Mock Papers
Practice Papers
Past Papers
AQA A LEVEL 2025/26
Helpful for mocks and exam
revision
,A-level
ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND
LITERATURE
Paper 1 Telling Stories
Wednesday 14 May 2025 Afternoon Time allowed: 3 hours
Materials
For this paper you must have:
• an AQA 12-page answer book
• a copy of the set texts you have studied for Section B and Section C. These texts must not be
annotated and must not contain additional notes or materials
Instructions
• Use black ink or black ball-point pen.
• Write the information required on the front of your answer book. The Paper Reference is 7707/1.
• There are three sections:
Section A: Remembered Places
Section B: Imagined Worlds
Section C: Poetic Voices
• Answer three questions in total: the question in Section A, one question from Section B and one
question from Section C.
• Do all rough work in your answer book. Cross through any work you do not want to be marked.
Information
• The maximum mark for this paper is 100.
• The marks for questions are shown in brackets.
• There are 40 marks for the question in Section A, 35 marks for the question in Section B and 25
marks for the question in Section C.
• You will be marked on your ability to:
– use good English
– organise information clearly
– use specialist vocabulary where appropriate.
Advice
It is recommended that you spend 70 minutes on Section A, 60 minutes on Section B and 50 minutes
on Section C.
IB/G/Jun25/G4005/V8 7707/1
, 2
Section A
Remembered Places
Answer Question 1 in this section.
Read Text A and Text B printed below and on page 3.
Text A is an extract from Breathless: An American Girl in Paris by Nancy Miller.
Text B is an extract from Personal Narrative: Zara.
0 1 Compare and contrast how the writers of Text A and Text B express their ideas about
youthful experiences in Paris.
You should refer to both texts in your answer.
[40 marks]
Text A
Nancy Miller is an American academic who has written a number of autobiographical works.
Breathless: An American Girl in Paris is an account of her time in Paris, where she lived and
studied, during the 1960s.
We were the same size and wore each other’s clothing, playing at being sisters or even
twins, despite the fact that Monique was as blonde as I was dark. It was the game of
identification we liked. Monique’s mother had been a petite main, an apprentice to a
famous designer, when she was young. The dresses she made for Monique were a step
5 above what my mother knocked out on the Singer sewing machine that provided the
white noise to my childhood, and I coveted them.
One chilly afternoon, a street photographer snapped a picture of the two of us arm in
arm. In the photograph, we are strolling down from the Foyer along the boulevard
Saint-Michel, where girls were regularly pursued by relentless young men. “Vous êtes
10 seules?” they would ask rhetorically, oblivious to our self-sufficiency. Alone! We’re with
each other! In the snapshot, Monique is wearing a double-breasted blazer, a straight
skirt that falls just below the knee, sheer stockings that show off her slender legs, black
pumps, leather gloves, and a perfectly tied scarf. She looks Parisian already and, like
French girls, doesn’t seem to feel the cold. Our arms are linked, but I’m dressed for
15 another season, wearing the brown tweed wool dress with velvet piping that her mother
made that fall (for both of us, we joked) and a beige, baggy corduroy coat I had still not
realized was completely out of style in Paris.
The Foyer cast itself as the custodian of our virtue, the guardian of future wives and
mothers. Madame Carnot, the cleaning woman, shared the Foyer’s mission. One
20 morning she knocked at the door at 7:30 while we were sitting on our beds, facing each
other in our long flannel night gowns. Monique opened the door, cigarette in hand.
Plunging her hands into the pockets of her smock, as she looked past Monique at the
books and papers strewn across the floor, Madame Carnot threatened to report us to
Madame la Directrice for bad conduct. She shook her head gravely to emphasize her
25 point, and adjusted the little gray scarf she always wore to protect her hair.
I conjured up Jane Eyre’s little friend Helen Burns wearing the sign for “slattern” in
punishment for her untidy room.
IB/G/Jun25/7707/1
Practice Papers
Past Papers
AQA A LEVEL 2025/26
Helpful for mocks and exam
revision
,A-level
ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND
LITERATURE
Paper 1 Telling Stories
Wednesday 14 May 2025 Afternoon Time allowed: 3 hours
Materials
For this paper you must have:
• an AQA 12-page answer book
• a copy of the set texts you have studied for Section B and Section C. These texts must not be
annotated and must not contain additional notes or materials
Instructions
• Use black ink or black ball-point pen.
• Write the information required on the front of your answer book. The Paper Reference is 7707/1.
• There are three sections:
Section A: Remembered Places
Section B: Imagined Worlds
Section C: Poetic Voices
• Answer three questions in total: the question in Section A, one question from Section B and one
question from Section C.
• Do all rough work in your answer book. Cross through any work you do not want to be marked.
Information
• The maximum mark for this paper is 100.
• The marks for questions are shown in brackets.
• There are 40 marks for the question in Section A, 35 marks for the question in Section B and 25
marks for the question in Section C.
• You will be marked on your ability to:
– use good English
– organise information clearly
– use specialist vocabulary where appropriate.
Advice
It is recommended that you spend 70 minutes on Section A, 60 minutes on Section B and 50 minutes
on Section C.
IB/G/Jun25/G4005/V8 7707/1
, 2
Section A
Remembered Places
Answer Question 1 in this section.
Read Text A and Text B printed below and on page 3.
Text A is an extract from Breathless: An American Girl in Paris by Nancy Miller.
Text B is an extract from Personal Narrative: Zara.
0 1 Compare and contrast how the writers of Text A and Text B express their ideas about
youthful experiences in Paris.
You should refer to both texts in your answer.
[40 marks]
Text A
Nancy Miller is an American academic who has written a number of autobiographical works.
Breathless: An American Girl in Paris is an account of her time in Paris, where she lived and
studied, during the 1960s.
We were the same size and wore each other’s clothing, playing at being sisters or even
twins, despite the fact that Monique was as blonde as I was dark. It was the game of
identification we liked. Monique’s mother had been a petite main, an apprentice to a
famous designer, when she was young. The dresses she made for Monique were a step
5 above what my mother knocked out on the Singer sewing machine that provided the
white noise to my childhood, and I coveted them.
One chilly afternoon, a street photographer snapped a picture of the two of us arm in
arm. In the photograph, we are strolling down from the Foyer along the boulevard
Saint-Michel, where girls were regularly pursued by relentless young men. “Vous êtes
10 seules?” they would ask rhetorically, oblivious to our self-sufficiency. Alone! We’re with
each other! In the snapshot, Monique is wearing a double-breasted blazer, a straight
skirt that falls just below the knee, sheer stockings that show off her slender legs, black
pumps, leather gloves, and a perfectly tied scarf. She looks Parisian already and, like
French girls, doesn’t seem to feel the cold. Our arms are linked, but I’m dressed for
15 another season, wearing the brown tweed wool dress with velvet piping that her mother
made that fall (for both of us, we joked) and a beige, baggy corduroy coat I had still not
realized was completely out of style in Paris.
The Foyer cast itself as the custodian of our virtue, the guardian of future wives and
mothers. Madame Carnot, the cleaning woman, shared the Foyer’s mission. One
20 morning she knocked at the door at 7:30 while we were sitting on our beds, facing each
other in our long flannel night gowns. Monique opened the door, cigarette in hand.
Plunging her hands into the pockets of her smock, as she looked past Monique at the
books and papers strewn across the floor, Madame Carnot threatened to report us to
Madame la Directrice for bad conduct. She shook her head gravely to emphasize her
25 point, and adjusted the little gray scarf she always wore to protect her hair.
I conjured up Jane Eyre’s little friend Helen Burns wearing the sign for “slattern” in
punishment for her untidy room.
IB/G/Jun25/7707/1
