requires the three components together — Breadth, Depth and the Historical Investigation — to cover a combined chronological range of at least 200 years.

Component 1 is examined the same way regardless of which Breadth option is entered: two hours thirty minutes, three questions of which one is compulsory, marked out of 80, and worth 40% of the full A-level. AQA’s specification-at-a-glance page sets out both option lists in full; the tables below reproduce them exactly, with the specification page number where each option appears.

Source: AQA, A-level History specification 7042, Version 1.5, 1 September 2021, retrieved 7 September 2026.

Source: AQA, A-level History specification 7042, Version 1.5, 1 September 2021, retrieved 7 September 2026.

Which option combinations does AQA forbid, and why?

AQA fixes one condition on which two options a school can pick. Its specification states plainly: “Students must study a British history option for either Component 1 or Component 2. If a British history option is chosen for Component 1, it must be combined with a non-British option for Component 2. If a British history option is chosen for Component 2, it must be combined with a non-British option for Component 1.” The designated British options are 1C, 1D, 1F, 1G and 1J in Component 1, and 2A, 2B, 2D, 2E, 2M and 2S in Component 2 — every other code in both lists counts as non-British for this rule. AQA’s specification sets this out in full.

Within that British/non-British structure, AQA names two combinations it will not allow at all, even though both would otherwise be a legal British-plus-non-British pairing: 1C The Tudors: England may not be combined with 2C The Reformation in Europe, and 1D Stuart Britain and the Crisis of Monarchy may not be combined with 2F The Sun King: Louis XIV, France and Europe. AQA gives its own reason for both exclusions, in its own words: “This is because there is a strong conceptual emphasis which runs across both breadth and depth options which would result in a narrowing of the student’s experience.” A school offering either Tudor England or Stuart Britain as its Breadth option has therefore already ruled out one specific Depth option before a student ever sees an options form.

The practical effect is that two students can both truthfully say they are “sitting AQA A-level History” and still share almost no common ground. A student studying 1C The Tudors: England alongside 2S The Making of Modern Britain is working entirely within British history from the fifteenth century to the twenty-first; a student studying 1K The Making of a Superpower: USA alongside 2O Democracy and Nazism: Germany never touches British material at all beyond the compulsory split rule itself. Neither combination is more rigorous than the other, but a revision guide, a tutor or a past paper written for one is not automatically useful for the other.

What does AQA require of the Historical Investigation topic itself?

Component 3, the Historical Investigation, is where a school’s choice of Breadth and Depth options bites hardest, because AQA does not let a student research any topic they like. Two conditions apply before a title is even submitted: the issue investigated has to sit within a defined span of time, and it cannot repeat ground already covered in Components 1 and 2.

AQA’s specification requires the investigation to “place the issue to be investigated within a context of approximately 100 years”, and separately to “be an issue which does not duplicate the content of Components 1 and 2”. Both conditions apply together: a title that sits inside the right timeframe but overlaps a Breadth or Depth option a student is already studying still fails the second test. The full word count, mark weighting and grade-boundary detail for this component already sit on our general AQA and Edexcel A-level History page, and are not repeated here.

The title itself is not something a family submits: AQA’s specification puts the obligation on the centre. It states: “The centre must complete a non-examined assessment (NEA) title approval form no later than 20 October in the year before the intended completion of the A-level course.” For a student sitting the A-level exams in the June 2027 series, that puts the deadline at 20 October 2026 — early in the Year 13 autumn term, and roughly eight months before the written papers. It is the school’s administrative deadline, not a family’s, but it fixes the Year 13 timetable in a way worth knowing about: the topic a student will spend months researching is cleared long before the spring of Year 13, not chosen freely once coursework season arrives.

AQA also requires a signed paper trail once the work is finished: each student must complete a Candidate Record Form confirming the options studied, and while the student signs it, the specification requires the teacher to countersign it too — another step that sits with the school, not the family.

AQA is explicit about what happens if a centre does not follow this process. Its specification states: “Failure to comply with these requirements will invalidate the student’s entry and no A-level result will be issued.” That consequence is tied to the centre following the approval process correctly, not to the quality of the student’s writing, and AQA publishes no figures on how often it happens; nothing here should be read as suggesting it is a common outcome. What it does confirm is how seriously the approval step is meant to be taken, months before a single exam paper is sat.

Is AQA A-level History (7042) linked to a separate AS-level?

Yes, and the two are not the same qualification. AQA still lists AS History as a live, separately-assessed specification, coded 7041, distinct from the A-level’s 7042. AQA’s own subject page gives AS History’s next exam date as 12 May 2027, ahead of the full A-level’s own next exam of 19 May 2027. No page on this site covers the Year 12 decision between sitting AS History as a standalone qualification and progressing straight through the two-year A-level — that choice belongs elsewhere. The point worth taking from this page is narrower: a past paper, mark scheme or revision guide that cites 7041 is describing a different, shorter qualification from the one this page covers.

How Leading Tuition tutors AQA’s specific option combination

AQA’s own specification, not a generic History revision guide, is what our tutors work from. Because the Breadth and Depth options a school enters determine almost everything a student is examined on, our tutors start every AQA A-level History programme by confirming the exact combination — a student sitting 1G Challenge and Transformation: Britain alongside 2N Revolution and Dictatorship: Russia is preparing a genuinely different course from one sitting 1A The Age of the Crusades alongside 2R The Cold War, even though both are labelled “AQA A-level History”. Our expert AQA A-level History tutors build essay technique and source-analysis practice around the specific periods a student has actually been taught, and support the Historical Investigation once a centre has confirmed and approved its title. 91% of Leading Tuition students go on to achieve their desired grades.

If a younger sibling in the same family is working towards GCSE first, our GCSE History tuition covers that stage, and our wider A-level tuition page lists every subject we cover at this level.

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