AQA A-Level Bengali Past Papers & Mark Schemes

AQA A-Level Bengali (specification code 7648) is taken almost entirely by students who have grown up speaking Bengali in a home or community context — heritage speakers who possess native-level oral fluency and cultural familiarity with the Bengali-speaking world, but who may not have developed the formal written literacy that academic assessment requires. The qualification's three-paper structure assesses reading, writing, and listening, but its central challenge for most candidates is developing formal written Bengali to examination standard alongside their already strong oral foundation. Paper 1: Reading and Writing assesses reading comprehension of authentic Bengali texts — including journalistic articles, cultural commentary, and literary extracts — and includes translation tasks (Bengali to English) alongside shorter written tasks in Bengali. The texts span a range of registers from accessible contemporary writing to more formal or literary language, reflecting the diversity of contemporary Bengali print culture across Bangladesh and West Bengal. Reading comprehension questions require students to identify specific information, interpret implied meaning, and demonstrate understanding of vocabulary in context. Paper 2: Writing requires an extended written response in Bengali — typically 200–250 words — in response to a stimulus prompt. This paper directly assesses the formal written production skills that distinguish A-Level performance from home language competency. Marks are awarded for grammatical accuracy, range of vocabulary and structures, coherent development of ideas, and appropriateness of register. The ability to write sustained, well-organised formal Bengali prose — rather than transcribed spoken Bengali — is the key differentiating skill. Paper 3: Listening, Reading and Writing is the most comprehensive paper. It combines listening comprehension of formal Bengali audio material (broadcast media and formal spoken contexts rather than conversational registers) with additional reading passages and written tasks. The tracked version includes time cues embedded in the recording to help students navigate between listening sections. The written tasks in this paper often require students to respond to or summarise the content of what they have heard or read, integrating comprehension and production skills. Bengali's literary culture — encompassing Rabindranath Tagore's vast output across poetry, fiction, drama, and song; the Bengal Renaissance of the 19th century; and the rich tradition of modern Bangladeshi and West Bengali literature — provides cultural depth that enriches engagement with the more sophisticated texts encountered at A-Level.