Cambridge (CIE) IGCSE · English Literature
Paper 3: Drama (Open Text)
Big idea: Paper 3 is one exam question, 45 minutes, worth 25% of your grade —
and to score well you must weave together what happens in your drama text,
what it means, how the writer creates that meaning, and
your own honest reaction to it, all backed up by evidence from the play.
Summary — The Whole Chapter in One Glance
- Paper 3 is a Drama (Open Text) paper — it's the second paper for the Unseen route, sat alongside Paper 1 (Poetry & Prose).
- You answer 1 question chosen from 2 options (a passage-based question OR an essay question) on your set drama text.
- You get 45 minutes and the question is worth 25 marks, which equals 25% of your total GCSE grade.
- Both question choices are equally weighted — neither is "easier" in terms of marks available.
- Every single question — no matter which one you pick — tests all four Assessment Objectives (AO1–AO4) at once, not one at a time.
- It's an open-book exam: you bring a clean copy of your set text (no annotations, no highlighting, no underlining).
- There's a specific bank of command words (Explore, How, Vividly, How far, Portray, Memorable) that tell you exactly what kind of thinking the examiner wants from you.
1. What Exactly Is Paper 3?
Think of your IGCSE English Literature course as being split across a few different papers, each testing a different kind of text.
Paper 3 is specifically about drama — plays, not poems or novels — and it only applies to you if you're on the
Unseen route (as opposed to the Coursework route, where some of this assessment happens differently).
Here's the twist that catches a lot of students out: even though it's called "Open Text," that doesn't mean it's an open-ended,
relaxed exam. It just means you're allowed to bring a copy of the play in with you. You still need to know it inside out, because
45 minutes goes fast if you're frantically flicking through pages trying to find a quote.
The Paper at a Glance
| Paper |
Questions |
Time |
Marks |
% of GCSE grade |
| Paper 3: Drama (Open Text) |
1 (chosen from 2 options on your set drama text) |
45 minutes |
25 |
25% |
Rule to Remember
You answer ONE question total — not two. You're given a choice between a
passage-based question or an essay question on your set text, and you pick whichever one plays to your strengths.
⚠ Watch Out
Because there are so many possible set texts, the exam paper will have questions for several different plays printed in it.
It is extremely easy in the panic of an exam to accidentally start answering a question for the wrong text, or pick the wrong
question number for the text you actually studied. Always double, then triple-check you're reading the section
for your play before you start writing a single word.
Practice Question
Q: If Paper 3 offers two questions for your set text, and you're worried one is about a character you don't know as well —
what should guide your choice of which question to answer?
2. The Four Assessment Objectives (AO1–AO4)
3. Open-Book Conditions — What You Can and Can't Bring
4. Command Words & Keywords — Decoding the Question
wrong kind of question