Cambridge AS & A Level Literature in English 9695/32 is the May/June 2026 Paper 3 (Shakespeare and Drama), variant 2, an A Level component. It lasts 2 hours, is worth 50 marks and you answer two questions: one on a Shakespeare play from Section A and one on another play from Section B, 25 marks each. Each play offered an (a) essay or a (b) extract question, and most extract questions asked you to relate the passage to the rest of the play. This guide covers all ten options and explains how the mark scheme, with its added AO5, places an answer. The paper and its mark scheme are free on the Tutopiya Learning Portal.

For an overview of all four 9695 papers from this series, see A Level Literature in English 9695 May/June 2026 past papers: what came up and how it was marked.

9695/32 at a glance

Rubric: answer two questions in total, one from Section A and one from Section B. All questions are worth equal marks.

Question	Play	(a) Essay	(b) Passage	Marks
1	Shakespeare: Hamlet	How women are presented, and the dramatic effects	Act 3, Scene 3: the King at prayer, Hamlet holds back	25
2	Shakespeare: The Taming of the Shrew	Deception and its dramatic significance	Act 2, Scene 1: Petruchio and Katherina meet	25
3	Nottage: Sweat	Financial hardship and its significance	Hopes and dreams, Act 1, Scene 2	25
4	O’Neill: Long Day’s Journey Into Night	Attitudes to acting and the theatre	Edmund and Jamie, Act 4	25
5	Soyinka: Kongi’s Harvest	Flawed leadership and its significance	An extract from the First Part	25
	Total (one Section A and one Section B answer)			50

Question-by-question walkthrough

How every question is marked

There is no content for any individual question in the mark scheme. Every answer is placed on one six-level grid out of 25.

• Bands. Level 6 “perceptive and assured” (22–25), Level 5 “confident and thorough” (18–21), Level 4 “sound and competent” (14–17), Level 3 “straightforward and partial” (10–13), Level 2 “basic and limited” (6–9), Level 1 “generalised and restricted” (1–5). Best fit first, then the mark within the level.
• Five equally weighted objectives. AO1 knowledge and understanding (with context), AO2 analysis of the writer’s choices, AO3 informed personal response, AO4 structured communication, and AO5, evaluation of opinions: discussing and weighing different interpretations. AO5 climbs from a mention of other opinions “perhaps those expressed in the question” at Level 2, through competent consideration at Level 4, to perceptive evaluation that supports an assured argument at Level 6.
• Part and whole. For (b) questions, AO1 judges the connections between passage and wider play, from “basic and limited” up to “perceptive and assured”. Level 3 names the two ways to lose balance: over-concentrating on the extract, or writing so generally that the passage is not properly appreciated. Level 2 adds answers that are sketchy, overlong and undiscriminating.
• Narrative stays low. Level 3 permits only occasional summary or paraphrase. Examiners also have an annotation for Evaluation of Opinions, alongside those for knowledge, analysis, context and narrative.
• Your ground, if relevant. The scheme tells examiners not to penalise answers for leaving out a particular focus and to meet candidates on their chosen ground.

Section A: Shakespeare

Question 1: Hamlet

• 1(a), women: in what ways, and with what dramatic effects, Shakespeare presents women. Gertrude and Ophelia are the obvious focus; “dramatic effects” asks what their presentation does on stage and in the play’s design, and how male characters speak about them is fair material.
• 1(b), Act 3, Scene 3: alone, the King admits his crime, a brother’s murder, and finds he cannot pray, because he still holds what the murder won him: his crown, his ambition and his queen. He kneels to try. Hamlet enters, sees the chance to kill him, then reasons that killing him at prayer would send him to heaven, and resolves to wait for a moment of sin. The King rises and says his words fly up while his thoughts stay below. Analyse it in relation to Shakespeare’s methods and concerns here and elsewhere, with attention to language, tone and action. The dramatic irony of Hamlet’s mistake, the parallel soliloquies, the imagery of rank smell, washing and the trapped soul, and the play’s wider concerns with revenge, conscience and delay are all relevant.

Question 2: The Taming of the Shrew

• 2(a), deception: discuss the presentation and dramatic significance of deception. Disguises, false identities and pretended moods give range; the essay should explain what they contribute to comedy, theme and structure.
• 2(b), Act 2, Scene 1: Petruchio greets her as “Kate” and keeps punning on the name; Katherina insists on her full name. A rapid exchange of insults and bawdy wordplay follows, she strikes him, he threatens to strike back, and the sparring continues until she tries to leave and he refuses to let her go. Analyse it in relation to the play’s methods and concerns here and elsewhere, with attention to language, tone and action. The stichomythia, who wins each exchange, the slap and what the wit suggests about power between them all connect to how their relationship develops.

Section B: Drama

Question 3: Sweat (Lynn Nottage)

• 3(a), financial hardship: discuss Nottage’s dramatic presentation of financial hardship and its significance to the play.
• 3(b), hopes and dreams, Act 1, Scene 2: Cynthia, Tracey and Stan discuss a rumour that a supervisor is being promoted and that the company may hire a replacement from the floor. Tracey scoffs, Cynthia says she might apply after twenty-four years on the line and describes how her body is wearing out, and Tracey then wonders about applying too, though she doubts any of the women will get it. Stan, who put in twenty-eight years before an injury, says the plant has hardly changed since his grandfather started there and that Olstead’s grandson, now in charge, is no better than the rest. The question asks what the extract adds to your understanding of Nottage’s presentation of hopes and dreams. The years each character has served, the shift in Tracey’s attitude, Stan’s cynicism and what the audience may suspect about where this ambition leads are all useful.

Question 4: Long Day’s Journey Into Night (Eugene O’Neill)

• 4(a), acting and the theatre: discuss O’Neill’s exploration of the characters’ attitudes to acting and the theatre. Compare how different members of the family view it.
• 4(b), Edmund and Jamie, Act 4: a drunk Jamie tells Edmund that he loves him more than he hates him but will do his best to make him fail, and warns him to treat him as dead. Edmund begs him to stop. Jamie claims credit for the warning, as if he had been to confession, then falls into a doze. Tyrone enters, having heard, tells Edmund not to take it too much to heart, and grieves bitterly over his first-born; when Jamie wakes, Tyrone steps back, his face hardening. Show what the extract adds to your understanding of the relationship between Edmund and Jamie, with attention to language, tone and action. Jamie’s love and hostility, the religious language, the long stage directions and Tyrone’s entrance are central.

Question 5: Kongi’s Harvest (Wole Soyinka)

• 5(a), flawed leadership: discuss Soyinka’s dramatic presentation of flawed leadership and its significance in the play.
• 5(b), the First Part: an extract that opens with Kongi seen dimly in his own cell above the Aweri. Analyse it in relation to Soyinka’s methods and concerns here and elsewhere in the play, with attention to language, tone and action. The staging of Kongi above the others gives a starting point for how the play presents power.

Where the marks are on 9695/32

Part	What you write	Marks
Section A: Shakespeare	One (a) essay or (b) passage answer on one Shakespeare play	25
Section B: Drama	One (a) essay or (b) passage answer on one other play	25
	Total	50

• Five objectives, one judgement. AO1 to AO5 are equally weighted and judged together; none is given its own mark.
• Passage questions are partly whole-play questions. Three of the five (b) questions explicitly asked about methods and concerns “here and elsewhere”.
• “Significance” recurs. Questions 2(a), 3(a) and 5(a) ask for significance, so each needs a judgement about why the topic matters to the play, not only how it appears.

How to self-mark 9695/32 with the mark scheme

1. Check the rubric. One Shakespeare play, one other play, and (a) or (b) for each.
2. Place the answer in a level by best fit. Read all five strands of the level, then choose the mark within the band.
3. Test the AO5 strand. Highlight every place where you consider another reading, a director’s choice or a critical view, and check whether you evaluate it or only mention it.
4. For a (b) answer, measure the balance. Roughly how much is close analysis of the extract and how much links outward? Too much of either holds the answer at Level 3.
5. Check dramatic methods. Count comments on staging, stage directions, entrances, tone and audience response. A drama answer read as if it were a novel loses ground on AO2.
6. Mark narrative. Underline any sentence that retells action without analysing it.

Sit 9695/32 as a timed mock

The paper allows 2 hours for two equal answers.

Block	Marks	Time
Read the options for your two plays and choose (a) or (b)	–	5 minutes
Plan the Shakespeare answer	–	8 minutes
Write the Shakespeare answer	25	45 minutes
Plan the drama answer	–	8 minutes
Write the drama answer	25	45 minutes
Check both answers for the “here and elsewhere” links and AO5	–	9 minutes

Other May/June 2026 9695 papers

• 9695 Paper 12 (Drama and Poetry)
• 9695 Paper 22 (Prose and Unseen)
• 9695 Paper 42 (Pre- and Post-1900 Poetry and Prose)

Practise and download

• Download 9695/32 and its mark scheme on the Learning Portal →
• All 9695 May/June 2026 papers: overview and marking patterns
• Try a free A Level Literature in English quiz

Need help with a 9695 topic? Book a free trial lesson with an A Level Literature in English tutor →

Frequently asked questions

What is the rubric for 9695 Paper 32 May/June 2026? +

Answer two questions: one Shakespeare question from Section A and one drama question from Section B. For each play you answer either the (a) essay or the (b) passage question. Each answer is worth 25 marks, so the paper is out of 50 and lasts 2 hours.

Which plays were on 9695/32 in 2026? +

Section A had Hamlet and The Taming of the Shrew. Section B had Lynn Nottage's Sweat, Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night and Wole Soyinka's Kongi's Harvest.

What is AO5 on 9695/32? +

AO5 is the ability to discuss and evaluate varying opinions and interpretations of literary works. It is equally weighted with AO1 to AO4. At Level 6 the answer perceptively evaluates other readings in support of an assured argument; at Level 2 it may only mention opinions, perhaps those in the question.

How much of a 9695/32 passage answer should be about the rest of the play? +

The mark scheme asks for a balance. Level 6 sustains an appropriate balance in relating part of the text to the whole, while Level 3 describes answers that over-concentrate on the extract or are too general to engage with it.

Which extracts were set on 9695/32? +

Claudius at prayer and Hamlet's decision not to kill him (Act 3, Scene 3), the first meeting of Petruchio and Katherina (Act 2, Scene 1), the supervisor's job in Sweat (Act 1, Scene 2), Jamie's drunken confession to Edmund (Long Day's Journey, Act 4) and an extract from the First Part of Kongi's Harvest.

Where can I download 9695/32 May/June 2026 and its mark scheme? +

Both are free to download and print on the Tutopiya Learning Portal, on the Cambridge AS & A Level Literature in English 9695 past papers page.

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