C720QS requires every student to study the whole poetry anthology, prescribes two texts no rival board offers, and replaces that anthology for first teaching September 2025.
Book a Free ConsultationEduqas GCSE English Literature, entry code C720QS, is the England-facing WJEC specification examined across two closed-book components worth 40% and 60% of the qualification. Its own specification states plainly it is “not available for candidates in maintained schools and colleges in Wales.” Two of its set texts — Othello and Oranges are not the Only Fruit — appear on no other exam board's own comparable list, and Eduqas alone requires the entire poetry anthology rather than a school-chosen cluster.
Whichever board your child's school has entered, our expert GCSE English Literature tutors build every programme around the actual specification in front of them — Eduqas's whole anthology, its two exclusive texts, or the incoming 2027 poem list.
Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppWJEC Eduqas GCSE English Literature, entry code C720QS as printed in the specification's own text, is not the same qualification as WJEC's own Wales-facing GCSE English Literature — a materially different, separately-lifecycled specification with its own review pattern, not detailed further here. Eduqas is WJEC's own brand for England: WJEC's about-us page states “In 2014 we launched Eduqas to differentiate our Ofqual reformed qualifications, designed specifically for secondary schools, academies and colleges in England,” and WJEC's own home page separately describes “Eduqas: accessible qualifications for learners in England.” Eduqas's specification confirms the scope from the other direction, stating plainly: “This Ofqual regulated qualification is not available for candidates in maintained schools and colleges in Wales.”
The specification governing every current Eduqas GCSE English Literature entry is Version 4, published August 2024, teaching from 2015 and first awarded 2017. Its own cover states the qualification's Qualification Accreditation Number as 601/5246/1 — the specification's own stated code, not independently re-verified against Ofqual's public register, which no longer resolves a direct qualification-number search. A third-party past-papers index, unrelated to the specification itself, separately labels the same component “Eduqas Component 2 (5246)”, consistent with, though not a formal confirmation of, that number. Some resources shorten the qualification to the bare code “C720” — that shorthand does not appear anywhere inside the specification's own text, which prints the full entry code “C720QS” each time it names the qualification; treat “C720” as informal shorthand, not the specification's own designation.
For how Eduqas's paper structure, texts and assessment objectives compare with AQA's, Edexcel's and OCR's, see Leading Tuition's GCSE English Literature comparison page; that comparison is not repeated here.
Eduqas's specification splits GCSE English Literature into two written components rather than the even two-paper structures AQA, Edexcel and OCR each use. Component 1, Shakespeare and Poetry, runs two hours and is worth 40% of the qualification, split into a 40-mark Shakespeare section and a 40-mark poetry section. Component 2, Post-1914 Prose/Drama, 19th Century Prose and Unseen Poetry, runs two hours and thirty minutes and carries the remaining 60%, split across three further 40-mark sections. Five sections at 40 marks each sum to 200 raw marks across the qualification, scaled to the same 100% Ofqual requires of every GCSE English Literature specification.
| Component | Section | Marks | % of GCSE | AOs assessed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Component 1 | Shakespeare | 40 | 20% | AO1, AO2, AO4 |
| Component 1 | Poetry | 40 | 20% | AO1, AO2, AO3 |
| Component 2 | Post-1914 Prose/Drama | 40 | 20% | AO1, AO2, AO4 |
| Component 2 | 19th Century Prose | 40 | 20% | AO1, AO2, AO3 |
| Component 2 | Unseen Poetry | 40 | 20% | AO1, AO2 |
The five sections do not all test the same assessment objectives. Shakespeare, Post-1914 Prose/Drama and 19th Century Prose are each marked against AO1, AO2 and AO4; Poetry is marked against AO1, AO2 and AO3. Unseen Poetry stands alone: Eduqas's specification assesses it against AO1 and AO2 only, the single section carrying neither AO3 nor AO4 — consistent with there being no set text to contextualise or revise spelling from in advance of an unseen exam. Every text-based section, and the anthology, is closed book: Eduqas's specification repeats the instruction after each one — “Learners are not permitted to take copies of the set texts into the examination” and, for the poetry anthology, “Learners are not permitted to take a copy of the anthology into the examination.”
The qualification is untiered, and that is worth stating precisely: Eduqas's own specification frames it as an instruction from the regulator, not a choice Eduqas made — “Regulatory requirements set out by Ofqual state all GCSE English literature specifications will: be assessed by examination, be untiered, be fully linear with assessments available in the summer series, allocate five per cent of the total marks to accurate spelling, punctuation and grammar.” Every GCSE English Literature specification in England is untiered for the same reason Eduqas's is; it is an Ofqual-wide rule confirmed here at Eduqas's own source, not a distinguishing feature of this board.
Five sections, three different AO combinations. Our expert GCSE English Literature tutors plan revision section by section, so a student spends time on the assessment objectives each part of Eduqas's paper actually rewards.
Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppAs on every other GCSE English Literature specification, the choice belongs to the school, not the student. Eduqas's specification uses identical wording for all three prescribed-choice lists — Shakespeare, Post-1914 Prose/Drama and 19th Century Prose — presenting each as a set of options joined by “OR”, with the centre selecting one for the whole cohort before teaching begins.
The Shakespeare list holds six plays: Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Othello, Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night and The Merchant of Venice. Twelfth Night is a 2025 addition — Eduqas's own amendment log records “Replaced Henry V with Twelfth Night” in Component 1, Section A, for assessment from 2025, so a family checking an older resource or an out-of-date revision guide may still find Henry V listed as current when it no longer is.
The Post-1914 Prose/Drama list holds ten texts, and Eduqas's specification flags five of them for adult content: Lord of the Flies (Golding), Anita and Me* (Syal), Boys Don't Cry* (Blackman), The Woman in Black (Hill), Oranges are not the Only Fruit* (Winterson), The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time (play script, Stephens), Leave Taking* (Pinnock), An Inspector Calls (Priestley), The History Boys* (Bennett) and Blood Brothers (Russell) — the starred five carry the specification's own advisory: “Centres are advised that these texts deal with adult themes and / or contain language of an adult nature.” Two of this list's 2025 changes mirror AQA's own: Eduqas's amendment log records “Replaced Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro with Boys Don't Cry by Malorie Blackman” and “Replaced A Taste of Honey by Shelagh Delaney with Leave Taking by Winsome Pinnock,” both for assessment from 2025 — the same year AQA also dropped Never Let Me Go from its own list. But the two boards do not move in step: The History Boys and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time are both current, live options on Eduqas's list, while AQA's own specification marks both “(Last exam 2024)”. A title a family rules out because a different board retired it may still be exactly what their own Eduqas-entered school has chosen.
Eduqas's own appendix carries edition detail that neither the specification's main text nor any competitor page in this search result repeats: its Curious Incident set edition is specified as the Bloomsbury edition, ISBN 978-1-4081-8521-6, and Blood Brothers must not be the Stanley Thorne edition — the kind of detail that matters when a family is buying a copy for home study rather than borrowing a class set.
The 19th Century Prose list holds six novels: A Christmas Carol (Dickens), Silas Marner (Eliot), War of the Worlds (Wells), Pride and Prejudice (Austen), Jane Eyre (Brontë) and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (Stevenson).
Whatever your child's school has chosen — Twelfth Night or an older Shakespeare list, the Bloomsbury Curious Incident edition or another, our expert GCSE English Literature tutors teach directly to the actual set texts a Eduqas-entered student has been given, not a generic reading list.
Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppTwo titles on Eduqas's own lists do not appear on AQA's, Edexcel's or OCR's own equivalent lists, checked directly against each board's own specification. Othello sits on Eduqas's six-play Shakespeare list; it appears on none of AQA's six (Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest, The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado About Nothing, Julius Caesar), Edexcel's six (Macbeth, The Tempest, Romeo and Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night, The Merchant of Venice) or OCR's four (Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing). Among the four boards this site has sourced Shakespeare lists for, only Eduqas offers it.
Oranges are not the Only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson's novel, sits on Eduqas's Post-1914 Prose/Drama list, flagged for adult content. Eduqas makes the same claim about it directly, in its own published comparison of the four boards' specifications: “There are variations in the less commonly used texts. For example, Eduqas is the only exam board to offer Oranges are not the Only Fruit (Jeanette Winterson).” That is Eduqas's own self-declared comparison against Eduqas, AQA, OCR and Pearson specifically — the same four boards Leading Tuition's parent GCSE English Literature page covers.
A third text worth naming with the same care: War of the Worlds, on the 19th Century Prose list, does not appear on AQA's list (Jekyll and Hyde, A Christmas Carol, Great Expectations, Jane Eyre, Frankenstein, Pride and Prejudice, The Sign of Four) or Edexcel's (Jane Eyre, Great Expectations, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, A Christmas Carol, Pride and Prejudice, Silas Marner, Frankenstein). This site has not yet sourced OCR's own 19th-century prose list, so that particular claim is deliberately scoped to the two boards actually checked, not three.
Studying Othello, or Oranges are not the Only Fruit? Our expert GCSE English Literature tutors teach both texts in the depth a Eduqas exam actually demands, not a generic Shakespeare or prose-fiction course built for a different board.
Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppAQA, Edexcel and OCR each make a school choose part of their own poetry anthology: AQA and OCR each offer three clusters of fifteen poems and a school studies one; Edexcel offers a choice of one fifteen-poem collection from four named options. Eduqas offers no such choice. Its specification states plainly: “Learners must study all of the poems in the WJEC Eduqas Poetry Anthology in preparation for this assessment” — every current student studying every poem, counted directly from the specification's own printed list at eighteen: The Manhunt (Armitage), Sonnet 43 (Barrett Browning), London (Blake), The Soldier (Brooke), She Walks in Beauty (Byron), Living Space (Dharker), As Imperceptibly as Grief (Dickinson), Cozy Apologia (Dove), Valentine (Duffy), A Wife in London (Hardy), Death of a Naturalist (Heaney), Hawk Roosting (Hughes), To Autumn (Keats), Afternoons (Larkin), Dulce et Decorum Est (Owen), Ozymandias (Shelley), Mametz Wood (Sheers) and an excerpt from The Prelude (Wordsworth).
The exam question follows a two-stage structure the specification sets out directly: “In the first question, learners will be asked to write about a specified poem. In the second question, learners will be asked to write about a second poem chosen from the WJEC Eduqas Poetry Anthology, and compare it to the first.” Eduqas's own published comparison of the four boards claims this structure as its own: “We are the only exam board to ask students to write about the printed poem on its own first, and then to use their response as a basis for comparison with their chosen poem.” A student preparing for this section is not memorising fifteen poems from a school-picked cluster, as an AQA or OCR student would; they are preparing to write confidently about any one of eighteen poems cold, then to select and compare a second from memory.
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A whole anthology studied cold is a different revision job to a chosen cluster. Our expert GCSE English Literature tutors work from your child's actual anthology — the current eighteen poems or the incoming 2027 fifteen — not a generic poetry list.
Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppEduqas has already published the anthology that replaces the current eighteen-poem list. Its own documents state: “A new Eduqas GCSE English Literature poetry anthology will be available for first teaching in September 2025,” with a companion document confirming “This version of the anthology is for first assessment from 2027.” A two-year GCSE course means a student beginning Year 10 in September 2025 sits their GCSE exams in the summer 2027 series — the correct cohort for the new anthology, and the first cohort to study it rather than the current eighteen-poem list.
The replacement anthology holds fifteen poems, counted from Eduqas's own printed list: The Schoolboy, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, Sonnet 29, Cousin Kate, Drummer Hodge, I Shall Return, Disabled, Decomposition, Catrin, Kamikaze, Blackberry Picking, War Photographer, Dusting the Phone, Remains and Origin Story. Eduqas's own comparison document states the new list carries “8 unique poems and 3 unique poets not offered by any other exam board”, naming the three poets directly: Claude McKay, Zulfikar Ghose and Eve L. Ewing. The same document separately notes the anthology also includes work from “3 contemporary laureates and one Nobel Prize winner — Carol Ann Duffy, Jackie Kay, Seamus Heaney and Simon Armitage” and poets from “all 4 UK nations, as well as those with Jamaican, Pakistani and American heritages.” Those uniqueness and heritage claims are Eduqas's own; no rival board has yet published a 2027-onward anthology to check them against.
Every other section on this specification has a list: six Shakespeare plays, ten Post-1914 texts, six 19th-century novels, eighteen anthology poems. Component 2, Section C does not. Eduqas's specification states this outright: “There are no prescribed texts for Section C. However, poems suitable for study to prepare learners for this section could include work by Fleur Adcock, John Agard, Moniza Alvi… Work by other poets from the 20th and 21st centuries may also be chosen.” Twenty-nine poets are named in that guidance, and the specification is explicit that the list is neither exhaustive nor binding — a teacher may prepare a class using none of the twenty-nine and still be following the specification correctly.
That is the direct answer to a question every other section on this page answers differently: for Unseen Poetry, nothing is prescribed and nothing is chosen from a list either, because the poem printed on the exam paper is not revealed until the exam itself. It is also the only section marked against AO1 and AO2 alone — no AO3 context, no AO4 spelling and grammar — consistent with there being no set text to research in advance. Preparation here means practising the skill of reading and comparing an unfamiliar poem cold, not memorising a fixed list, and any English Literature tutor working on this section needs to teach that skill directly rather than drilling named poems.
Unseen Poetry rewards a skill, not a memorised list. Our expert GCSE English Literature tutors drill unfamiliar-poem analysis directly, alongside the anthology, the prose texts and Shakespeare, for whichever anthology year a Eduqas-entered student is sitting.
Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppEduqas GCSE English Literature is entered under the code C720QS, printed in the specification's own text as “WJEC Eduqas GCSE English Literature: C720QS”. The specification in force is Version 4, published August 2024, teaching from 2015 and first awarded 2017. Its cover also states a Qualification Accreditation Number of 601/5246/1 — the specification's own stated code. Some resources shorten the qualification to the bare code “C720”, but that form does not appear anywhere inside the specification's own text, which prints the full entry code every time.
No. Eduqas's own specification states plainly: “This Ofqual regulated qualification is not available for candidates in maintained schools and colleges in Wales.” Eduqas is WJEC's own brand for schools in England, launched in 2014 — WJEC's own about-us page states it “launched Eduqas to differentiate our Ofqual reformed qualifications, designed specifically for secondary schools, academies and colleges in England.” WJEC's separate, Wales-facing GCSE English Literature specification is a different, separately regulated qualification, not covered on this page.
Othello and Oranges are not the Only Fruit. Othello sits on Eduqas's six-play Shakespeare list and appears on none of AQA's, Edexcel's or OCR's own sourced Shakespeare lists. Oranges are not the Only Fruit, by Jeanette Winterson, sits on Eduqas's Post-1914 list; Eduqas's own published comparison of the four boards states “Eduqas is the only exam board to offer Oranges are not the Only Fruit (Jeanette Winterson)”. Both checks are scoped to the four boards Eduqas itself compares against.
No. Eduqas's specification states: “Learners must study all of the poems in the WJEC Eduqas Poetry Anthology in preparation for this assessment” — currently eighteen poems, all mandatory, with no cluster or collection choice at any point. That differs from AQA and OCR, which each offer a choice of three fifteen-poem clusters, and Edexcel, which offers a choice of one fifteen-poem collection from four named options. The exam question also has a two-stage structure Eduqas's own comparison document claims as unique: writing about a specified poem first, then comparing a second poem chosen from the anthology.
Eduqas's own documents state the new anthology is available “for first teaching in September 2025”, with first assessment from 2027. A two-year GCSE course means a student beginning Year 10 in September 2025 is the first cohort examined under it, since their GCSE exams fall in the 2027 series. The replacement anthology holds fifteen poems, cut from the current eighteen, and Eduqas's own comparison document states it carries “8 unique poems and 3 unique poets not offered by any other exam board”, naming Claude McKay, Zulfikar Ghose and Eve L. Ewing as the three poets.
Nothing from a fixed list, because there is not one. Eduqas's specification states: “There are no prescribed texts for Section C.” It offers only non-binding guidance naming twenty-nine poets whose work could be suitable preparation material, explicitly not an exhaustive or required list. Unseen Poetry is also the only one of Eduqas's five assessed sections marked against AO1 and AO2 alone, with no AO3 context or AO4 spelling-and-grammar component — consistent with there being no set text to revise from in advance of the exam itself.
No, and this is not an Eduqas choice: it is an Ofqual-wide rule. Eduqas's own specification states it directly — “Regulatory requirements set out by Ofqual state all GCSE English literature specifications will: be assessed by examination, be untiered, be fully linear with assessments available in the summer series, allocate five per cent of the total marks to accurate spelling, punctuation and grammar.” Every GCSE English Literature specification examined in England, not only Eduqas's C720QS, is untiered for the same regulatory reason.
Our specialist Eduqas GCSE English Literature tutors work from your child's actual specification — the whole current anthology or the incoming 2027 replacement, and whichever Shakespeare, prose and 19th-century texts their school has chosen — alongside our wider GCSE English and A-level English Literature tuition. Leading Tuition is rated 4.8 out of 5 on Trustpilot from 58 reviews, and 91% of our students go on to achieve their desired grades.
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