Cambridge A Level Literature in English (9695) rewards students who can read closely and argue clearly, and many Zimbabwean schools have taught it for years. This guide is for students in Zimbabwe preparing for the 2027 series. It covers the set texts Cambridge has published for 2027, how the four papers are marked, and essay technique with example paragraphs you can model your own writing on.

All syllabus details below come from the Cambridge 9695 syllabus for 2027 and 2028 (version 3, published October 2026). Exams are available in the June and November series.

A note on ZIMSEC from 2027

From 2027 every school in Zimbabwe must register its learners for ZIMSEC, and Cambridge becomes a voluntary, additional qualification that schools must apply to keep. The Ministry has said learners in Lower Six on the Cambridge route in 2026 will sit ZIMSEC A Level in 2027 (The Herald, May 2026). Ask your school whether it will still enter you for 9695. Our guide to ZIMSEC becoming compulsory explains the timeline, and private candidates can read how to sit Cambridge exams privately in Zimbabwe.

How 9695 is assessed

Paper	What it covers	Length	Marks	Weighting
Paper 1 Drama and Poetry	One drama text, one poetry text	2 hours	50	50% of AS, 25% of A Level
Paper 2 Prose and Unseen	One prose text, one unseen passage	2 hours	50	50% of AS, 25% of A Level
Paper 3 Shakespeare and Drama	One Shakespeare play, one drama text	2 hours	50	25% of A Level
Paper 4 Pre- and Post-1900 Poetry and Prose	One pre-1900 text, one post-1900 text (one poetry, one prose)	2 hours	50	25% of A Level

Points that shape how you revise:

• Two essays in two hours. Each paper has two sections worth 25 marks each, and you answer one question from each. That gives you about an hour per essay.
• No books in the exam room. Set texts and dictionaries are not allowed in any paper, so quotations have to be learned.
• (a) or (b) on every set text. The (a) question is about the whole text. The (b) question is based on a passage or poem printed on the paper. You choose.
• AO5 only at A Level. Papers 1 and 2 test AO1 to AO4 (knowledge and context, analysis, personal response, communication). Papers 3 and 4 add AO5: evaluating other opinions and interpretations, and each objective carries 20% of those papers.
• Three routes. You can take AS only, stage the A Level over two years (Papers 1 and 2, then Papers 3 and 4), or sit all four papers in one series.

Set texts for 2027

Your school chooses which texts to teach from each list. Cambridge lists these for examination in 2027:

Paper and section	Set texts for 2027
Paper 1, Drama	Edward Albee, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?; Aphra Behn, The Rover; Inua Ellams, Barber Shop Chronicles; William Shakespeare, The Tempest
Paper 1, Poetry	Zaffar Kunial, selected poems from England’s Green; Sylvia Plath, selected poems from Ariel (1965); Christina Rossetti, selected poems; Songs of Ourselves, Volume 2 (selection for 2026–2028)
Paper 2, Prose	Stories of Ourselves, Volume 3 (selection for 2027 and 2028); Evelyn Waugh, A Handful of Dust; Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad; Tara June Winch, The Yield
Paper 2, Unseen	An unseen passage of poetry, prose or drama
Paper 3, Shakespeare	Henry IV, Part 1; The Taming of the Shrew
Paper 3, Drama	Lynn Nottage, Sweat; Wole Soyinka, Kongi’s Harvest; Timberlake Wertenbaker, Our Country’s Good
Paper 4, Pre-1900	Jane Austen, Mansfield Park; Lord Byron, selected poems (poetry); Geoffrey Chaucer, The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale (poetry); George Eliot, Middlemarch; Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure; Shakespeare, Selected Sonnets (poetry)
Paper 4, Post-1900	Elizabeth Bishop, selected poems (poetry); J M Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians; Katherine Mansfield, selected stories; Gabriel Okara, selected poems from Collected Poems (2016) (poetry); Richard Powers, The Overstory; Ocean Vuong, selected poems from Night Sky with Exit Wounds (poetry)

In Paper 4 you must write one essay on a poetry text and one on a prose text, one from each section.

Several 2027 texts come from Africa: Wole Soyinka’s Kongi’s Harvest is a Nigerian play, Gabriel Okara is a Nigerian poet, and J M Coetzee’s novel was written in South Africa. Students often find it easier to write with confidence about context they recognise, so it is worth asking your teacher whether one of these is on your school’s list.

What changes for 2028

If you start AS in 2027 and finish the A Level in 2028, some Paper 2 to 4 texts will be different. Paper 1 is unchanged. For 2028, Cambridge lists:

• Paper 2: Chris Abani, Graceland, and John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, join Stories of Ourselves Volume 3 and The Yield. A Handful of Dust and The Underground Railroad drop off.
• Paper 3: The Winter’s Tale replaces The Taming of the Shrew. David Greig’s Dunsinane and Tracy Letts’s August: Osage County replace Sweat and Kongi’s Harvest.
• Paper 4: Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, replaces Middlemarch. Chinua Achebe’s poems replace Gabriel Okara’s.

Check the list for the year you will actually sit each paper before you buy books.

Essay technique that earns marks

These habits come straight from what the assessment objectives reward.

1. Answer the exact question in your first two sentences. State a clear line of argument. Examiners reward a relevant, structured response (AO4), and a thesis keeps every paragraph on track.
2. Make each paragraph do analysis, not retelling. AO2 asks how “writers’ choices of language, form and structure shape meanings and effects”. Name the choice, quote it, and explain its effect.
3. Use short, embedded quotations. Because books are not allowed in the room, learn ten to fifteen short quotations per text, each linked to a theme or character.
4. Bring in context only when it explains the text. AO1 rewards “relevant contexts that illuminate readings”. A sentence of context that sharpens a point is worth more than a paragraph of history.
5. Have your own view. AO3 is personal response. Words like “suggests”, “perhaps” and “more convincingly” show you are judging, not reciting.
6. At A Level, weigh interpretations (AO5). In Papers 3 and 4, set two readings of a moment against each other and decide which you find more persuasive, and why.
7. On (b) questions, stay with the passage, then widen. Spend most of the answer on the printed extract, then link it to the rest of the text.

Example paragraphs

The paragraphs below are Tutopiya’s own illustrations of the techniques above. They are not taken from Cambridge mark schemes or examiner reports, and they are not model answers to any real question.

Paper 1 (a) style: The Tempest

Practice question (our own): “Discuss Shakespeare’s presentation of power in The Tempest.”

A weaker paragraph retells:

Prospero is the Duke of Milan who was overthrown by his brother Antonio. He lives on the island with Miranda and controls Ariel and Caliban. Caliban is angry because Prospero took the island. Prospero uses magic to make the shipwreck happen.

A stronger paragraph analyses:

Shakespeare complicates Prospero’s authority by giving Caliban some of the play’s most forceful verse. When Caliban insists, “This island’s mine, by Sycorax my mother, / Which thou tak’st from me,” the possessive “mine” and the accusing “tak’st” turn Prospero’s rule into theft, at least from Caliban’s point of view. Prospero answers with threats of cramps and pinches, so his power is shown to rest on punishment rather than consent. Caliban’s bitter claim, “You taught me language, and my profit on’t / Is, I know how to curse,” suggests that even Prospero’s gift of education has become a tool of control. An audience in 1611, aware of new English ventures overseas, might have heard in this exchange the arguments of colonisers and the colonised. The play does not settle the argument, and that uncertainty is what makes Prospero’s power feel fragile.

Why it works: a clear claim in the first sentence (AO4), close comment on single words (AO2), context that sharpens the reading (AO1), and a personal judgement at the end (AO3).

Paper 2 Unseen: a short original poem

The unseen passage is chosen by the examiners and has no author or date given. Practise on short texts you have never seen. Here is a four-line poem we wrote for practice:

The borehole pump has stopped again.
Grandmother counts the buckets by the door,
three for cooking, one for washing, none
for the tomatoes she will not mention.

A strong opening paragraph might read:

The poem presents scarcity through the calm, careful habits of an older woman rather than through complaint. The flat statement “has stopped again” uses “again” to show that the breakdown is routine, and the even rhythm of the opening line mirrors a family that has learned to absorb the problem. The countdown in line three (“three for cooking, one for washing”) moves from plenty to nothing, ending on the stark “none”, which the poet places at a line break so that it hangs alone before the reader learns what has been sacrificed. The final line is the most revealing: the tomatoes she “will not mention” suggest a loss she has chosen to bear in silence, so the poem’s real subject may be her dignity rather than the water.

Notice that it comments on line breaks, lists and word order, which are form and structure, not only on vocabulary.

Paper 3 with AO5: Henry IV, Part 1

Practice question (our own): “How far do you agree that Hal is a calculating figure throughout the play?”

Hal’s soliloquy at the end of Act 1, Scene 2 seems to support the view that he is calculating from the start. “I know you all, and will awhile uphold / The unyoked humour of your idleness” reveals that his life in the tavern is a performance, and the measured blank verse contrasts sharply with the loose prose he speaks with Falstaff. Some readers see this as cold political planning; others argue that a young prince announcing his own future reform is partly reassuring himself. The second reading is more persuasive in the tavern play-acting scene, where Falstaff’s plea “banish plump Jack, and banish all the world” receives the chilling reply, “I do, I will.” The shift from present to future tense suggests a decision Hal has not yet carried out, which makes him seem less a schemer than a man rehearsing a choice he knows will cost him.

The AO5 move is in the middle: two readings are set side by side, and the paragraph decides between them using evidence.

A revision plan for the year

• Terms 1 and 2: Finish reading every set text twice. Build a quotation bank for each, grouped by theme and character.
• Term 2 onwards: Write one timed essay a week (one hour, including ten minutes of planning). Alternate (a) and (b) questions.
• Every fortnight: Do one unseen practice piece from a poem, prose extract or drama scene you have not studied.
• Final term: Sit full two-hour papers under exam conditions. Use recent papers such as the 9695 May/June 2026 papers and mark schemes, and read our 9695 exam trends for 2026.

For individual texts, Tutopiya has guides to The Tempest, Henry IV, Part 1 and the unseen text.

What it costs to sit 9695 and to prepare

For private candidates, British Council Zimbabwe listed the full A Level in Literature in English (9695) at US$200 for the October/November 2026 series, and the AS Level at US$135 (British Council Zimbabwe fee list). School candidates pay what their school charges.

Tutopiya Learning Portal Premium is S$50 a year (about US$39), or S$10 a month (about US$7.80), and covers every subject, not just Literature. A year of Premium costs about a fifth of one A Level entry. We converted at 1 SGD ≈ USD 0.78 (November 2026).

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• Create a free Learning Portal account. The Tutopiya Learning Portal covers 15 curricula, 130 subjects and more than 8,600 subtopics, organised by syllabus code, with notes, practice questions, quizzes, flashcards and past papers. A large section is free.
• Try the 9695 Literature in English quizzes and notes on the portal.
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Frequently asked questions

What are the Cambridge A Level Literature in English set texts for 2027? +

For 2027, Paper 1 drama texts are Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Rover, Barber Shop Chronicles and The Tempest. Paper 2 prose texts are Stories of Ourselves Volume 3, A Handful of Dust, The Underground Railroad and The Yield. Paper 3 includes Henry IV Part 1, The Taming of the Shrew, Sweat, Kongi's Harvest and Our Country's Good, and Paper 4 includes texts such as Middlemarch, Waiting for the Barbarians and Gabriel Okara's poems.

How many papers are there in Cambridge A Level Literature 9695? +

There are four written papers, each 2 hours and 50 marks. AS Level is Papers 1 and 2, worth 50% each. The full A Level is all four papers, each worth 25%. In every paper you answer two questions.

Can I take my set texts into the exam? +

No. The 9695 syllabus states that set texts are not allowed in the examination room for any paper, and dictionaries may not be used. For (b) questions, the passage or poem you need is printed on the question paper.

What is the difference between an (a) and a (b) question? +

For each set text you choose between two essay questions. The (a) question asks about the whole text, while the (b) question is based on a passage or poem from the text printed on the paper. Both need an essay-length answer, and you can choose either type.

Do the set texts change for 2028? +

Some do. Paper 1 stays the same, but Paper 2 adds Graceland and The Grapes of Wrath, Paper 3 adds The Winter's Tale, Dunsinane and August: Osage County, and Paper 4 adds A Tale of Two Cities and Chinua Achebe's poems while dropping Middlemarch and Gabriel Okara. Always check the list for your exam year.

Do Zimbabwean students still take Cambridge Literature from 2027? +

From 2027 every school must register learners for ZIMSEC, and Cambridge becomes a voluntary, additional qualification that schools need approval to offer. Learners in Lower Six on the Cambridge route in 2026 are due to sit ZIMSEC A Level in 2027. Ask your school whether it will still enter you for 9695.

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