Pearson Edexcel A-Level Turkish Past Papers & Mark Schemes

Pearson Edexcel A-Level Turkish (specification 9TU0) examines a language whose agglutinative structure is fundamentally different from any European language offered at A-Level. In Turkish, grammatical relationships are expressed through chains of suffixes added to a root word — a single Turkish word like 'evlerinizden' (from your houses) contains the root 'ev' (house) plus suffixes for plural, possessive, and ablative case. This suffix-stacking system means that Turkish 'grammar' is primarily about mastering suffix ordering and vowel harmony rules. Paper 1 (Listening, Reading and Translation — 2 hours, 80 marks, 40%) tests comprehension of standard Istanbul Turkish at native speed. Turkish is phonetically regular (the Latin-based alphabet adopted in 1928 maps one letter to one sound), so listening is more transparent than in languages with complex spelling-pronunciation relationships. However, the agglutinative structure means listeners must parse long suffixed words in real time. Translation sections test vowel harmony (front/back and rounded/unrounded patterns that govern suffix vowels), the evidential mood (the distinction between -DI past 'I saw it happen' and -mIş past 'I heard it happened'), and the relative clause constructions that use participles rather than relative pronouns. Paper 2 (Written Response to Works and Translation — 2 hours 40 minutes, 120 marks, 30%) engages with Turkish literature and cinema exploring themes of secularism vs religion, urbanisation, the Kurdish question, and Turkey's East-West cultural position. Set works may include novels by Orhan Pamuk or films by Nuri Bilge Ceylan. Essays require sustained analytical prose in formal written Turkish. Paper 3 (Speaking — approximately 30 minutes, 72 marks, 30%) covers themes including Turkish national identity (Kemalism and its legacy), the EU accession debate, migration between Turkey and Europe, and the Turkish diaspora. This archive of 42 resources provides practice across both current and legacy specification papers.