AQA English Literature Past Papers
AQA English Literature past papers are the best practice you can do for GCSE, giving you real questions and mark schemes for both papers. Here is where to find them, and how to use them for each of your texts to actually raise your grade.
Macbeth
17 revision pagesA Christmas Carol
19 revision pagesAn Inspector Calls
18 revision pagesPower and Conflict
20 revision pagesUnseen Poetry
9 revision pagesWhy past papers matter
Reading your notes again feels productive but changes little. Answering real past questions under time pressure is what actually improves your grade, because it trains the exam skill itself: planning and writing a strong argument quickly, from memory. Past papers are the closest thing to the real exam you can get.
Where to find AQA past papers
The official source is the AQA website, which publishes past papers, mark schemes and examiner reports for English Literature. The mark schemes show you exactly how answers are graded, and the examiner reports explain what strong and weak responses did, which is genuinely useful for seeing what to aim at. Your teacher will also have access to these and to specimen papers.
How to use them for each text
Work through past questions text by text. For the Paper 1 texts, practise the extract-based skill with the Macbeth and A Christmas Carol questions. For Paper 2, rehearse whole-text essays with the An Inspector Calls questions, comparison with the Power and Conflict questions, and the unseen skill with unseen poetry past papers. Do each under timed conditions, then mark yourself against the scheme.
See the full structure of each exam on the Paper 1 and Paper 2 hubs.