Cambridge AS & A Level IT 9626: Two Subjects, One Certificate

Cambridge International AS & A Level Information Technology 9626 is usually described as a theory subject with a practical component. That description is wrong in a way that costs students grades, and the syllabus says so in a single table almost nobody reads.

Here is the table, reduced to the number that matters. AO2 — apply knowledge, understanding, skills and judgement to produce IT-based solutions — is worth 0% of Paper 1, 0% of Paper 3, and 100% of Papers 2 and 4.

Not “mostly”. Zero and one hundred.

Which means 9626 is not one subject assessed two ways. It is two disjoint assessments sharing a certificate: a writing exam that awards nothing for software skill, and a doing exam that awards nothing for knowing things. Being good at one earns you literally no credit on the other, and students who assume the practical will rescue the theory — or the reverse — are relying on a compensation route the mark scheme does not contain.

If you are arriving from IGCSE ICT 0417, much of the AS content will feel familiar. The structure will not.

The four components

All four are externally assessed — there is no coursework and nothing marked in-house. Note that Paper 4 can also draw practical tasks from sections 8–10 inside a problem-solving context, so the AS practical content never stops being examinable.

Two things in that table are worth pausing on. The practical papers are 45 minutes longer and carry 20 more marks than the theory papers they sit alongside, despite being worth the same percentage. And Papers 3 and 4 assume the whole of the AS content: dropping topics 1–11 after AS is not an option that exists.

The assessment objectives, and the inversion

Cambridge lists three assessment objectives for 9626:

• AO1 — Recall, select and communicate knowledge and understanding of IT.
• AO2 — Apply knowledge, understanding, skills and judgement to produce IT-based solutions.
• AO3 — Analyse, evaluate, and present reasoned conclusions.

Across the whole qualification the split looks reasonable and unremarkable: at A Level, AO1 35%, AO2 50%, AO3 15%. At AS, AO1 40%, AO2 50%, AO3 10%.

Then you look at how those objectives are distributed across the components.

That is an unusual shape. Most subjects blend their objectives within each paper, so a strong candidate can partially compensate across the mark scheme. Cambridge IGCSE Computer Science 0478, for instance, inverts its AO emphasis between its two papers but both still contain all three objectives. Here the separation is total.

What the practical papers actually demand

Two and a half hours at a machine, 90 marks, working to a task specification. That is a different kind of exam pressure from a written paper, and it fails in different ways:

• Time is the primary constraint, not knowledge. Most candidates who lose heavily on a practical paper knew how to do the task and ran out of time doing it. Speed in the software is a mark-bearing skill.
• Requirements are marked literally. If the task specifies a field name, a file name, a format, or an output layout, that specification is where the marks are. “Close enough” is not a category the mark scheme has.
• Evidence has to be produced correctly. Screenshots, printouts, saved files in the right place with the right names — a correct solution that is not evidenced as instructed cannot be credited.
• They run in a timetabled one-day window. Papers 2 and 4 are conducted within a window your centre schedules from the published timetable, not at a fixed hour like a written paper. Ask your exams officer when yours is; it is not always where you assume in the sequence.

The theory papers fail differently, and mostly on precision of language. A third of Papers 1 and 3 is AO3 — analyse, evaluate and present reasoned conclusions — and those marks are awarded against command words that mean specific things. The command words guide is worth reading before your first past paper, because discuss, evaluate and justify are asking for three different shapes of answer.

What is on it: 21 topics in two halves

AS candidates study topics 1–11. A Level candidates study all 21, and the A Level components assume the AS content throughout. The practical papers draw from a defined slice: Paper 2 sets tasks on sections 8–11 while applying knowledge from 1–7, and Paper 4 sets tasks on sections 17–21 while applying everything.

Ranking our own tagged bank of 3,599 questions by topic shows where the examining concentrates:

Data, databases and spreadsheets take the top three places and 712 questions between them. That is not a coincidence: they are the areas that appear on both sides of the AO divide — examined as theory on Paper 1 and produced as artefacts on Paper 2. If you are deciding where to spend a limited number of revision hours, spend them where a topic earns marks twice.

The syllabus moves every year

This is the quiet difference between 9626 and most other Cambridge subjects, and it changes how you should treat resources.

Cambridge publishes annual technical updates to 9626 — revisions that keep the content aligned with emerging technologies relevant to the syllabus. Compare that with Additional Mathematics 0606, where the 2028–2030 syllabus states there are no significant changes affecting teaching, or History 0470, whose structure is identical across successive syllabus cycles. Those subjects are stable for years at a time. IT is not, by design.

One related development worth knowing about, since it lands squarely on an IT student’s radar: the June 2026 series included Cambridge’s first live digital examinations. Those papers were multiple choice and 9626 was not among them, but the direction of travel is covered in the digital exams explainer.

Is 9626 the right subject for you?

It is frequently confused with two other qualifications, and the differences are substantial.

If you want to build software, 9626 is not that subject — Computer Science 0478 and its A Level continuation are. If you want to solve organisational problems with data, databases, spreadsheets and networks, and you are content to be assessed half on producing working artefacts, 9626 fits well. Coming from IGCSE ICT 0417 it is the natural continuation, and the most-tested 0417 topics overlap heavily with the AS content here.

FAQ

If you are still assembling a post-16 timetable, choosing subjects backwards from your target degree and the hardest subjects guide both apply a stage earlier, and A Levels versus IB covers the pathway question. When results come round, A Level results day 2026 and how to check your results online cover the dates and the portals.

Treat 9626 as two subjects with one certificate and it becomes straightforward to plan: a written subject revised with questions and mark schemes, and a performance subject revised the way you would revise a driving test. Treat it as one subject and you will prepare well for whichever half you already enjoy.