AQA AS Level Art and Design Past Papers & Mark Schemes

For an AS in Art and Design, the equivalent of revision is iterative portfolio development. Three habits separate B/C students from A students. First, evidence the four AOs explicitly in your sketchbook with marginal annotations — examiners report that strong work loses marks because students do not flag where they are demonstrating each objective. Use coloured tabs or printed AO labels. Second, document failures alongside successes. AO2 (refinement) demands that you show how an idea evolved: weak experiments rejected with reasoning beat finished pieces with no working alongside. Third, integrate three to five contextual artists per project, including at least one whose practice is geographically or culturally distinct from the others. Quote a primary source per artist (an interview, a manifesto, a critical review) rather than relying on Wikipedia summaries. For the ESA, use the preparatory period (typically eight weeks) to compress the personal portfolio cycle: select brief → research three artists → produce 8–12 pages of investigation → plan your final response with a maquette or test piece. Time-track your hours so that you can ration the 15 supervised hours appropriately.