Cambridge AS & A Level Literature in English 9695/42 is the May/June 2026 Paper 4 (Pre- and Post-1900 Poetry and Prose), variant 2, an A Level component. It lasts 2 hours, is worth 50 marks and you answer two questions: one on a pre-1900 text from Section A and one on a post-1900 text from Section B, 25 marks each, with one answer on poetry and one on prose. Twelve texts were set, each with an (a) essay and a (b) passage question, so the first thing to settle is a pairing that meets the poetry-and-prose rule. This guide covers every option and explains how the mark scheme 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.

9695/42 at a glance

Rubric: answer two questions in total, one from Section A and one from Section B. One must be a poetry question and one a prose question. All questions are worth equal marks.

Question	Text	Form	(a) Essay	(b) Passage	Marks
1	Austen: Pride and Prejudice	Prose	Pride in Elizabeth and Darcy’s relationship (quoted line)	Family relationships, Chapter 51	25
2	Chaucer: The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale	Poetry	Symbols and motifs	The knight	25
3	Eliot: Middlemarch	Prose	Shaping the reader’s response to Lydgate	Chapter 9 and Eliot’s methods and concerns	25
4	Hardy: Jude the Obscure	Prose	Lies and dishonesty	Jude, Part Second, Chapter 7	25
5	Shakespeare: selected sonnets	Poetry	Personal and universal? (three sonnets)	Sonnet 116	25
6	Whitman: Leaves of Grass	Poetry	Symbols (three poems)	War in The Wound-Dresser	25
7	Coetzee: Waiting for the Barbarians	Prose	The power of empire and imperialism	Chapter 2 and Coetzee’s methods	25
8	Glück: The Wild Iris	Poetry	Love (three poems)	Critical appreciation of Vespers	25
9	Mansfield: Selected Stories	Prose	Children (at least two stories)	Marriage à la Mode	25
10	Morrison: Beloved	Prose	Shaping the reader’s response to Beloved	Part 2, Paul D	25
11	Okara: Collected Poems	Poetry	Suffering (three poems)	Critical appreciation, The Fisherman’s Invocation	25
12	Trethewey: Native Guard	Poetry	Different poetic forms (three poems)	Photographs, Photograph: Ice Storm, 1971	25
	Total (one Section A and one Section B answer, one poetry and one prose)				50

Questions 1 to 6 are Section A; 7 to 12 are Section B. If your pre-1900 text is prose (1, 3 or 4), your post-1900 answer must be on poetry (8, 11 or 12). If it is poetry (2, 5 or 6), your post-1900 answer must be on prose (7, 9 or 10).

Question-by-question walkthrough

How every question is marked

The mark scheme gives no content for any individual question. Each 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 how choices of language, form and structure shape meaning, AO3 informed personal response, AO4 structured communication and AO5 evaluation of opinions. AO5 ranges from a basic mention of other opinions, perhaps those in the question, to a perceptive evaluation of varying interpretations that supports an assured argument.
• Passage to whole. For (b) questions the grid judges the connections between passage and wider text. Level 6 sustains a balance between part and whole; Level 3 either over-concentrates on the extract or is too general to engage with it.
• Narrative is capped. Summary or paraphrase is tolerated only occasionally at Level 3, and Level 1 knowledge “may be narrative-based”.
• Relevant choices are respected. No particular focus is required, and examiners meet candidates on their chosen ground provided it is relevant.

Section A: Pre-1900 Poetry and Prose

Question 1: Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)

• 1(a), pride: with Elizabeth’s line about forgiving Darcy’s pride if he had not wounded her own in mind, discuss the significance of pride in their relationship. The line points to pride on both sides, which is a good frame for AO5.
• 1(b), Chapter 51: Lydia and Wickham return married. Mr Bennet is stern and silent while Elizabeth and Jane blush; Lydia, unabashed, boasts of showing her ring to a neighbour on the road, takes Jane’s place at table as a married woman, says her sisters should go to Brighton for husbands and offers to find them partners at Newcastle, encouraged by her mother. Elizabeth replies drily that she does not like Lydia’s way of getting husbands. Discuss what the passage adds to Austen’s presentation of family relationships here and elsewhere, with attention to language, tone and narrative methods: the free indirect style, Lydia’s breathless speech and the reactions of each family member.

Question 2: The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale (Geoffrey Chaucer)

• 2(a), symbols and motifs: discuss some of the ways Chaucer uses symbols and motifs across the Prologue and Tale.
• 2(b), the knight: before the queen’s court, the knight answers that women most desire sovereignty over their husbands and lovers, and no woman present contradicts him. The old woman then claims her reward: he must marry her. He begs her to take his goods instead and laments that his lineage should be so disgraced, but he is compelled to wed her. Discuss what the extract adds to the presentation of the knight, with close attention to poetic methods: direct speech, the court setting, his exclamations and the brisk rhyming couplets of the ending.

Question 3: Middlemarch (George Eliot)

• 3(a), Lydgate: discuss how Eliot shapes a reader’s response to Dr Lydgate. The question is about narrative methods (narratorial comment, irony, what we are shown and told), not only about his story.
• 3(b), Chapter 9: on a visit to Lowick, Dorothea is quietly disappointed that there is so little for her to do there, and Mr Casaubon answers her with stiff talk of duties. Walking back, they come upon his young cousin Will Ladislaw sketching an old yew; Eliot describes his face in detail, and he is discontented and colours when Mr Brooke leafs through his sketch-book. Discuss what the passage adds to your understanding of Eliot’s methods and concerns in the novel as a whole, paying close attention to details of the writing.

Question 4: Jude the Obscure (Thomas Hardy)

• 4(a), lies and dishonesty: in what ways, and with what effects, Hardy uses lies and dishonesty in the novel.
• 4(b), Part Second, Chapter 7: Jude walks home to his great-aunt’s village, pawning his waistcoat and sleeping under a rick, and passes the milestone where he once carved his hopes. In his old room he wakes to what Hardy calls the hell of conscious failure, in ambition and in love. Hearing the curate praying with his aunt, he calls him in, describes himself as a fellow gone to the bad, and says he no longer cares about the University but bitterly regrets losing the chance to serve the Church. Discuss what the passage adds to Hardy’s presentation of Jude, with attention to language, tone and narrative methods: the religious and classical allusions, the setting, the wind and churches, and Jude’s own speech.

Question 5: Shakespeare, selected sonnets

• 5(a), personal and universal: to what extent do you agree that the sonnets are both personal and universal? Refer to three sonnets. This is a direct AO5 invitation: weigh the claim rather than simply illustrating it.
• 5(b), Sonnet 116: the speaker defines true love as constant, unchanged by alteration or time, a fixed mark and a guiding star, and stakes his own writing on the claim. Discuss what it adds to your understanding of Shakespeare’s concerns here and elsewhere in the selection, paying close attention to poetic methods: the negative definitions, the navigation imagery, the personification of Time and the closing couplet.

Question 6: Leaves of Grass (Walt Whitman)

• 6(a), symbols: discuss the effects created by Whitman’s use of symbols, with reference to three poems.
• 6(b), The Wound-Dresser: an old man, asked by young people to tell of the great battles, admits he set out eager for war but turned to sitting with the wounded. He passes over the charges quickly and dwells instead on dressing wounds in the hospital rows, the attendant with the refuse pail, and a dying boy he would give his life for. Show how the extract is characteristic of Whitman’s presentation of war here and elsewhere in the selection: the long free-verse lines, the parentheses, the cataloguing and the shift from glory to care.

Section B: Post-1900 Poetry and Prose

Question 7: Waiting for the Barbarians (J M Coetzee)

• 7(a), empire: in what ways, and with what effects, Coetzee presents the power of empire and imperialism.
• 7(b), Chapter 2: a passage in the first-person narrator’s voice that opens with him recalling the strength of his younger manhood. Analyse the effects of the writing and how the passage is characteristic of Coetzee’s narrative methods and concerns.

Question 8: The Wild Iris (Louise Glück)

• 8(a), love: in what ways, and with what effects, Glück presents love, with reference to three poems.
• 8(b), Vespers: write a critical appreciation of one of the Vespers poems, which addresses an absent “you”, considering how it is characteristic of Glück’s poetic methods and concerns.

Question 9: Selected Stories (Katherine Mansfield)

• 9(a), children: discuss the presentation and significance of children in at least two stories.
• 9(b), Marriage à la Mode: Isabel and her friends lounge outside the house on a dull, stifling day, trading languid wit while waiting for the post. A long letter arrives from her husband William; it is a love letter, and Isabel reads it aloud to the group, who are reduced to hysterics. Then, to their surprise, she crushes it in her hand, stops laughing and refuses to read more. Analyse the effects of the writing and how it is characteristic of Mansfield’s narrative methods and concerns: the free indirect style, the fragments of the letter set against the friends’ chatter, and the sudden turn at the end.

Question 10: Beloved (Toni Morrison)

• 10(a), Beloved: discuss how Morrison shapes a reader’s response to the character Beloved.
• 10(b), Part 2: a passage in which Paul D reconsiders his long-held belief about schoolteacher and Garner and wonders what went wrong, beginning with the Plan. Analyse the effects of the writing and how it is characteristic of Morrison’s narrative methods and concerns.

Question 11: Collected Poems (Gabriel Okara)

• 11(a), suffering: in what ways, and with what effects, Okara explores suffering in three poems.
• 11(b), The Fisherman’s Invocation: write a critical appreciation of the extract from the poem’s final section, The End, which opens as a celebration ends, considering how it is characteristic of Okara’s poetic methods and concerns.

Question 12: Native Guard (Natasha Trethewey)

• 12(a), poetic forms: discuss the effects created by Trethewey’s use of different poetic forms, with reference to three poems, which may include individual poems from longer sequences.
• 12(b), Photograph: Ice Storm, 1971: a poem that opens by questioning beauty and closes on what lies inside a family home, the mother and the stepfather’s violence. Consider how Trethewey makes use of photographs here and elsewhere in the collection, paying close attention to poetic methods.

Where the marks are on 9695/42

Part	What you write	Marks
Section A: Pre-1900	One (a) essay or (b) passage answer on one pre-1900 text	25
Section B: Post-1900	One (a) essay or (b) passage answer on one post-1900 text, of the other form	25
	Total	50

• Five objectives in every answer. AO1 to AO5 are equally weighted and judged together.
• Most poetry essays set a number. Five of the six poetry (a) questions asked for three poems.
• “Characteristic” passages need range. Questions 6(b), 7(b), 8(b), 9(b), 10(b) and 11(b) asked how the passage is characteristic of the writer, so the answer must reach beyond it.

How to self-mark 9695/42 with the mark scheme

1. Check the rubric twice. One answer from each section, one poetry and one prose. Settle the pairing before you mark anything else.
2. Place each answer in a level by best fit. Read all five strands, then choose the mark within the band.
3. Count your texts. Three poems, three sonnets or at least two stories, as the question says.
4. Test AO5. Mark every point where you consider a different reading or respond to a quoted view. Do you evaluate it, or only state it?
5. Measure the part-to-whole balance in a (b) answer. Too much extract or too little holds the answer at Level 3.
6. Underline narrative. Retelling the plot of a novel instead of analysing how it is written is the commonest drag on a prose answer.

Sit 9695/42 as a timed mock

The paper allows 2 hours for two equal answers.

Block	Marks	Time
Confirm your poetry/prose pairing and choose (a) or (b)	–	5 minutes
Plan the Section A answer	–	8 minutes
Write the Section A answer	25	45 minutes
Plan the Section B answer	–	8 minutes
Write the Section B answer	25	45 minutes
Check both answers against the question and for AO5	–	9 minutes

Other May/June 2026 9695 papers

• 9695 Paper 12 (Drama and Poetry)
• 9695 Paper 22 (Prose and Unseen)
• 9695 Paper 32 (Shakespeare and Drama)

Practise and download

• Download 9695/42 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 42 May/June 2026? +

Answer two questions: one from Section A (pre-1900) and one from Section B (post-1900). One answer must be on poetry and the other on prose. Each is worth 25 marks, so the paper is out of 50 and lasts 2 hours.

Which texts count as poetry and which as prose on 9695/42? +

Pre-1900 prose: Pride and Prejudice, Middlemarch and Jude the Obscure. Pre-1900 poetry: The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale, Shakespeare's sonnets and Whitman's Leaves of Grass. Post-1900 prose: Waiting for the Barbarians, Mansfield's Selected Stories and Beloved. Post-1900 poetry: The Wild Iris, Okara's Collected Poems and Native Guard.

How many poems do the 9695/42 poetry essays need? +

Three for Shakespeare's sonnets, Whitman, Glück, Okara and Trethewey. The Mansfield prose essay asked for at least two stories. Check the number in your question before you plan.

Does the 9695/42 mark scheme give content for each text? +

No. Every question is marked on one six-level grid out of 25 covering five equally weighted objectives, including AO5, the evaluation of different opinions and interpretations.

What did the 9695/42 passage questions ask? +

Most asked you to relate the passage to the whole text: what it adds to the presentation of a theme or character, or how it is characteristic of the writer's methods and concerns. Questions 8(b) and 11(b) asked for a critical appreciation of a poem or extract.

Where can I download 9695/42 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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