One of the trickiest things for students to get their heads around when they start their English Literature A-level is understanding AO5.
I don’t blame them! There are so many different ways that you can get the marks for this assessment objective, so it can be confusing to know where to start. And once they do, they can fall into the trap of just listing different alternate interpretations rather than analysing and evaluating them. Plus, there’s the added issue that many people mix it up with AO3! You wouldn’t be alone if you were confused.
Getting to grips with AO5 is one of the signs of an A or A*-level student. It shows you’re aware that there are loads of different ways you can read and interpret a text. Plus, doing it well proves that you can evaluate other people’s arguments and pick out the pros and cons. That’s definitely the sign of a student who is ready to pursue English at a higher level!
Good discussion of alternative interpretations absolutely elevates your essays. Plus, the more of it you read, the better your AO1 gets, too! So, it’s an important thing to spend some time understanding.
But just because it’s a sign of an A or A* student, it doesn’t mean that it has to be difficult to understand. Sure, things can be a little confusing in the beginning! But once you get it, it’s one of the easiest things to slot into your essays and make them so much better.
With my help, you’ll be using AO5 with ease in no time! Let me explain what it is, what counts, and how to use it well.
Note: This blog post contains affiliate links. If you use them, I may earn a small commission.
What is AO5?
Fun fact: assessment objectives are set by a government regulation board, Ofqual, not by the exam boards. So, all A-level exams use the same ones. That means most of the things I say in this post will work for you, no matter your exam board, unless I explicitly say otherwise.
Of course, things are different for the English Language or Language & Literature A-levels. And IB has its own system. Overall, though, most of the stuff here is universal.
So, this is what Ofqual says AO5 is:
Explore literary texts informed by different interpretations.
It’s pretty simple and works well to complement AO1. AO1 is about your interpretations and how well you argue them in an essay. AO5 is where you look at other people’s interpretations and compare them to your own.
You’ll find these different interpretations in many different places. For example, people talking about the text you’re studying specifically, or about texts in general. Sometimes you’ll find AO5 in the form of an essay or journal article; other times, it’ll be more creative.
But there’s more to it than just finding alternate interpretations and sticking them into your essays. Listing never works for A-level. You need to analyse and evaluate them. That means thinking about the following things:
- How closely does the other opinion of the text align with your own?
- How convincing is their interpretation?
- What are the merits and pitfalls of interpreting the text in this way?
- Which parts of the text confirm that interpretation and which go against it?
- How might reading the text in this way be interesting?
That will help you to use alternate interpretations to enhance your own interpretation, which is how you’ll get closer to the A or A*.
Why is AO5 important?
The best essays have a lot in common with arguments or debates.
Try to imagine that your audience is someone who’s read the text just like you have, but disagrees with your interpretation. So, it’s your job to use every tool in your belt to convince them to see things the way you do.
So, how do you convince people of things? Well, you give good facts and evidence (referencing the text). You use convincing language. And also, you put your arguments into the context of what other people have to say. That means bringing up interesting points that other smart people have made and evaluating their strength.
That works in two ways. For one, you can use AO5 to say, ‘Look! My argument fits in with what other people notice about this text”. Also, though, you can counter a counterargument before your audience even gets the chance to think about it, making you look super smart:
While a feminist theorist might point to Changez’s behaviour towards Erica as evidence of the commodification of the female body, this ignores the fact that Erica exoticises Changez’s Pakistani background. Indeed, the relationship between the two characters is emblematic of what Edward Said refers to as ‘Orientalism’. Erica and her family observe Changez as though he is an Oriental Other, overly emphasising cultural differences and being surprised by their similarities. In reality, the relationship between the two is one of mutual commodification and exploitation not accounted for in a traditional, non-intersectional feminist reading of the text.
See? Being aware of other people’s arguments and showing how mine fits in with theirs makes me seem smarter!
There’s also another reason: AO3. At GCSE level, you’re supposed to talk about the context of the time the text was written. They want you to consider how it affected what the writer wrote.
At A-level, there’s a whole other added layer. You should explore the reader’s context, too! The easiest way to do that is to use AO5 and think about what’s going on in their world that would make them interpret the text in that way.
Then, you can compare that to your own argument: how has your context influenced you? Why is your way of reading the text the best for right here and now?
What are the different ways you can do AO5?
Finding good AO5 fills students with too much anxiety. Do you have to find 10 journal articles about each set text? How can you access them when most articles are locked behind expensive paywalls? What if your school chose an obscure text that doesn’t have many articles written about it? And how are you supposed to understand the dense writing, anyway?
If you’ve ever worried about any of those questions, you’re not alone. It’s perfectly normal to worry! I know I stressed when I was doing my A-levels. I thought that there was only one way to do AO5 well, and it just didn’t work for me. With my ADHD, I suck at memorising quotes. So, the idea of remembering 10 different critics per text made my blood pressure rise!
But the good news is that there are so many ways to do AO5. So, it’s not like your only option is to get bogged down looking for that 50-page essay written by Professor Nerd from Pretentious University.
Yes, it’s always great to quote some academic writing. However, that’s not the only option you have! In fact, I would argue that direct quotes from critics should never be the only way that you do AO5.
There are lots of different ways that you can get those AO5 grades. Of course, there are some that tend to be more effective than others, but each has its pros and cons. Not every kind of alternate interpretation will fit every situation. So, you can (and should) mix and match the different types to suit your essay.
Here are all the ways to do AO5 that I can think of. If you think I’ve missed one, please let me know! I’ll make sure to add it in the future.
Critical lenses and approaches
One of the easiest ways to incorporate AO5 into your essays is through the major critical approaches.
This means learning about the most common types of critical theories and considering how you can use them to interpret the same text in different ways.
They include:
- Feminist theory
- Marxist theory
- Psychoanalytic theory (such as Sigmund Freud)
- Postcolonial theory
- Queer theory
- Ecocriticism
- Race and ethnicity theory
- Christian literary theory
These lenses mean you don’t have to remember exact quotes to get top marks. You can come up with interpretations that fit the critical approaches so long as you know them well enough. That will get the high grades because it shows you understand the lenses, so you don’t need a perfect quote to match.
Plus, you can apply the lenses to the exam questions: what kind of theorist would ask this question to begin with? Particularly with statement-based essay questions, it will help you to interrogate them and come to a more nuanced understanding.
It’s also possible to combine approaches. There is such thing as an ‘intersectional Marxist-feminist lens’, for example. In fact, many of the original theorists do fit into multiple lenses at once!
Just be aware that it isn’t good enough to just list the different interpretations that you get from different lenses. The critics don’t all think the same and agree with each other. There’s more than one feminist way to read a text. Plus, you need to be evaluating at all times.
I’ve set up an affiliate book shelf full of great resources that will help you with AO5. Check it out:
Performances of plays
in A-level English Literature, it’s important to see performances of your set plays. Not only does it help you to understand and visualise the text, but the performances are full of great AO5 that you can use in your essays.
A theatre production’s creative team has interpretations of a play that show up in their creative decisions. For example:
- Set
- Costumes
- Casting
- Blocking
- What they’ve cut or taken out
- If they make actors play multiple roles
You might also want to think about what the actors add to the role. They’ve got their own interpretations of the characters that they add to the performance, too! So, focus on things like how they speak, tone, emphasis on specific words, pauses, facial expressions and body language.
Once you’ve noticed these decisions, you can say really interesting things about the performance! You can talk about what they’re emphasising or underplaying, who they make us align with, who we’re supposed to hate and plenty of other things. Then, you can compare the creators’ interpretations to your own.
Here’s an example of what this might look like:
In the Globe’s 2014 performance of The Duchess of Malfi, Ferdinand attempts to force the Duchess to kiss him during his fit of rage. This draws attention to his repressed feelings towards her and emphasises his sense of entitlement over her body.
Plus, it’s great to take note of how this performance compares to the original text! Are they emphasising themes, ideas and dynamics that are less obvious in the text, for example? And how does it compare to other performances of the same text? Each creative team will have its own vision and set of interpretations, so the more you watch, the better!
There’s an added benefit, too! You can tie the similarities and differences in with AO3. Think about why the creators might have made their decisions based on what was going on in the world around them. What current social and political forces are they responding to and why?
Adaptations of texts
AO5 for adaptations is quite similar to performances. However, they mean two different things.
Usually, we use the word ‘performance’ when a play script is turned into a live play. In that case, the writer intended for the text to be performed on stage, and the creative team honoured that. Even if they changed the way it looks quite a bit, the form stays the same.
On the other hand, adaptation is when the creators change the form. For example, turning a novel into a play or film would count as adapting it. The same applies to turning a play into a film. Well, a real film, anyway. It doesn’t count if it’s a play on stage that someone just filmed.
So, an on-stage version of Romeo and Juliet would be a performance even if you’re watching a video of it afterwards. The 1997 film is an adaptation.
Other than this difference, the process of using adaptations and performances for AO5 is pretty much the same. You need to think about the creative decisions that the team made, and what that reveals about their interpretations of the text. Then, you should think about the time that the adaptation was made in, and how that impacts their interpretations (AO3). And just like with a performance, you should also consider the role that the actors played.
Of course, most adaptations of texts are films or TV shows. And the language of film/TV is quite different from the language of a play, and there’s much more that you might want to notice. For example:
- Editing
- Camera angles
- Sound (music, sound effects, etc)
- Cinematography
Overall, though, the process is the same. Productions and adaptations show you their interpretations rather than telling you. It’s up to you to analyse them.
Quoting named critics who have written about your text
If you like to memorise quotes (I don’t), then you might want to revise quotes from literary critics.
Plenty of critics write essays and journal articles about many of the A-level texts. You can find these on places like JSTOR or Google Scholar. The English and Media Centre’s Emag is a great place to check, since it’s more down-to-earth and geared at your level.
Plus, there are the Norton Critical Editions of many set texts. These are full of AO5!
When you use these critics, you should find a quote that sums up their interpretation. It could be about the whole text, a character, a theme or even the setting! You just need to make sure it’s their opinion your quoting, not the proof they use to back it up. Using this kind of AO5 might look like this:
In The Duchess of Malfi, Webster argues for the importance of feminine autonomy, demonising men’s entitled behaviour over women’s bodies. While the Duchess’s choice to marry Antonio in secret is controversial and sparks Ferdinand’s violent retribution, it is not framed as an immoral action. On the contrary, as Karen Britland notes, ‘the Duchess’s sexuality seems almost celebrated by the play’, while Ferdinand’s anger-fuelled ‘rupture’ is presented as grotesque and evil, even by the Cardinal.
This is cool because it looks like you’re saying, ‘See! My views align with some very important literary people that I can name drop!’ Or, on the other hand, you could use it to show how smart you are by poking holes in the arguments of smart people. Either way, it improves the ethos of your argument: it makes you look like you’re someone whose opinion we can trust.
You could double up AO5 by pointing out which critical lens the quote aligns best with.
That being said, it’s easier to find specific AO5 for some texts rather than others. The older and more popular texts have loads of academic writing about them. There’s definitely a wealth of material for Shakespeare, Paradise Lost, Dracula and John Donne, for example.
When it comes to the more obscure or contemporary texts, though, it can be harder to find. That’s where you might want to look at some other kind of AO5.
Book reviews
But what about the more obscure or contemporary texts? If you can’t find critics to quote, what should you do?
Usually, this problem comes up the most for the NEA (coursework). If your school lets you choose your texts, you might feel limited to choosing ones with journal articles.
That can suck, since the NEA is supposed to be a chance for you to explore your interests (within reason). Why should you have to let go of a text you love just because academics haven’t written anything about it before, or because no one’s performed or adapted it yet? That’s ridiculous!
The good news is that there are other places that you can go to find people talking about texts. In fact, these people do it more frequently and for more texts than academics do! They’re cheaper and more available, and absolutely count as AO5. These places are book reviews, particularly in reputable newspapers and magazines.
The good thing about book reviews is that they’re almost all opinion. Academic writers spend a lot of time proving their claims, just like you do in your essays. That’s great for helping you build your analysis skills, but it means you might accidentally fall into the trap of quoting AO5 rather than alternate interpretations.
With book reviews, that problem is less likely. It isn’t a reviewer’s job to prove anything. Instead, they let you know their interpretations of the text and whether it’s worth reading. That means it’s often easier to find a good quote than with the more academic stuff.
Some places to check for good book reviews include:
It’s best if you can name the reviewer, just like you would for other types of AO5!
Named influential thinkers who talk about theory in general
But you shouldn’t just rely on people who talk specifically about your texts. I’d argue that it’s more valuable to tie your texts to influential thinkers who explore topics like literature, art, culture and society in general.
This is a broad category that covers people such as:
- Judith Butler
- Frantz Fanon
- Sigmund Freud
- Stuart Hall
- Anton Chekhov
- bell hooks (she prefers her name in lowercase)
- Terry Eagleton
- Edward Said
- Naomi Klein
- Roland Barthes
- Noam Chomsky
There are plenty of reasons why it’s so good to do this kind of AO5. First of all, you can apply their work to any text, so long as it makes sense. That means that learning their ideas takes a lot less space in your head than trying to remember direct quotes about each and every one of your texts. The same critics can work for multiple texts!
Plus, these thinkers inspire and influence the writing of the academics who write directly about texts. They quote these thinkers, too! So, it’s a little bit like cutting out the middleman. And you show how well you understand their ideas along the way.
But also, often, the writers of texts will also be influenced by these thinkers, too! For example, Sigmund Freud had a huge influence on Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway. So, talking about Freud when analysing that text can be an interesting mix of AO3 and AO5!
My favourite benefit is that you don’t need to quote these people directly. It’s more about showing you understand their ideas by paraphrasing them and using their important terminology. So, talking about them in your essays might look something like this:
Galahad’s relationships with white women align with Frantz Fanon’s assertion in Black Skin, White Masks that men colour of will often utilise romance as a way to legitimise themselves.
Or, you can also refute their ideas:
The solidarity between women in The Duchess of Malfi calls into question bell hooks’s idea that women are as complicit in upholding patriarchy as men are.
You can find essential extracts from most of these thinkers in The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism.
Philosophical figures
Then there are figures who make moral arguments about the world as a whole. They discuss how people should be, how we should view the world, and what would make us happier or more productive. Their key topics include morality, human nature, ethics and social conduct.
Using these philosophical figures for AO5 is similar to the theoretical thinkers I mentioned above. The main difference is that the philosophers tend to focus on how they think the world should be or what’s gone wrong. On the other hand, theoretical figures observe the world more. They analyse how things are.
Of course, there is cross-over. Theoretical thinkers also have ideas about how the world should or shouldn’t be, and philosophers need to observe the world to propose something better or observe the issues. But if we’re talking about intent, the separation helps
Philosophers are essential to the literary canon. Since they often suggest ways to change the world, they say a lot about their current world. So, if you have a text from around the same time or after, you can compare the text to the philosopher and see how much they align. That links AO3 and AO5 nicely.
That might look something like this:
The reconciliation between Hamlet and Laertes in the final scene of the play aligns with Francis Bacon’s assertion that ‘A man that studieth revenge, keeps his own wounds green’. Laertes’s anger and obsession with revenge corrupts him, blinding him to the sinfulness of Claudius’s actions. It is not until his revenge is enacted and he is being punished that he can ‘heal, and do well’.
Doing this is most useful when the philosopher could have been on the writer’s radar. For example, Machiavelli wrote The Prince a few decades before Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi. So, when I discuss the Cardinal as a Machiavellian character, that’s something Webster may have done on purpose. It could be to poke holes in Machiavelli’s idea of an ideal ruler.
Some of the main figures include:
- Machiavelli
- Socrates
- Thomas Hobbes
- John Locke
- Francis Bacon
- Confucius
- Seneca
- Nietzsche
Perspectives across history
I personally love using this. It’s when you think about how people at different point of history migh interpret the same text in different ways. You can think about how their social and political climates impact their thoughts on the text, and even compare interpretations across eras!
It works best when you combine it with other forms of AO5. For example, comparing the TV show adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale to the original novel. How would a 2017-2025 audience react differently from 1985, when the novel was published?
You could compare them and see what themes and messages they emphasise or downplay in th TV show. What have they added and changed? How does that appeal to the current sociopolitical situation? You might even think about how the overturning of Roe v. Wade shaped the filmmakers’ and readers’ interpretations in the final season!
But you’re not limited to adaptations. You can read notes or reviews from older performances of the play, or compare literary critics from times in the past to critics now. Or, you might think about how the critical approaches have shifted over time. I mean, feminist theory now is not the same as it was in the 1960s.
Here’s an example of using perspectives across history as a form of AO5:
For a post-2008 financial crisis audience who have become jaded by financial ruin, Gatsby’s pursuit of the American Dream and decadent displays of wealth appear flawed and even sinister. His use of illegal means to enrich himself would perhaps signify to them how it is impossible to significantly improve wealth and status through legitimate, moral methods. indeed, the 2013 adaptation of the novel emphasises the harsh, volatile and erratic side to Gatsby’s nature. Contrarily, the 1974 film centres ‘the gentler, war-veteran side of Jay’, as described by Marian H from the blog, Classics Considered.
If I were to go on for a sentence or two about why these two films portray Gatsby so differently, I could tick off some very in-depth AO3, too!
That’s the beauty of using this kind of AO5. You can’t do it well without doing AO3, too! Just make sure you’re comparing their interpretations, not just the different historical periods when they’re reading the text.
Perspectives from different cultures and identities
Of course, not all readers from a historical period react the same. It would be pretty un-intersectional of me to suggest that! We all have our own life experiences that shape the way we read and the interpretations we come to. After all, we’re individuals, so no one is exactly like us.
But there are trends. Historical periods are one of them, because the events we live through and the way they’re portrayed in the media shape our thinking. We all share the experience of the lockdown, right? We collectively understand it, even if we didn’t all react the same way.
There are other things that connect us, too. For example, being part of a specific culture or identity group.
In A-level English Literature, we often default to the white, Western perspective of a text. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with that! Those interpretations are valid and useful, especially because so many of the texts we study were specifically written for that perspective.
But it’s not the only way to read a text, let alone the only correct one. Black readers have equally interesting interpretations. The same is true of disabled, queer and Asian people, and people who follow different religions or live in different parts of the world. And then there are intersections. What about a black disabled perspective, for example?
These people exist and read texts, too. Their perspectives can be interesting and make you view the writer’s work in different ways. They’re a great source of AO5!
I always use the example of how my interpretation as a half South Asian person reading The Reluctant Fundamentalist in the 2020s is quite different from the original post-9/11 American readership:
While to a post-9/11 American reader, Changez’s insistence that he assimilates into American culture is necessary and surprising, a South Asian reader might perceive this as insecurity and scorn for his Pakistani origins.
Again, add a little AO3 to explain why the post-9/11 readers would be surprised by this, and you’re golden!
Wrangling the question
Sometimes, the question lends itself to multiple interpretations that you can explore right from the introduction of your essay. This works best if you have a statement-based question, like you do in the OCR exams.
If you do, the statement will probably give you room to find nuance. You should never fully agree or disagree with them, but instead provide a nuanced answer. The best way to do this is to argue that the answer depends on how you interpret the question! OCR sometimes calls this form of AO5 ‘wrangling the question’.
Still confused? Here’s an example to help you understand.
Let’s say you’re doing an exam with a statement-based question. You choose the statement, ‘Literature reveals how rules and laws often serve as a barrier to morality’. If you were to wrangle the question, you might consider that the answer depends on how you define ‘rules and laws’. It also depends on how you define ‘morality’ and ‘barrier’.
In The Handmaid’s Tale, for example, I would focus on the word ‘barrier’. Sometimes, barriers hinder you. Other times, they protect you. So, if you mean that people are stopped against their will from acting immorally, I don’t think the statement is true for this text. But if you mean that people use rules and law as a shield, I would absolutely agree.
That provides two different interpretations of the text based on how you read the question. An introduction that fits with my argument might look something like this:
In Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, people with power utilise rules and laws to allow them to act in violent, immoral ways. The men in charge codify their interpretations of the Bible into law to commit immoral actions. However, the law itself does not prevent people from acting morally. It simply allows them to shield themselves from the consequences of their immorality.
The OCR board explicitly rewards this kind of AO5. For other exam boards, it’s still useful and adds to the strength of your essay overall.
If you’d like to get better at doing this, I have a whole course dedicated to it on my Learning Hub. Check it out!
Using AO3 genre context to fuel AO5
Sometimes, knowledge of your texts’ genres can help you unpack some interesting AO5 discussions. Of course, genre context is actually AO3. But if you know it well, you might find places where your text is ambiguous. That’s where you can make some great AO5 points.
I think this makes the most sense with an example. So, I’ll explain using a discussion I had with my A-level students on The Duchess of Malfi.
Although the Duchess of Malfi is technically a revenge tragedy, it doesn’t fit neatly into the box like Hamlet or The Revenger’s Tragedy do. For one, you might not even be clear who the avenger is! At the start, it seems like it might be Ferdinand. Nearer the end, though, it is clearly Bosola.
And since that’s not so clear, the immoral action that starts the avenger on their path is ambiguous, too. If Ferdinand is the avenger, then the immoral action he’s committing revenge for is the Duchess choosing to marry a man in secret. If the avenger is Bosola, then the immoral action is Ferdinand ordering him to kill the Duchess and then turning on him once he does what he’s paid to do.
So, let’s say that you’re writing an essay where you’re considering whether Webster (the playwright) is arguing for women’s freedom or against it. A great way to add some AO5 into your argument is to think about that debate!
It depends on who the avenger of the play is. If we think it’s Ferdinand, then the play is suggesting women should be punished for asserting their autonomy and marrying for love. If you think it’s Bosola, then Ferdinand punishing the Duchess is immoral. That adds nuanced AO5 using AO3.
‘Some might argue… while others would say…’
If in doubt, the easiest way to add some AO5 into your essay is to come up with more than one perspective on your own.
Of course, it’s great if you can name a critical lens or something. However, there might be times in the exam where you just freak out and forget.
If that happens, don’t worry. It’s better to have some AO5 than leave it out because you’re trying to be too precise. So, don’t avoid it because you can’t think of any names or specifics. Just mention two or more interpretations you’ve come up with on your own.
Then, evaluate them. Which one makes the most sense? Which are you the most critical of? And which one aligns the most nicely with your essay’s argument?
It’s really simple to do this, actually:
While some may argue that Victor Frankenstein’s choice not to create a companion for the Creature signifies his growing sense of moral responsibility, others would suggest that it is proof of his misogyny. Despite his own failures as a creator, Victor is unable to consider the consequences of procreation until he sees a creature in female form. This suggests that Victor associates femininity inherently with childbirth. In addition, his belief that the Creature’s companion might “become ten thousand times more malignant than her mate” indicate that he has not fully understood the role his neglect played in turning the Creature into a monster.
My advice is if you’re going to do this, put the opinion that you disagree with first. That helps you to make your case much stronger because you can spend the rest of the paragraph refuting it and aligning yourself with the second opinion.
If you do this well, it’s actually a really strong use of AO5. After all, you won’t just be listing different interpretations! You’ll weigh them up and consider which one is the strongest. Then, you can use proof to explain why you think that. it’s going to bolster your AO1, too, since you’ll have to explain which one aligns best with your own argument.
This is gold, since AO5 is the thing that A-level students are most likely to forget or miss out because they’re not sure how to use it well. Just use it and evaluate! Don’t worry too much if you’ve forgotten names!
How can you improve your AO5?
The best way to improve your AO5 is to practice and get feedback.
Good AO5 is integrated into your argument, not just tacked on at the end. You use it to refute other arguments and make your interpretation seem like the most logical to view the text, which makes it essential for A-level. The problem is that it’s easy to forget to do it in the exam and drop marks. So, you’ve got to practice so much that it becomes second nature.
Make sure you see lots of adaptations and performances, too. If you only watch one, you could accidentally mix it up with the original text. That’s less likely when you see multiple versions, as you can compare them to the original and each other to separate them.
My new community for A-level students will help with this. We already have posts where we discuss different performances and adaptations of texts. Right now, we’ve got posts on the 2025 National Theatre performance of Hamlet, as well as Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein. You can join the discussion and comment your thoughts.
Plus, you can always post your own topics! Tell us what you’ve seen or give us examples of extracts of your own work for us to discuss. You can bookmark other people’s points to come back to when you’re writing essays. It’s literally a place for you to mine alternate interpretations. It’s great!
Join the communityOr, you can pay for my essay-marking service to get in-depth, personalised feedback on how to improve.
If you have any questions, let me know! Reply to this post! Use the roadmap to let me know what texts you’d like me to talk about next. My job is to help!
Happy studying!
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