AQA AS Business: Course Structure and Study Approach (7137)

An overview of how AQA AS Business (7137) is put together, for students starting the course and for anyone deciding whether to sit AS as a stand-alone qualification, including how it relates to the full A-level and how the two exam papers are structured.

A stand-alone qualification, not half an exam

AQA AS Business is assessed and certificated separately from A-level Business (7138) – it is not simply “the first year” of the A-level in an administrative sense, even though AS and A-level share a single specification document and AS content is examined again, in more depth, within the A-level. A student can take AS Business as a complete qualification in its own right, without going on to the full A-level. This distinction matters practically: a school that enters students for AS at the end of Year 12 is awarding a separate, final qualification at that point, not a progress checkpoint towards the A-level grade.

The two units

AS Business covers two of the three units that make up the combined AQA Business specification, each split into named sub-topics:

Unit 3.1: What is business? Managing marketing and finance

1. 3.1.1 Business and objectives — entrepreneurship, business planning and decisions, and the purpose and characteristics of business objectives.
2. 3.1.2 Forms of business and stakeholders — legal/organisational business forms, how to compare them, and internal/external stakeholders.
3. 3.1.3 Marketing management — identifying and understanding customer needs, and how markets and marketing data inform decisions.
4. 3.1.4 Financial management

Unit 3.2: Managing people and operations

5. 3.2.1 People management
6. 3.2.2 Operations management

Unit 3.3 (Business and society, business and the external environment, and business strategy) is explicitly marked “(A-level only)” in the specification and is only assessed as part of the full two-year A-level (7138), not at AS – along with one further sub-topic, 3.2.3 (Managing business culture), which sits inside Unit 3.2 but is also marked “(A-level only)”.

This is a change from the previous specification (7131, last examined summer 2026): 7131’s Topic 1 included a third sub-topic on how businesses operate within an external environment, which has moved, under 7137/7138, into the now-A-level-only Unit 3.3. It is no longer part of the AS course at all.

How it’s assessed

AS Business is assessed by two exam papers, each lasting 1 hour 45 minutes and worth 80 marks (50% of the qualification each), sat at the end of the course – this is a linear qualification, so all assessment happens in one May/June series. Both papers follow the same format: two case studies, each followed by six compulsory questions, together worth 40 marks per case study (80 marks total per paper).

• Paper 1 is standalone, with questions based only on Unit 3.1.
• Paper 2 focuses on Unit 3.2, plus sections 3.1.1 and 3.1.2 from Unit 3.1 – but question end-points can draw on knowledge and skills from across the whole of Unit 3.1, including calculations (AQA’s own sample assessment materials give a Paper 2 question that ends by requiring a break-even calculation, which is 3.1.4 content). One 15-mark question in Paper 2 specifically requires learners to draw together knowledge from across the full AS course, and both papers’ 15-mark questions reward the accurate use of sophisticated concepts.

Approaching the case-study papers

Because both papers are built around business scenarios rather than a series of unrelated questions, the most efficient way to prepare is to practise reading a case study actively rather than passively – noting the business’s size, sector, objectives and any numerical data given in the opening paragraphs before attempting a single question, since later questions routinely expect that context to be applied rather than restated. The higher-mark questions typically ask candidates to weigh up a decision facing the business in the case study, which means a strong answer draws on evidence from the case itself (figures, stated objectives, described constraints) rather than generic business theory alone – an answer built entirely from theory, with no reference back to the specific business in the scenario, tends to plateau in the middle mark bands regardless of how accurate the theory is. For Paper 2 in particular, it’s worth practising questions that deliberately link a Unit 3.2 topic back to marketing or finance (3.1.1/3.1.2, and occasionally the wider Unit 3.1), since AQA’s own sample materials show end-points reaching into content outside the paper’s primary unit.

Related resources

• AQA AS-Level Business: What Is Business? (3.1.1-3.1.2) — business and objectives, and forms of business and stakeholders
• Business subject hub

Written against AQA AS Business 7137. Always confirm the current specification code and content for your examination year at aqa.org.uk.