AQA A Level English Language and Literature (7707) Past Papers 2026

7707/1 — Telling Stories

Duration: 3h

7707/2 — Exploring Conflict

Duration: 2h 30m

Modality (epistemic, deontic, boulomaic) — applied loosely or interchangeably

'Many students talked about modality but, as with previous years, this was not always applied correctly. There was some confusion about epistemic, deontic and boulomaic modality.' Recurs every series across multiple sections.

Paper 1, Paper 2

Deixis — temporal and spatial — labelled for any time/place word

'Students misunderstood temporal deixis and spatial deixis, labelling any adverbs of time as temporal deixis and any location as spatial deixis.' Deictic language must be context-bound and anchored to speaker.

Paper 1

Asyndetic vs syndetic listing — applied inaccurately

'Many students inaccurately labelled the list of adjectives in text A (the trivial, vicious, depraved, dramatic or beautiful things) as an asyndetic list.' Students also rarely evaluate effect even when correctly identified.

Paper 1

Mode features in spoken text B (pauses, fillers, backchannelling, hedging) labelled but not analysed

'students labelled spoken language features such as pauses, fillers, backchannelling and hedging but some did not discuss the effect on meaning and representation, instead just identifying them as features linked to genre and mode.'

Paper 1

Poetic form, rhythm, rhyme, volta, caesura, enjambment — labelled, not analysed

'examiners still saw some students simply labelling the rhyme scheme or metre, or saying that there was caesura or enjambment, and making little comment on how these contribute to the meanings created.'

Paper 1

Poetic voice — confused with the poet's biography

'some students were still unsure about poetic voice (particularly when responding to the Donne or Heaney questions, often just referring to what Donne or Heaney say and think)' — the construction of voice is the AO2 focus, not biographical commentary.

Paper 1

Face theory and Grice's maxims — applied as labels without exemplification

'referred to face-threatening acts in quite a general way, without clear exemplification to explain how/why' and 'some students misunderstood the meanings of positive and negative face.' Pragmatic concepts must drive interpretation, not decorate it.

Paper 1, Paper 2

Dramatic genre conventions beyond stage directions

'some students still do not recognise the dramatic genre as important to comment on, despite this being one clear element of the AO3 mark scheme; some simply referred to stage directions as the only examples of genre conventions.' Tragedy, plastic theatre, soliloquy, asides, theatrical space all in scope.

Paper 2