Paper 1 Literary Genres (7717): Revision Notes

Condensed for the final weeks. For the full explanation, use the Paper 1 Literary Genres study guide. Paper 1 tests one genre option in depth — Aspects of Tragedy or Aspects of Comedy — across a Shakespeare play plus further studied texts drawn from drama, prose and poetry.

Paper 1 at a glance

2 hours 30 minutes, closed book, 75 marks = 40% of the A-level.

Section	Focus	Marks
A	Passage-based, Shakespeare (one question per prescribed play — answer on the one you studied)	25
B	Essay, Shakespeare (choice of two questions on the play studied)	25
C	Essay linking two further texts (choice of two questions; one text must be drama, one pre-1900)	25

All three sections are compulsory once the genre option is chosen — but each section itself offers a choice of question, unlike a fixed single-question paper.

Choose one option: Aspects of Tragedy or Aspects of Comedy. Students choose the option themselves; in practice a centre typically teaches only one, so confirm with your teacher which genre option your course is actually studying before beginning detailed revision.

The genre-led mindset

This is not “three separate texts” — it’s one genre, explored through several texts. Every answer should engage with the genre’s conventions (tragic hero, hamartia, catharsis for tragedy; comic resolution, misunderstanding, social correction for comedy) and how each text uses or departs from them. This genre-led approach is what distinguishes English Literature B from more text-led A-Level literature specifications, and examiners actively look for it — a well-written essay that simply summarises a text’s plot and features, without connecting back to the genre question, underperforms even where the individual textual analysis is strong.

The three questions

• Q1 (passage-based, Shakespeare): close analysis of a set extract, connected to the genre.
• Q2 (essay, Shakespeare): a genre-focused essay on the whole play.
• Q3 (linking essay): connects two further texts (from drama, prose, poetry) within the genre option.

All three questions draw on the same genre option throughout the paper — there is no switching between Tragedy and Comedy mid-paper, so the genre-specific conventions and vocabulary you build up revising for Q1 carry directly into Q2 and Q3.

Building genre debate

Don’t just identify genre features (“this is a tragic hero because…”) — debate them: does the text conform to, subvert, or complicate the convention? AQA’s AOs explicitly reward this kind of critical debate over simple feature-spotting. A useful revision habit is to keep a small bank of critical viewpoints on your genre and texts that you can draw on and, where appropriate, challenge — since contextual and critical interpretation is credited alongside close textual analysis.

Where Paper 1 sits in the full qualification

Paper 1 (75 marks, 40%) sits alongside Paper 2 (Texts and Genres, also 75 marks / 40%, but open book) and a teacher-assessed, AQA-moderated non-exam component worth the remaining 20% (two 1,250-1,500 word essays, one of which can be a re-creative response with an accompanying commentary). Because Paper 1 is closed book while Paper 2 is open book, revision technique needs to differ between the two: Paper 1 demands a memorised quotation bank the way Paper 2 does not, so building that bank is a Paper-1-specific priority rather than something that transfers automatically from Paper 2 preparation.

Genre conventions worth knowing cold

For Aspects of Tragedy: the tragic hero, hamartia (the fatal flaw), hubris, catharsis, and the inevitability of downfall despite — or because of — the hero’s own choices. For Aspects of Comedy: comic resolution, misunderstanding or mistaken identity, social correction, and the restoration of order by the play or text’s end. Treat each of these as a genuine critical question about your specific texts — does the ending really achieve full catharsis, or does it complicate it? — rather than a checklist to confirm mechanically is present.

Exam traps

• Writing about texts in isolation instead of exploring how they relate to the genre and each other.
• Feature-spotting (“this is dramatic irony”) without debating what it contributes to the genre reading.
• Ignoring the passage in Q1 and writing a general essay instead of close, extract-based analysis.
• Forgetting AQA has a revised specification for exams from 2027 with a refreshed text list — always confirm which version applies.
• Preparing for Paper 1 as if it were open book like Paper 2, under-investing in a memorised quotation bank.

Self-test

1. How many questions make up Paper 1, and what does each focus on?
2. What are the two genre options, and how many do you study?
3. What distinguishes a strong genre-led answer from a text-by-text summary?
4. What proportion of the A-level is Paper 1 worth?

Answers: 1. Three: a passage-based Shakespeare question, a Shakespeare essay, and an essay linking two further texts within the genre option. 2. Aspects of Tragedy and Aspects of Comedy — you study one. 3. It treats the genre as a set of contested conventions and debates how each text uses, departs from or complicates them, rather than summarising each text’s plot and features separately. 4. 40% — 150 of 375 scaled marks. The raw mark is 75, but AQA doubles Paper 1 and Paper 2 raw marks when combining them with the 50-mark non-exam component, giving a scaled total of 375 (150 + 150 + 75); 150 of that scaled total is 40%.

5. What proportion of the qualification does the non-exam component carry, and what does it consist of?
6. Why does Paper 1 need a different revision approach from Paper 2?

Answers (continued): 5. 20%, made up of two 1,250-1,500 word teacher-assessed, AQA-moderated essays, one of which can be a re-creative response with a commentary. 6. Because Paper 1 is closed book while Paper 2 is open book, so Paper 1 specifically requires a memorised quotation bank that Paper 2’s revision does not.