These changes reflect an update to the A level subject content set by the Department for Education for both qualifications, which was announced in October 2023 following a consultation.

As a summary, the main changes are:

• Questions and responses to comprehension (listening and reading) tasks now appear in English instead of the target language (unless writing skills are also intentionally being assessed).
• Questions about the literary works and films now appear in both the target language and English. Students will still be required to respond in the target language to these questions.

Other smaller changes are summarised in the Summary of changes table in the Specification for each qualification.

The updated Specification and Sample assessment materials for each language show the changes which have been made.

View the Chinese materials

View the Japanese materials

Download the walkthrough presentation