Component 3 Text in Performance: a 2 hour 30 minute written exam in three sections on two complete set texts (one pre-1956, one post-1956) and an extract from a third, answered as a theatre maker, assessing AO3 and AO4 across 120 marks (40 per cent).

What this dot point is asking

Component 3, Text in Performance, is the written exam. It lasts 2 hours 30 minutes, is worth 120 marks (40 per cent), and has three sections on three texts: two complete set texts (one pre-1956, one post-1956) and an extract from a third. Crucially, you answer as a theatre maker, not a literary critic: every answer is about realising the text in performance. The paper assesses AO3 (knowledge of how theatre is made and performed) and AO4 (analyse and evaluate). This page maps the whole paper so you know what each section demands.

The answer

The three sections

The paper tests three texts in three sections.

1. Section A: structured questions on one complete set text, on interpreting and realising it in performance.
2. Section B: an essay on a second complete set text, from a different historical period to the Section A text.
3. Section C: a question on an extract from a third, contrasting text, with the extract printed in the paper.

The period rule and open book

Across Sections A and B you study two complete performance texts, one written before 1956 and one after 1956. For these two sections you may take clean, unannotated copies of the texts into the exam (open book). The Section C extract is supplied on the paper, so nothing needs to be brought for it.

Answering as a theatre maker

The exam assesses how drama is made and performed (AO3) and evaluation (AO4), so you write as a theatre maker, a performer, director and designer, making and justifying staging choices, not as a literary critic discussing themes.

A strong candidate enters knowing the structure cold: which text is examined where, that Sections A and B are open book with clean copies, that the Section C extract is printed, and that every answer is a theatre-maker's response. That foundation lets them spend the exam making choices, not working out the rubric.

Try this

Q1. State the duration, marks and weighting of Component 3. [3 marks]

• Cue. 2 hours 30 minutes, 120 marks, 40 per cent.

Q2. Name the three sections and the text each examines. [3 marks]

• Cue. Section A (structured questions on one complete set text), Section B (essay on a second complete set text from a different period), Section C (a printed extract from a third contrasting text).

Q3. Explain why answers should be written as a theatre maker rather than as literary criticism. [8 marks]

• What the marker wants. The exam assesses how drama is developed and performed (AO3) and evaluation (AO4), so answers must realise the text in performance through specific staging and design choices tied to the audience, not analyse it as literature (AO3).

A note on application

This guide is AI-written and not individually human-reviewed. The exam structure, the open-book and period rules and the set text lists are set by Eduqas and reviewed periodically (open-book arrangements have changed between series), so always confirm the current Component 3 requirements and your centre's set texts with the Eduqas specification.