Pearson's 1ET0 specification keeps both GCSE papers closed book — the opposite of Edexcel's fully open-book A-level on the same board — and adds four texts and a poetry collection first examined in 2021.
Book a Free ConsultationEdexcel GCSE English Literature is Pearson's GCSE specification in English Literature, spec code 1ET0, examined through two closed-book written papers worth 50% each: Component 1 (1ET0/01), a Shakespeare play and a post-1914 British play or novel, 80 marks in 1 hour 45 minutes, and Component 2 (1ET0/02), a 19th-century novel and poetry since 1789, 80 marks in 2 hours 15 minutes. Pearson's own specification states plainly that both components are closed book.
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Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppEvery paper in Edexcel GCSE English Literature is closed book. Pearson's 1ET0 specification is explicit about both components, stating for each one in turn: “Closed book (texts are not allowed in the examination).” A student sitting either paper brings no text, no anthology and no annotated copy into the exam room; every quotation has to be recalled from memory.
| Component | Paper code | Content | Marks | Duration | Weighting | Book status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Component 1 | 1ET0/01 | Shakespeare play + post-1914 British play or novel | 80 | 1 hour 45 minutes | 50% | Closed book |
| Component 2 | 1ET0/02 | 19th-century novel + Poetry since 1789 | 80 | 2 hours 15 minutes | 50% | Closed book |
Source: Pearson Edexcel GCSE (9-1) English Literature (1ET0) specification, Issue 2, June 2019, retrieved 7 September 2026.
Across the whole qualification, the assessment objectives are weighted unevenly. AO1 (understanding and response) carries 37% of the marks, AO2 (analysis of language, form and structure) the largest single share at 42%, AO3 (context) 16%, and AO4 (accurate written expression, assessed only in Component 1) 5%. A student who writes fluently about a text's historical background but rarely explains how Pearson's chosen wording creates its effect is under-serving the biggest assessment objective on the paper, not the smallest.
That closed-book position belongs to the GCSE specifically. Edexcel's A-level in the same subject, 9ET0, sits at the opposite end: every examined component is open book. Pearson's A-level specification states for Component 1: Drama that it is “Open book – clean copies of the drama texts can be taken into the examination” (excluding the separate Critical Anthology booklet), and repeats the same wording for Component 2: Prose and Component 3: Poetry. Two Pearson English Literature qualifications, sat roughly two years apart by the same student, take opposite positions on whether a text can be in the room: the GCSE specification (Issue 2, June 2019) closed throughout, the A-level specification (Issue 11, August 2025) open throughout. That contrast is specific to these two Pearson documents and does not describe any other exam board.
Component 1's first text is a Shakespeare play, chosen by the school rather than the student, from six named in the specification: Macbeth, The Tempest, Romeo and Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night and The Merchant of Venice.
The exam question has a fixed two-part shape. Pearson's specification splits it into Part a), “focused on the close language analysis of an extract” of approximately 30 lines and assessed against AO2, and Part b), focused on how “a theme from the extract is explored elsewhere in the play,” assessed against AO1 and AO3. A student cannot pre-write a single essay for this question, because the extract anchors the answer and is not revealed until the exam itself; what can be prepared is the skill of using an unfamiliar 30-line extract as the springboard into a wider argument about the whole play.
Two schools teaching the same 1ET0 specification code can set two entirely different plays, and Pearson does not require either to publish its choice anywhere online. Confirming which of the six a particular school has set is one of the most useful things a family can establish before revision on this component begins.
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Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppComponent 1's second text is a post-1914 British play or novel. Eight titles have been on Pearson's list since the specification was written for first teaching in September 2015: An Inspector Calls (J B Priestley), Hobson's Choice (Harold Brighouse), Blood Brothers (Willy Russell), Journey's End (R C Sherriff), Animal Farm (George Orwell), Lord of the Flies (William Golding), Anita and Me (Meera Syal) and The Woman in Black (Susan Hill).
Four more were added later: The Empress (Tanika Gupta), Refugee Boy (Benjamin Zephaniah), Coram Boy (Jamila Gavin) and Boys Don't Cry (Malorie Blackman). Pearson's own summary of changes to Issue 2 is explicit about the cohort this affects: “These texts are for first teaching from September 2019 and first assessment is May 2021.” A student sitting the exam in any series from summer 2021 onward could be studying any of the twelve; a sibling who sat the exam before May 2021 could only have studied one of the original eight.
Every one of the twelve is examined the same way: an unseen extract from the chosen text, printed on the paper, followed by an essay question on the play or novel as a whole. Which of the twelve a particular school has actually set is, again, something Pearson leaves entirely to the school to decide and to communicate.
Component 2 pairs a 19th-century novel with the poetry element covered below. The novel list holds seven titles: Jane Eyre (Charlotte Brontë), Great Expectations (Charles Dickens), Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (R L Stevenson), A Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens), Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen), Silas Marner (George Eliot) and Frankenstein (Mary Shelley). Unlike the post-1914 list above, none of these seven has changed since the specification was first written for teaching from September 2015 — a family can trust a title on this list in a way that is not safe to assume for the post-1914 list.
The exam question follows the same two-part pattern as the Shakespeare paper. Pearson's specification sets Part 1 as “a close language analysis of an extract of approximately 400 words” (AO1, AO2), and Part 2 as an exploration of “plot, setting(s), character(s), theme(s)” across the whole text. A student preparing for this component needs both the extract-recognition skill the Shakespeare question demands and a secure, whole-text command of plot and character that the extract alone will not supply.
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Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppComponent 2's poetry element sits inside four collections in Pearson's own Poetry Anthology: Relationships, Conflict, Time and Place and Belonging. A school picks one collection, and Pearson's specification requires that “all 15 poems” in it are studied. Belonging is the newest of the four: Pearson's summary of changes states it “is for first teaching from September 2019 and first assessment is May 2021,” the same cohort affected by the four post-1914 text additions above.
Section B then splits into two parts that ask genuinely different things of a student, and the difference is worth stating precisely. Part 1 asks students to compare “one named poem from the poetry anthology collection, reproduced in the question paper, and one poem of choice” — both poems come from the same collection the student has spent the course studying, and the poem of choice is the student's own selection from material they already know. Nothing in Part 1 is unseen; it rewards a student who has actually learned the fifteen poems in their collection.
Part 2 is where the genuinely unseen material sits. Pearson's specification requires students to compare “two unseen contemporary poems that are linked by a theme,” analysing language, form and structure in poems neither of which has been set in class. Pearson's own guidance adds one precise exception: “works from anthology poets could be used as unseen poems,” but only when “these works will be selected from outside of the anthology” — a familiar poet's name does not make an unfamiliar poem seen. Revision for Part 1 means knowing fifteen specific poems; revision for Part 2 means practising the comparison skill itself, because the poems cannot be predicted.
Pearson sets a fixed floor on how much of the whole GCSE this comparison work is worth: “there is a requirement that 20-25% of the marks for this qualification are achieved through comparison questions across AO1, AO2 and AO3,” which works out at 40 of the 160 raw marks available for the whole qualification. A student who treats the poetry paper as an afterthought is putting a quarter of the total qualification at risk.
Pearson's full title for this qualification is the Pearson Edexcel Level 1/Level 2 GCSE (9-1) in English Literature, specification code 1ET0, Ofqual Qualification Number 601/4789/1. The document itself is dated precisely: “Specification – Issue 2 – June 2019,” with first teaching from September 2015 and first certification from June 2017. For comparison, the A-level specification cited above is a separate, more recently reissued document: “Specification – Issue 11 – August 2025.” Neither issue number tells a reader anything on its own; what matters is whether a resource names its edition at all.
Three checks work on any resource about this qualification, not only the ones a family happens to find first. First, does it name a specification issue and date, or at least a retrieval date, so a reader can judge how current it is? Second, does its post-1914 list run to twelve titles rather than eight — the four titles added for first teaching September 2019 and first examined in May 2021 are the clearest tell of a pre-2019 source? Third, does it treat the poetry paper's two questions as one undifferentiated “anthology versus unseen” task, or does it separate Part 1's studied-collection comparison from Part 2's genuinely unseen one? A resource that fails any of the three is not describing the specification currently in force, whatever else it gets right. A programme built before a student's actual texts and collection are confirmed is a programme built on a guess, whichever English Literature tutor is doing the teaching.
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Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppClosed book, on both components. Pearson's 1ET0 specification states for Component 1 and again for Component 2: "Closed book (texts are not allowed in the examination)." No text, anthology or annotated copy can be taken into either exam room. This is a fact about the GCSE specifically: Edexcel's A-level in the same subject, 9ET0, takes the opposite position and is open book on every component. The two Pearson qualifications simply differ from each other; neither position says anything about how any other exam board runs its own papers.
Six: Macbeth, The Tempest, Romeo and Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night and The Merchant of Venice. The school chooses one, not the student, and Pearson's specification splits the exam question in two: Part a) asks for close language analysis of a roughly 30-line extract (AO2), and Part b) asks how a theme from that extract runs through the rest of the play (AO1 and AO3). Two schools on the same 1ET0 code can set two different plays, and neither has to publish which one it has chosen.
Twelve, and four of them are newer than the other eight. The Empress (Tanika Gupta), Refugee Boy (Benjamin Zephaniah), Coram Boy (Jamila Gavin) and Boys Don't Cry (Malorie Blackman) were added to Pearson's specification for first teaching from September 2019, with the first students examined on them in May 2021. The other eight, including An Inspector Calls and Animal Farm, have been set texts since the specification began in 2015. A resource that only lists eight is describing a GCSE from before 2021.
One of seven: Jane Eyre, Great Expectations, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, A Christmas Carol, Pride and Prejudice, Silas Marner or Frankenstein, chosen by the school for the whole cohort. Unlike the post-1914 list, this one has not changed since Pearson's 1ET0 specification was written for first teaching in September 2015. The exam question mirrors the Shakespeare paper: Part 1 asks for close analysis of an extract of around 400 words, and Part 2 asks about plot, setting, character or theme across the whole novel.
No, and this is the detail worth getting right. Pearson's specification states that Part 1 asks students to compare "one named poem from the poetry anthology collection, reproduced in the question paper, and one poem of choice" from that same studied collection — both poems have been taught, and the comparison poem is the student's own choice from material they already know. Nothing in Part 1 is unseen. The genuinely unseen half of the paper is Part 2, a separate question entirely.
Section B Part 2, and only Part 2. Pearson's specification requires students to compare "two unseen contemporary poems that are linked by a theme," analysing language, form and structure without having met either poem before. Pearson's own guidance adds one exception worth knowing: a poet who also appears in the anthology can still be set here, but only using a specific poem that sits outside the studied collection — the poet's name being familiar does not make the poem itself seen.
Check three things against Pearson's own specification, code 1ET0, Ofqual Qualification Number 601/4789/1, currently Issue 2, dated June 2019: whether it names that issue and date; whether its post-1914 list runs to twelve titles rather than eight, since four were only added for first examination in May 2021; and whether it separates the poetry paper's two genuinely different questions rather than treating both as unseen. A resource silent on all three was very likely written before 2019.
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