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Official Estate
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Bram Stoker Estate

Your course and examination

Choose your qualification below for its course requirements, question formats, assessment guidance and official papers. Choose All boards for the overview and comparison.

There is no single Dracula examination. Check the paper and year with your teacher. The 60 Estate practice questions are shared across courses; feedback on individual worked responses sits beside the nine example essays.

See the requirements for one qualification, or compare courses. The 60 Estate practice questions remain available to everyone; feedback on each example essay sits with that example.

Find your course

The table gives the main course routes. Open the relevant guide below for question records, report findings, marking guidance and board-published responses.

Board and qualificationWhere Dracula appearsHow it is assessedSpecificationStart with
OCR H472 A-level English Literature (England)Component 02 Comparative and contextual study, topic The Gothic. One of only two core texts, with Carter’s The Bloody Chamber.Closed text, 2 hours 30. Section 1: an unseen Gothic passage. Section 2: a comparative essay testing a critical statement against at least two texts from the Gothic list, at least one of them a core text. Context (AO3) carries half the marks for the essay.OCR H472 specification · source noteUnseen practice and Comparing texts
AQA 7707 A-level English Language and Literature (England)Paper 1 Telling Stories, Section B Imagined Worlds: one of four set novels, with Frankenstein, The Handmaid’s Tale and The Lovely Bones.Open book, clean copy. One question from two: a printed extract and the significance of a character, place or idea across the novel, including how fantasy elements build a fictional world. No comparison. AO3 here is largely about genre.AQA 7707 specification · source noteForm and narrative
Pearson Edexcel 9ET0 A-level English Literature (England); also AS 8ET0Component 2 Prose, theme The Supernatural. Pre-1900: Dracula, The Picture of Dorian Gray. Post-1900: Beloved, The Little Stranger.Open book, clean copies, 1 hour 15. One comparative essay on two texts from the theme, at least one pre-1900, related to context. Critical views (AO5) are not assessed on this paper.Edexcel 9ET0 specification · source noteComparing texts and Dracula and Dorian Gray example
Pearson Edexcel 9EL0 A-level English Language and Literature (England); also AS 8EL0Component 2, Section B, theme Crossing Boundaries. Dracula and Wide Sargasso Sea are the two anchor texts.Open book, clean copies. A comparative essay on the anchor text and one other text from the theme, weighing linguistic and literary methods and context. The AS paper sets an extract-based question on the anchor text.Edexcel 9EL0 specification · source noteForm and narrative and Comparing texts
CCEA GCE English Literature (Northern Ireland)AS 2 The Study of Prose Pre 1900: one of six set novels.Closed book, 1 hour. One essay responding to a critical statement; argument and interpretation (AO5) drive the unit. CCEA publishes a Dracula teaching eGuide.CCEA English Literature · source noteContext and themes
Leaving Certificate English (Ireland), examinations 2026, 2027 and 2028Prescribed as a single text at Higher and Ordinary Level, and on the list for the comparative study.Paper 2. As a single text, answered on its own; in the comparative study, set beside two other texts under the year’s modes. Oide publishes a Dracula “Read and Respond” resource.2028 prescribed material · source noteWriting your own essay
WJEC Eduqas A-level English Language and Literature (England)Component 4 non-exam assessment, Critical and Creative Genre Study: first on the prescribed Gothic list.Coursework, 3,200 to 3,500 words, with wider reading in the genre.Eduqas specification · source noteWriting your own essay

Course and board guides

Question formats and marking

Some papers ask for a single-text argument, some compare prescribed texts, and others begin with a supplied passage. Open- and closed-book requirements also differ. The board guides explain the task and text choices for the material they cover.

Browse the 124 past-question records by qualification, year, topic and task. Each record distinguishes an excerpt from a summary. The Estate’s 60 original practice questions remain in Chapter F.

For permitted pairings, use your board guide; for developing the comparison itself, use Comparing texts and its six pairing guides.

Understand how your answer is marked

Find the mark scheme for your qualification, paper and examination year. Read its assessment objectives, their weightings and the descriptors for stronger responses alongside the question. They explain how the answer is assessed; your teacher can help you judge where a practice response meets the criteria.

What are AO1 to AO5? They are the skills your answer is marked against. For the English Literature A-levels (OCR H472, Pearson Edexcel 9ET0, CCEA):

  • AO1: a clear, relevant argument in accurate academic English, using literary terms correctly.
  • AO2: how Stoker’s choices of form, structure and language make meaning – for example, how Seward’s phonograph diary shapes what we believe.
  • AO3: contexts that explain a detail of the text, such as the 1890s New Woman debate and Mina’s typing.
  • AO4: connections across literary texts (the precise task depends on the specification).
  • AO5: other readings of the novel, tested rather than just name-checked.

Each paper weights these differently, and some leave one out: check your specification. AQA 7707 and Edexcel 9EL0 (English Language and Literature) use their own objectives.

Leaving Certificate English. The SEC uses PCLM: clarity of purpose, coherence of delivery, efficiency of language use and accuracy of mechanics. In the 2025 Higher Level marking scheme these carry 30%, 30%, 30% and 10% of the marks available for a task. Check the scheme for your examination year and question. Read the SEC marking criteria.

For example, OCR gives AO3 half the marks in its A-level comparative essays. That does not mean half the words should be a history account: context needs to support the literary argument. OCR’s explanation of AO3.

  • Before planning: identify the task, permitted texts and objectives assessed on that paper.
  • After planning: check that the evidence and structure will support what the criteria reward.
  • After writing: use the level descriptors to identify a strength and a specific improvement, supported by a passage from your answer.
  • Then revise: improve that aspect and ask whether the change makes the argument more convincing. Avoid treating every objective as a separate paragraph.

Learn from board-published candidate answers: see the question, texts, reported mark or level, exact location and what to look for in the commentary. These are separate from the Estate’s worked examples in Chapter E.

The board guides identify paper-specific marking requirements. For example, OCR H472’s comparative essay gives AO3 50%, AO4 25%, and AO1 and AO5 12.5% each; that weighting does not apply to its unseen passage. Pearson 9ET0 Paper 2 does not assess AO5. AQA 7707 and Pearson 9EL0 assess linguistic and literary methods through their own criteria. Always use the marking grid for your paper.

Past papers, mark schemes and reports

Each board guide gathers its documents and source notes. Read a question with its matching mark scheme and report, checking the series and variant. Where a document is hosted by a mirror, its origin and the access route are identified in Sources.

Past-question catalogue · Candidate-answer catalogue · Sources for studying and teaching Dracula.

What examiners reward and criticise

These twelve recurring findings connect the reports to practical choices in an answer. Open the linked board guides for years, sources and fuller discussion; the exact assessment requirements still depend on your paper.

1. Answer the question’s terms

Define the actual task and keep returning to it. OCR criticised answers that replaced “ancient myth” with prepared gender material; CCEA found answers to an older question about fear of foreigners instead of the statement set. OCR: 2023 and 2025; CCEA: 2022–2024.

2. State and develop an argument

Use the introduction to establish a judgement, then develop it through selected evidence. A list of themes or a large amount of remembered material is not a substitute for a line of reasoning. Pearson Literature: 2018 and 2025; OCR: 2017, 2021 and 2025.

3. Compare ideas and methods throughout

Organise comparison around a shared problem and explain what a difference changes. Matching two plot events, or adding “similarly”, does not by itself establish an argument. Pearson Literature and AS reports; OCR comparison guidance.

4. Make context explain the text

Connect a particular context to a passage, narrative choice or effect. Generic claims about “the Victorians” and detached historical accounts can overwhelm the literary argument even where context carries substantial marks. OCR: 2019, 2024 and 2025; AQA: 2017 and 2023.

5. Use biography with discipline

A documented fact about Bram can help explain a literary question, but resemblance does not establish influence and speculation does not become fact because a candidate used it. Distinguish the author, narrator and character. OCR: 2022–2025; Pearson AS: 2025.

6. Test interpretations rather than name critics

Explain what a reading helps you see, support it with the text and recognise its limits. Check the paper’s objectives: Pearson Literature Paper 2 does not assess AO5, while other papers assess interpretations explicitly. Pearson Language and Literature: 2025; OCR interpretation and marking guidance.

7. Analyse narrative form as well as words

Track who records, speaks, edits and knows what. Explain how journals, letters, the phonograph and the arrangement of documents shape meaning; terminology and isolated words do not replace that analysis. AQA: 2017 and 2023; CCEA: 2023 and 2025.

8. Use the whole novel

Select precise evidence from across the narrative, including its later stages. Reports repeatedly criticise dependence on the castle chapters or two or three famous scenes. Cambridge: 2022–2024; OCR: 2022 and 2024.

9. Keep the Gothic in view

Gender and social history matter, but so do supernatural belief, uncertainty, suspense, shock and pleasure. Do not let a prepared social argument remove the genre from the answer, or confuse a film with the novel. OCR: 2017–2025; Pearson Language and Literature: 2018.

10. Read character voices historically

Van Helsing praises Mina’s intelligence in a speech recorded by Seward. Assess both the gendered language and the recognition it offers, then test the praise against events. Neither the speaker’s judgement nor a modern label settles the novel’s position. CCEA: 2024; Pearson Literature: 2019 and 2022.

11. Test the balance of old and new

Technology, shared records and reasoning work alongside faith, folklore and religious protections. Read how those forces interact in particular scenes rather than treating the ending as a simple victory for modern science. CCEA: 2025; OCR: 2021 and 2023.

12. Allow for complexity and counter-evidence

Keep basic facts secure – the Count is undead and Renfield is not a foreigner – but avoid reducing the novel to fixed moral or character labels. A persuasive answer can qualify or challenge the statement while still addressing it. Cambridge: June 2024; CCEA: 2022 and 2023.

For exercises and corrections, use Chapter F: Avoiding common mistakes. For planning a researched argument, use Chapter E.

Where next?

Next: D – Context and themes · Previous: B – Understanding and reading the novel · Back to UK and Irish study