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Overview

Advanced Extension Awards are new qualifications intended to challenge the most able Advanced GCE candidates. They are designed to provide opportunities for candidates to demonstrate a greater depth of understanding than that required at Advanced GCE and to demonstrate the ability to think critically and creatively.

The AEA English consists of a single three-hour examination of which up to one hour will be recommended as reading time. Candidates will then answer two questions from a choice of up to six.

The examination is designed to be accessible to candidates from any of the three English A levels: Literature, Language, and Literature and Language. There is no prescribed content for study. Instead, the questions will be based on a collection of quite diverse, unseen reading material which will be centred around a given theme, topic or period. It will typically comprise the following elements:

• Unfamiliar primary texts from different genres and periods, literary and non-literary, drawn from spoken and written language, and selected to facilitate comparisons and connections.
• Some secondary texts linked to the primary reading material by, for example, authorship, context, or specific commentary, and which raise issues of literary or linguistic debate relevant to the interpretation of the primary texts.
• Other secondary materials which demonstrate a range of critical views, theoretical positions and analytical approaches which have the potential to illuminate and challenge ways of reading the package as a whole.

The tasks set will enable candidates to select their own route through the material, drawing on either literary or linguistic studies or a combination of both. Where appropriate to the textual material, question styles may include opportunities for candidates to produce their own imaginative or recreative writing.

AEA English is suitable for candidates wishing to test their skills and knowledge at a level beyond that of the Advanced GCE. It does not presuppose the study of a particular specification and is designed to be accessible to all Advanced GCE English candidates who are likely to achieve an A grade.

AEA English is first available in June 2002 and thereafter in each June examination session. Awards are made on a two-point scale: Distinction and Merit.