Cambridge International AS & A Level Islamic Studies (9488)

To make sure this syllabus meets the needs of our schools, and reflects current educational and assessment thinking, we have worked with teachers, subject expert panels and universities around the world to update this qualification.

This is the first development since we launched this course and we have made some significant changes in line with the feedback we received.

How has the syllabus changed?

• The syllabus content now includes exciting new material such as the Cultural Heritage of Islam and a wider variety of Qur'anic and Hadith texts for study.
• To help those teaching the updated syllabus, we have kept some of the familiar content areas although this has been restructured in the new papers:
  • Paper 1 Islamic beliefs and practices.
  • Paper 2 Islamic law (shariah) and its application.
  • Paper 3 Heritage of Islam.
  • Paper 4 Islam in the modern world.
• We have amended the assessment objectives to make sure that more higher order skills are assessed.
• We have added a list of command words and their meanings to help learners know what’s expected of them in the exam.
• We have combined the Cambridge International AS Level (8053) and the A Level (9013) into one single syllabus. The new syllabus code 9488 replaces both of the old syllabuses for examination in 2021-2023.

How has the assessment changed?

• The 2021-2023 assessment will include four papers (two at AS and two at A Level).
• We have split the current Papers 1 and 2 into two additional shorter papers to make it easier for candidates to prepare thoroughly and to focus on the separate content areas in the examination itself.
• The new papers will last 1 hour 30 minutes instead of the currrent 3-hour long papers. This is to help candidates maintain the same standard throughout the paper and avoid later responses decreasing in quality as they can in longer assessments.
• To make the distinction between knowledge and analyisis and evaluation clearer, we have changed the assessment objectives (AOs) to:
  • AO1 knowledge and understanding
  • AO2 analysis and evaluation.
• Following feedback from universities, we have increased the weighting of analsyis and evaluation. Students with confidence in these higher order skills will be better prapared for further study of Islamic Studies or similar courses at university.
• We have introduced different and more varied style of questions to give students the opportunity to display a greater variety of skills.
• A new section has been introduced to explain the details of the assessment providing further information to teachers and students on what's required.
• We have updated the marking citeria with new levels of response marking grids. These are available in the specimen mark schemes that accompany this syllabus. The specimen mark schemes also include indicative content exemplifying the types of answers that candidates could give to the questions.

When do these changes take place?

The updated syllabus is for examination in November 2021, 2022 and 2023. Please see the 2021-2023 syllabus above for full details.

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