AS and A-level Computer Science: specification changes for 2025 exams

Published: Monday 21 Aug 2023

We’ve made a few changes to our AS and A-level Computer Science (7516, 7517) specification to improve the subject content. The changes will take place with immediate effect from September 2023 and will apply to the summer 2025 exams and onwards.

Changes from September 2023

  • Pascal/Delphi will no longer be one of the supported languages for the Paper 1 exam at both AS (7516/1C) and A-level (7517/1C). This means that from summer 2025, you’ll no longer be able to make entries for this option.
  • As Python 2 has been sunset, we’ll no longer offer Python 2.0 as an option in the Paper 1 exam for both AS (7516/1D) and A-level (7517/1D). You can still enter your students for the Python option; however, the exam will only be available in Python 3.
  • In addition to these changes, as part of our continued focus on equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI), we’ve replaced the term ‘white list’ with ‘allow list’. We’ve also taken the opportunity to correct a few minor typographical errors in the specification.

Our decisions

We’ve made the changes based on our entry data which shows that no learners were entered for either the Python 2.0 or Pascal/Delphi options for the Paper 1 exam in summer 2023. Our survey results from September 2022 also informed us that teachers did not intend to enter learners for these optional programming languages options in future series.

Students can still opt to take the Paper 1 exam in one the following programming languages: C# (7516/7A), Java (7516/7B), Python (3.0) (7516/7D) and VB.Net (7516/7E), and we’ll continue to support these. We always aim to offer languages that are free to use and stable, and to provide you with the best support for our qualifications.

Updated specification and resources

The updated specification is available on our AS and A-level Computer Science qualification page ready for first teaching in September.

We’re now busy updating our skeleton programs, Teachers’ notes, electronic answer document (EAD) and preliminary materials for the 2025 exams.

Contact us

If you have any further questions, please get in touch with our Computer Science customer support team at computerscience@aqa.org.uk or call 0161 957 3980.

Thank you for your continued support of our specification.

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