Pearson Edexcel A-Level Greek Past Papers & Mark Schemes

Pearson Edexcel A-Level Greek (specification 9GK0) examines Modern Greek (Demotic) — the everyday spoken and written language of contemporary Greece and Cyprus. While the Greek alphabet is more familiar to students than Cyrillic or Arabic script, Modern Greek presents its own distinctive challenges: a complex verb system with active and passive voices that function differently from English, an extensive use of the subjunctive-equivalent mood (υποτακτική), and vocabulary that draws heavily on both classical Greek roots and Turkish/Italian loanwords. Paper 1 (Listening, Reading and Translation — 2 hours, 80 marks, 40%) tests comprehension of authentic Modern Greek at natural speed. Listening passages feature a range of voices from mainland Greece and Cyprus, with Cypriot Greek presenting notable dialectal differences. Reading texts draw on contemporary Greek journalism and cultural writing. Translation sections target the structures anglophone learners find hardest: Greek's two-stem verb system (present and aorist stems), the correct use of 'να' + subjunctive constructions (which replace the infinitive that Modern Greek largely lacks), and the distinction between perfective and imperfective aspect across tenses. Paper 2 (Written Response to Works and Translation — 2 hours 40 minutes, 120 marks, 30%) draws on Modern Greek literature and cinema — including works that engage with Greece's turbulent 20th-century history (civil war, military junta, EU accession) and contemporary themes of economic crisis, migration, and cultural identity. Essays must be written entirely in Greek, requiring command of the formal Demotic register. Paper 3 (Speaking — approximately 30 minutes, 72 marks, 30%) explores themes including Greek identity and the diaspora, the economic crisis and its social impact, Greece's relationship with Turkey, and the Cyprus question. This archive of 32 resources provides practice across the current specification and legacy papers.