A-Level Politics: AQA and Edexcel Compared

A level Politics is a two-year, exam-only A level offered in England by two exam boards: AQA (7152) and Pearson Edexcel (9PL0). Both assess three written papers of two hours, each worth 33⅓% of the qualification - 77 marks a paper at AQA, 84 at Edexcel. OCR withdrew its Government and Politics A levels after summer 2018, and Eduqas does not offer the subject.

Which exam boards still offer A level Politics?

Two, if the student is in England. AQA runs A-level Politics under specification code 7152; Pearson Edexcel runs A Level Politics under 9PL0. That is the whole list, and it has been the whole list since 2018.

OCR is the board most often named in error. Its subject update states that its AS and A Levels in Government and Politics would no longer be available following the final assessment series in summer 2018, with resits in summer 2019. Eight years on, three of the five most prominent tutoring pages for this search still advertise OCR coverage for A level Politics, and one lists Eduqas and CCEA alongside it. Eduqas publishes its own AS and A level subject list, and Politics is not on it.

WJEC does offer GCE Government and Politics, but it is a Wales specification, approved for teaching in Wales from September 2017 and structurally different from both English routes. A student in an English sixth form cannot sit it.

None of this is a choice a student gets to make. Schools pick the specification, usually years before a given cohort arrives, and they rarely change it. What matters is knowing which one you are on, because almost everything else on this page differs between them. If a past paper header reads 9PL0/01 the answer is Edexcel; if it reads 7152/1, AQA. For students who want help across levels rather than a specification guide, our Politics tutor service page covers the broader offer.

How are the AQA and Edexcel papers structured?

Both boards examine three written papers of two hours each, sat in the same May to June series, with no coursework anywhere in either qualification. Each paper is worth a third of the A level. The similarity ends there.

AQA's three papers scale straight through at a factor of one, giving a total scaled mark of 231. Edexcel's three components total 252 marks. Neither number is a difficulty rating, but they do mean an Edexcel candidate has to place 84 marks' worth of writing in the same 120 minutes AQA allows for 77.

The deeper difference is where the content sits. AQA gives political ideas an entire paper of its own and makes United States politics compulsory in Paper 2. Edexcel does neither: it folds ideas into the two UK papers as a single question apiece, and lets a centre choose between the USA route (9PL0/3A) and Global Politics (9PL0/3B), the latter covering sovereignty and globalisation, global governance, human rights, power and regionalism including the European Union. A student intending to read International Relations at university is better served by 3B, and that decision is usually made by the department rather than the individual.

How much is political ideas actually worth on each board?

This is the difference that changes how a year should be spent, and it is the one no competing page quantifies.

On AQA, Paper 3 is Political ideas in full: 77 of the 231 scaled marks, a clean third of the A level. Students study liberalism, conservatism and socialism, then one further ideology from a list of five, with named thinkers attached to each - Locke, Mill, Rawls, Green, Wollstonecraft and Friedan for liberalism alone.

On Edexcel, ideas appear as Section B of Component 1, one 24-mark question on the core ideas from a choice of two, and Section B of Component 2, one 24-mark question on the non-core idea from a choice of two. That is 48 of 252 marks: 19% of the qualification. The content list is close to identical - three core ideas plus one from anarchism, ecologism, feminism, multiculturalism and nationalism - but the assessment share is not.

An AQA student writes about political thinkers for a third of the qualification. An Edexcel student writes about them for a fifth, and only ever in one question per paper. Revision time that is proportionate on one specification is badly misallocated on the other, and it is the single most common planning error we see when a family arrives having used generic revision material that does not name a board.

What kinds of question does each board set?

The mark tariffs are not comparable, so technique taught for one board transfers only partly to the other.

AQA sets three broad question types: 9-mark questions requiring students to explain and analyse political institutions, processes, concepts, theories and issues; 25-mark extract-based questions requiring them to comprehend and interpret the arguments contained in political information; and 25-mark essay questions requiring them to analyse and evaluate a given statement. Paper 1 lays these out as Section A with three 9-mark questions, Section B with a 25-mark extract question, and Section C with 25-mark essays, which is how 77 marks is reached.

Edexcel's Components 1 and 2 are built the other way round. Section A carries two 30-mark questions, each chosen from a pair, and one of the two uses a source. Section B carries a single 24-mark political ideas question, again from a choice of two. Component 3 changes shape once more: one 12-mark question from a choice of two, one compulsory 12-mark question on comparative theories, and two 30-mark questions from a choice of three.

Counted across the qualification, an Edexcel candidate produces six 30-mark answers and two 24-mark ideas essays. An AQA candidate produces nine short 9-mark analyses and six longer answers at 25 marks. The planning, the paragraph structure and the amount of evidence each answer can carry all follow from that, which is why the first thing a tutor should ask is not what topic is weak but which specification is being sat.

What do the assessment objectives reward?

The assessment objectives are set by Ofqual and are, in AQA's own words, the same across all A-level Politics specifications and all exam boards. AO1 is knowledge and understanding of political institutions, processes, concepts, theories and issues. AO2 is analysis, including parallels, connections, similarities and differences. AO3 is evaluation: constructing arguments, making substantiated judgements and drawing conclusions.

The weightings are published and they are the most useful thing on either specification. Edexcel sets AO1 at 35, AO2 at 35 and AO3 at 30, totalling 100%. AQA publishes ranges rather than fixed figures: AO1 30-40, AO2 35-45, AO3 25-35, applied evenly across all three papers.

Read either way, recall is capped at around 40% of the marks. Between 60% and 70% of an A level Politics grade is awarded for what a student does with the material rather than for holding it. That is the honest answer to why students who revise diligently and still sit on a B rarely fix it by learning more content.

There is one asymmetry worth knowing. Edexcel's own breakdown gives Component 3 an AO1 share of 12.7% and an AO2 share of 12.7%, but an AO3 share of only 7.9%. Evaluation carries less weight on comparative politics than on the two UK components, which are 11.1% on every objective. On a marginal grade, the UK papers are where evaluative technique pays best.

How hard is it to get an A in A level Politics?

Harder than the subject's reputation suggests. The summer 2026 results, published on 13 August 2026, put the national picture like this.

Politics sits just under the all-subject top-grade rate of 28.5%, and the largest single band is B at 31.8%. That B band is the story of the subject: roughly a third of the cohort writes competently, knows the institutions, cites real examples and still does not convert. Almost none of them are short of content.

What separates the bands is AO3. A B-grade paragraph explains two sides and stops. An A-grade paragraph explains two sides and then says which is stronger and why, with the judgement carried through to a conclusion that the essay has actually earned. That is a trainable habit, and it is trainable faster than a fourth read of the constitution chapter. The same discipline is what our A Level History tutors work on with source and interpretation questions.

Why are A level Politics entries rising so fast?

Because more students are choosing it than any other subject in the country, proportionally. Ofqual's provisional entry statistics for the summer 2026 series record political studies entries in England rising from 20,835 in summer 2025 to 23,560 in summer 2026, and note that political studies showed the biggest overall percentage increase, up by 13.1%, of any A level subject.

The UK-wide JCQ figure for the same series is 24,824, the difference being candidates outside England, whom Ofqual's England statistics do not cover.

Two consequences follow for anyone choosing the subject now. The first is that a cohort growing by more than a tenth in a single year does not automatically produce more top grades: the A*-A share stayed close to a quarter while entries expanded, so the competition at the top is genuinely tighter than it was. The second is practical - fast-growing subjects are frequently taught by departments that have just expanded, sometimes by teachers whose main subject is History or Sociology. That is not a criticism of those teachers, but it does mean specification-specific exam technique is more variable in Politics than in long-established subjects.

It also makes the subject a strong companion choice. Politics pairs naturally with A Level Economics and History, and it is the standard preparation route for PPE, HSPS, Law and International Relations applications. Oxford's PPE course page states that "All applicants must take the Test of Academic Reasoning for Admissions (TARA) as part of their application", and that Oxford applicants must sit all three modules - Critical Thinking, Problem Solving and the Writing Task. For 2027 entry the booking window closes on 28 September 2026 at 6pm UK time and the test runs 12-16 October 2026 - our PPE interview preparation page covers what follows the test.

What happens if you study Government and Politics in Wales?

The WJEC qualification is not a Welsh-language version of the English A level. It is a different assessment structure, and students who move between systems, or who use English revision resources in a Welsh school, get caught by it.

Three things stand out. The AS units carry 40% of the full A level between them, so unlike the linear English specifications, work done in Year 12 counts directly towards the final grade. The A2 papers run to 2 hours 30 minutes rather than two hours, and carry 120 marks each. And the UK content is framed around devolution from the outset - Unit 1 is titled Government in Wales and the United Kingdom, not Government of the UK.

The specification has been taught in Wales since September 2017, with the first A level award in 2019. Because Eduqas, WJEC's England-facing brand, does not offer Politics, there is no cross-border version of this route.

How much of the A level is source and extract work?

More than most students plan for, and it is the part that rewards technique over revision.

On AQA, the 25-mark extract question is compulsory in Paper 1 - Section B, one question, no choice - and it asks students to comprehend and interpret the arguments contained in political information, then use their own knowledge to analyse and evaluate them. The material can be a government publication, a manifesto, a newspaper extract, visual material or data.

On Edexcel, one of the two 30-mark questions in Component 1 Section A uses a source, and so does one of the two in Component 2 Section A. That is 60 of the 252 marks on the A level tied directly to handling somebody else's argument, before any of the unseen judgement required in the ordinary essays.

This is what people mean when they say Politics is not a memorisation subject. The institutional content is finite and can be learned in a term. The examined skill is reading a partisan argument accurately, weighing it against evidence a student already holds, and committing to a conclusion. Students who transfer straight from GCSE essay subjects usually arrive fluent at describing a debate and unpractised at settling one.

Two practical notes. AQA sets no previous learning requirements for the A level, and entry conditions are at the discretion of schools and colleges, so a student with no prior politics is not disadvantaged on paper. And AQA accepts private candidates entering through an approved centre, provided they are based in the UK - relevant for home-educated students, for retakes, and for anyone whose school dropped the subject. For the wider sixth-form picture, see our A Level tuition hub.

Frequently asked questions