Cambridge IGCSE World Literature (0408) introduces students to stories, plays and poetry written in English or translated from different cultures. It develops close reading, thoughtful interpretation and the ability to explain how writers create meaning. This guide explains the 2025–2027 syllabus, the three assessed components and a clear route to handling coursework, unseen poetry and set-text examinations.
Literature is not a test of whether the student’s personal opinion matches the teacher’s. It is about giving an informed response supported by relevant textual evidence. Students need to understand a passage, notice language and structure, consider different interpretations and communicate their reasoning clearly. A memorised essay may sound polished, but it is unlikely to answer an unfamiliar question about an extract.
Quick information: – Syllabus: Cambridge IGCSE World Literature 0408, examinations in 2025–2027. – Component 1 Coursework: two original written assignments, 50 marks, 38.5%, internally marked and externally moderated. – Paper 2 Unseen Poetry: 1 hour 15 minutes, 30 marks, 23%, with two compulsory questions on one unseen poem. – Paper 3 Set Texts: 1 hour 30 minutes, 50 marks, 38.5%, with one extract-based and one essay question. – Coursework forms: a critical essay of 800–1200 words and an empathic response of 600–1000 words, on different suitable texts. – Important change: from 2028, coursework, poetry and set-text assessment arrangements and weightings change substantially; use the correct year’s syllabus.
Identify the Cambridge code and examination year first
Cambridge 0408 World Literature is not the same as Cambridge 0475 Literature in English or another board’s literature examination. They share important analytical skills but can have different set texts, coursework rules, paper times and question choices.
The syllabus year is the year the candidate actually sits the examination. Someone beginning a literature course in 2026 and examining in 2027 should use the 2025–2027 specification. A candidate taking examinations in 2028 must follow the separate 2028–2030 syllabus.
This matters because Cambridge’s 2028 changes are significant. The later syllabus has a different Poetry paper and set-text organisation, while all three components become equally weighted. A revision video discussing the new structure may be useful for poetry skills but inaccurate as a mock for a 2027 candidate.
Write the qualification code, year, chosen set text, coursework texts and component dates on one page. Confirm with the school or approved centre, then use the official Cambridge World Literature page for updates.
What the course is designed to develop
World Literature asks students to read texts from varied countries, cultures and historical settings, then communicate a thoughtful response. The three major forms are poetry, prose and drama. Each asks the reader to attend to different features of language and structure.
A poem may communicate through rhythm, images, sound and compressed suggestion. A novel or short story may develop meaning through character, plot, narration and pacing. A play relies on dialogue, performance, relationships and what characters do or do not say.
The same central reading question applies to each: What is being represented, how has it been shaped, and what evidence supports the interpretation?
The course does not require students to agree on one emotional response. A reader may feel sympathy for a character while another sees the character critically. Both can be defensible when they are sensitive to the text and supported by specific evidence.
The objective is more than plot recall. It is independent understanding of literature as a crafted form of communication.
The four assessment objectives
Cambridge sets out four assessment objectives for the 2025–2027 World Literature course, each with an approximate 25% weighting.
- AO1 Textual knowledge: show detailed knowledge of the content, using relevant references.
- AO2 Meaning and context: understand what the text communicates, including ideas or attitudes beyond surface meaning.
- AO3 Writer’s methods: recognise how language, structure and form create meanings and effects.
- AO4 Informed personal response: communicate a sensitive, supported interpretation of the literary work.
These objectives complement one another. An answer that identifies a dramatic event but does not explain its significance may be mostly plot recall. A response that uses an impressive technique label without linking it to any text may lack evidence.
A good paragraph often incorporates several objectives naturally: it identifies a moment, explains its importance, analyses how the writer presents it and offers a reasoned view of its effect.
Do not turn the objectives into four headings that must appear in every examination answer. Use them as a quality check on analysis.
All three components are compulsory
The 2025–2027 qualification uses three compulsory assessments. Coursework Component 1 counts 38.5%, Paper 2 Unseen Poetry counts 23% and Paper 3 Set Texts counts 38.5%. All candidates take the same route; the published grade range is A*–G.
This weighting means the two assessed assignments deserve sustained work during the course. It also means unfamiliar poetry is important even though its paper has fewer raw marks.
A student who reads the set novel repeatedly but never practises new poems will enter Paper 2 underprepared. Another who writes excellent coursework with substantial help may still struggle if independent literary reading has not developed.
Prepare all three areas deliberately. Use a calendar that separates school coursework deadlines from examination practice, because the tasks have different rules and forms of evidence.
Full-course planning should begin with the examination year and the school’s actual text choices rather than an online list of favourite books.
Component 1 Coursework: two different assignments
Component 1 requires two assessed assignments, together worth 50 marks. One is a critical essay and the other an empathic response, each worth 25 marks. The centre marks the work internally, and Cambridge moderates it externally.
Candidates study one prose text and one drama text for coursework, drawn from different countries or cultures. The assignments focus on different texts, with no requirement to compare them directly.
The school’s choice of suitable texts matters. A novel or play used for coursework must meet Cambridge’s conditions and cannot simply be one of the year’s Paper 3 set texts. The question chosen for the assignment should allow the student to demonstrate the assessment objectives.
Coursework is not a time-limited examination essay, but that does not mean outside assistance is unrestricted. The final submission must be the candidate’s original work. Teachers have specific limitations on how they may respond to drafts.
Learn the rules early; deciding the text or topic too late can create avoidable difficulties.
The critical essay: 800–1200 words
The first type of coursework assignment is a critical essay of approximately 800–1200 words, including quotations but excluding references and bibliography. It must be based on one suitable text.
A critical essay explores a question about character, theme, relationships, structure or another significant feature. It should develop a reasoned interpretation supported by the work as a whole, rather than collect unrelated quotations.
Suppose an independent classroom practice task asks how a protagonist’s choices change a family’s relationships. The student might choose two or three moments that show development, explain how the writer presents them and reach a judgement about the pattern.
A weak essay retells every chapter and finishes by saying the character changed. A stronger essay selects the most relevant evidence and explains how and why the change matters.
The actual coursework question and text must follow the school’s Cambridge procedures. This example is a learning exercise, not ready-made assessed content.
The empathic response: 600–1000 words
The second coursework assignment is an empathic response, approximately 600–1000 words. It assumes the voice of one character in a novel or play at a specified moment within the text.
This is not unrestricted fan fiction. The candidate must know the character, circumstances, relationships and language of the work sufficiently well to produce a credible imagined response. It is creative in form but grounded in textual knowledge.
An empathic response might express a character’s thoughts just before an important decision. The chosen words should fit what that character can know at that point. A character should not refer to events that occur later in the story as if they had already happened.
The 2025–2027 rules state that short stories must not be used for the empathic response. The text must also be different from the critical essay and not on the current Paper 3 set-text list.
Practise distinguishing authentic voice from merely inserting modern slang or copying the author’s dialogue.
Coursework texts: choose within the rules
Cambridge requires one prose and one drama text for coursework and requires the two texts to come from different countries or cultures. They must be suitable in scope and demand for IGCSE study.
The syllabus offers examples of texts that can be considered, but the current Paper 3 set-text list has priority as an exclusion. A book suitable for coursework in one year may become unsuitable if it appears on the current examination year’s set list.
For the critical essay, the syllabus permits an appropriate selection of short stories if the assignment covers at least two stories. For the empathic response, short stories are not permitted. Use a novel or play and a precisely defined character and moment.
Students should never choose an abridged or simplified edition where the official rules require the full text. Adaptations may help introduce the plot, but they do not replace the literary material being assessed.
The teacher and examination centre should approve the choices before assessed writing begins.
Coursework authenticity: understand the boundaries
Coursework must be the candidate’s own literary response. Cambridge requires centres to authenticate assessed work and warns against submitting another person’s material as the student’s own.
Teachers may discuss progress, but the syllabus restricts marking, correcting or editing drafts during the assessed process. The candidate must not rely on a parent, tutor or AI system to write or substantially rewrite the submitted essay.
A tutor can teach general analytical techniques on unrelated texts: selecting evidence, explaining imagery, constructing paragraphs and understanding character voice. The student should then apply these methods independently to the approved assessed assignment.
References to secondary material should follow the centre’s rules. A quotation from another critic does not become the candidate’s original insight simply by omitting the source.
It is better to submit an authentic, thoughtfully developed response with the student’s own reasoning than an artificially perfect text that fails authenticity requirements.
Coursework is an opportunity to learn literary independence, not outsource it.
How to build a critical argument from the whole text
The first task in a literature essay is deciding what the question asks. If the title concerns the importance of a relationship, a chapter-by-chapter summary is not the same as an argument about significance.
A useful plan has a clear interpretation, several carefully chosen moments and an explanation of how those moments connect. The chosen evidence should come from different relevant parts of the text where the task calls for development across the whole work.
A strong analytical paragraph can follow this sequence: claim about meaning → precise textual reference → writer’s method → explanation of effect → connection to the essay’s argument.
This does not require forcing every paragraph into identical length. It is a checklist ensuring that quotations are interpreted rather than dropped into the essay without purpose.
After drafting a practice essay, read the first sentences of each paragraph. Do they form a coherent case? If the sentences only say “later” and “after that”, the response may be narrating rather than analysing.
Character voice in an empathic response
A convincing empathic response asks what a character knows, wants, fears and believes at one specific point in the work. It also respects the character’s social context and manner of expression.
Imagine a fictional character who has just discovered an important family secret. An authentic response might show conflicting loyalties and uncertainty, but it should not contain information the character has not yet learned.
Before writing, create a short evidence record: significant words the character uses, decisions already made, relationships that matter and the immediate event prompting the response.
Then draft a short practice passage in the character’s perspective. Afterwards, check whether the emotional tone and references fit the selected moment. The response should convey the character’s voice rather than the student’s voice wearing a costume.
This technique is suitable for practice on unassessed examples. For real coursework, the school’s authenticity rules govern the permitted assistance.
Paper 2 Unseen Poetry: two questions on one poem
Paper 2 lasts 1 hour 15 minutes, has 30 marks and contributes 23% of the result. The paper presents one previously unseen poem or an extract and asks two compulsory questions, each worth 15 marks.
The poem may have been written originally in English or translated from another language. There is no fixed set-text list for this paper. Candidates must demonstrate independent close reading rather than rely on memorised commentary about a prescribed poem.
Cambridge advises spending around 20 minutes reading the poem and planning before beginning the written responses. This is not wasted time: careful preparation helps a student distinguish the two questions and identify useful evidence for each.
A student who begins writing immediately may commit to the wrong interpretation and repeat the same paragraphs across both answers.
Effective preparation includes regularly studying unfamiliar poetry with different voices, structures and subjects. The goal is to form a defensible response to a new poem within limited time.
Unseen poetry: first understand the situation
When encountering an unfamiliar poem, the candidate should first ask what is happening or being described. Who might be speaking? What situation or image is central? Does the tone remain consistent, or does something change?
Do not search for metaphors before establishing the basic meaning. A poem about a journey might be literal, symbolic or both. The surrounding words determine which interpretation is justified.
A useful first reading has no notes beyond the central impression. On the second reading, mark surprising words, contrasts, repeated images or shifts in voice. On the third, connect those features to the actual examination question.
If the speaker’s identity is uncertain, describe what the poem supports rather than invent a detailed biography. The student can use careful language such as “the speaker seems to” when the text genuinely leaves room for doubt.
The strongest poem analysis begins with comprehension and develops towards interpretation, not the other way round.
An original example of how imagery works
Consider this original two-line practice poem, written here solely for teaching: “The station clock counts every goodbye; / the platform keeps the echoes after trains.”
The first line gives the clock an unusually active role in departure, while the second suggests that absence continues after the event. A possible interpretation is that travel involves memory and separation as well as physical movement.
However, the exact meaning would depend on a longer poem. The lines do not prove that the speaker is leaving forever or has lost someone. That would be invention without supporting context.
A useful response explains the image, its associations and the effect of placing the two images together. Merely saying “personification is used” does not communicate much about the poem’s possible emotional movement.
Students can practise this method on original small examples before analysing the full unseen poem supplied in a Cambridge specimen paper.
Tone and change: do not choose one adjective too soon
Tone is the attitude or emotional quality communicated through language. A poem can be affectionate and critical, hopeful but uncertain, playful and serious at different points.
Students sometimes label a poem “sad” because one word refers to darkness. That may be inaccurate if the poem uses the image ironically or moves towards reassurance.
A better approach identifies a specific set of expressions and tracks how the tone develops. If an opening describes an empty room in short, clipped lines and an ending shifts towards an expansive image of sunlight, the change may matter as much as either detail alone.
In an answer, explain where the tone changes, which words indicate the shift and how the change affects the reader’s interpretation.
This method also supports prose and drama, where the attitude of a narrator or character can change within a short passage.
The goal is evidence-based nuance, not an impressive list of mood adjectives.
Poetic form and structure: what should students notice?
Form refers to the way a poem is organised as a literary work, and structure includes how lines, stanzas, repetitions, pauses or shifts shape the reading experience.
A shorter line may draw attention to one word; a repeated phrase may create insistence or a changing meaning; an unexpected line break can delay completion of an idea.
Do not assume every poem follows a predictable rhyme scheme or that a lack of rhyme makes it less poetic. The question is how particular decisions contribute to meaning.
A useful analysis begins by describing the visible pattern. Are there sections? Does the poem shift from memory to present observation, from one speaker to another, or from an image to a conclusion?
Only then explain its effect. A line break is meaningful when the student can show what changes because of it.
Cambridge’s unseen poetry component rewards close response to the actual poem, not generic explanations of what free verse or rhyme usually does.
Comparing the two unseen-poetry questions
The two Paper 2 questions are based on the same unseen poem, but they may focus on different aspects. Both carry equal marks, so students should give each sufficient attention.
Read both prompts before writing. One may ask about a particular image or section, while the other may focus more broadly on mood, response or development. The specific division depends on the examination.
Create two short evidence lists to avoid using exactly the same paragraph twice. Some evidence may support both interpretations, but the explanation should answer the distinct questions.
The 20-minute reading and planning allowance can help students identify how the questions differ and what each asks. This should be practised as part of timed rehearsal rather than used only in untimed homework.
After writing, underline the command words and compare them with the first sentence of each answer. If the paragraphs seem interchangeable, revise the focus.
The aim is two thoughtful responses, not one essay repeated under two headings.
Paper 3 Set Texts: one extract and one essay
Paper 3 lasts 1 hour 30 minutes, has 50 marks and contributes 38.5% of the 2025–2027 qualification. Candidates answer two 25-mark questions: one from Section A, based on a printed extract, and one from Section B, an essay about the set text more generally.
The set texts can include poetry, prose and drama written originally in English or translated. Cambridge publishes a different selection for each examination year. A student should confirm the exact title and any specified edition through the centre and official syllabus.
The student may answer both questions on the same selected work or prepare two relevant works and use different texts for the two sections where allowed.
The key skills differ. Extract analysis focuses on the specific words on the page, while the essay requires knowledge of the work across a larger range.
A successful revision plan prepares both, not just a memorised essay about the main characters.
2027 set texts: check the official list
For the 2027 examination, Cambridge’s published set-text list includes works such as A Man of the People by Chinua Achebe, The Little Foxes by Lillian Hellman, In the Sea There Are Crocodiles by Fabio Geda, and The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov, as well as specified selections from Songs of Ourselves and Stories of Ourselves.
These are examples of the official options, not instructions to study all of them. The school will decide which prescribed text or texts it teaches. Students should use that choice consistently when preparing Paper 3.
The list also identifies particular poems and short stories in the anthologies. A student cannot simply revise every poem with a similar theme and assume it will match the prescribed selection.
The exact title, text and sometimes edition matter. Read the 2025–2027 syllabus for the full 2027 list rather than relying on an older online reading guide.
Set texts rotate, so the 2026 and 2027 lists are not automatically identical.
Extract-based questions: start with the printed passage
Section A of Paper 3 requires close response to the extract printed on the question paper. The student should consider what happens at that moment, what earlier circumstances may matter and how the writer uses language or structure within the passage.
A candidate who has memorised a full-book essay may be tempted to write about the entire plot while ignoring the actual extract. That loses the opportunity to analyse the words supplied.
A useful method is to identify the immediate situation, select two or three significant choices and explain how each connects to a larger theme or character relationship.
Refer to the printed text accurately. A short embedded quotation or precise reference is often better than a long copied sentence followed by no explanation.
The extract belongs to a whole work, but it must be read on its own terms first. Context should illuminate the passage rather than replace it.
Practise with different extracts so students can respond even when the selected passage is not their favourite scene.
Set-text essays: know the whole work
Section B requires a more general response to the set text, perhaps about a character, relationship, theme or significant feature across the work.
A good response selects evidence from relevant points rather than retelling the plot from beginning to end. If asked how a writer presents a changing relationship, the student might use moments from the opening, middle and later sections to explain development.
The important skill is selection. A correct event may be irrelevant to the question, while a small moment may provide strong evidence about the issue asked.
A planning grid with claim, textual reference, writer’s method and significance can prevent plot summary from crowding out analysis.
Students should practise several essay titles, not only one. Changing the question from “how” to “to what extent” may require a different argument and conclusion.
The purpose is independent command of the work rather than memorised reproduction of one model answer.
Prose: narration, character and point of view
In prose, students should consider who tells the story and what that perspective allows or hides. A narrator may report events with confidence, uncertainty or partial understanding.
Character relationships can develop gradually through dialogue, actions and omissions. An apparently small choice may acquire significance later in the story.
A strong analysis asks how the reader’s access to information affects interpretation. If the narration is limited to one character’s perspective, other characters’ motives may remain ambiguous.
Do not assume that the narrator’s view is automatically the author’s moral conclusion. The distinction can matter when analysing irony, sympathy and conflict.
Use precise textual evidence instead of saying a character is “good” or “bad” based on one event. Literature often creates complexity through mixed motives and changing circumstances.
These habits support the set-text paper and the critical-essay skill learned through coursework.
Drama: dialogue, action and performance
Drama is written to be performed. Its meaning can emerge through what characters say, what they avoid saying, their interactions and the dramatic situation on stage.
A student studying a play should read stage directions, patterns in dialogue and the consequences of interruptions or silences. A short exchange can reveal a power relationship more effectively than a long monologue.
A useful method is to read one scene aloud in different plausible ways and discuss which interpretation the text supports. This is a study exercise, not a licence to invent facts unrelated to the play.
Consider how the audience may know more than a character or how an entrance changes the tension. The structure of a scene matters because it shapes what viewers can anticipate.
Avoid treating every play as if it were a novel without performance. Questions about dramatic effect may require attention to staging, pacing or audience awareness.
This is also why the drama coursework requirement deserves specific preparation.
Literature in translation: meaning across cultures
World Literature includes works originally written in English and works available in English translation. Students may encounter historical or cultural contexts different from their own.
The objective is not to memorise stereotypes about a country. It is to read carefully and recognise how circumstances, values, relationships or language choices shape a particular literary work.
Translations can also involve choices of phrasing. A student should respond to the version specified or supplied by the course, while being aware that an English translation is a mediated form of the original.
Avoid assuming a writer represents all people from the same country. Literature presents particular experiences and imaginative worlds, not complete demographic summaries.
Context can help illuminate a text, but the examination requires close engagement with the words and literary form. A long biography about an author cannot replace analysis of a scene or poem.
The strongest students approach unfamiliar cultures with curiosity, accuracy and respect.
How to use quotations without losing the argument
Quotation is a tool for supporting interpretation. It should be chosen because it demonstrates a point, not simply because the student remembers it.
For a practice paragraph, begin with a claim about a character or theme. Find a short phrase that helps prove it. Then explain what the particular words suggest and how they fit the surrounding scene.
A weak response writes a quotation and states that it “shows the theme”. A stronger one explains the connection between wording, situation and interpretation.
Long copied extracts are rarely necessary. Paraphrasing an event accurately can sometimes support context, while a brief quotation can focus the analysis on language.
Students must never invent quotations because they sound plausible. If exact wording is uncertain, use an accurate reference to the event rather than put fabricated words in quotation marks.
This is a useful habit for coursework, unseen poetry and set-text answers alike.
Personal response is not an unsupported opinion
Cambridge’s AO4 encourages an informed personal response. That does not mean every reaction is equally persuasive without evidence.
A reader may find a character admirable but also flawed. A nuanced answer explains the choices and language that produce those mixed feelings. Another reader may emphasise a different aspect, also supported by the work.
A weak sentence says “I like this poem because it is beautiful.” A stronger response explains which imagery, development or contrast makes the experience meaningful.
Personal response should emerge naturally from analysis rather than appear as a final sentence added to every paragraph. The best literary arguments can be sensitive, critical and genuinely individual while remaining grounded in the text.
Students should practise explaining why they interpret a moment as they do and what alternative interpretation might be reasonable.
This is not a popularity contest; it is literary judgement.
The danger of model-essay memorisation
Model essays can show how an argument is organised and what strong analysis looks like. But memorising one complete essay is fragile when the examination asks a different question or chooses a different extract.
A learner may write beautifully about a theme but fail to address a question focusing on a particular relationship or structural choice. The problem is not necessarily weak English; it is poor adaptation.
Instead, build flexible evidence cards for significant scenes and concepts. Each card should include what happens, the relevant expression, its possible effect and more than one question it could support.
Practise changing the task while keeping the same text. How would a response differ if the question asks why a character acts, how the writer presents them, or how far they change?
The objective is transferable interpretation, not reproduction of the last memorised answer.
Common mistakes and their specific repairs
- Wrong syllabus year: using the 2028 component weightings for 2027. Repair by checking 0408 and the actual examination date.
- Coursework-text mismatch: selecting a current set text for an assignment. Repair through centre approval and the official list.
- Plot summary instead of analysis: retelling events without explaining effects. Repair with claim–evidence–method–meaning paragraphs.
- Technique hunting: naming devices without linking them to context. Repair through word-level explanation.
- Overconfident inference: inventing character motives or a poet’s biography. Repair by locating supporting language.
- Unfocused empathic writing: using the student’s voice instead of the character’s situation. Repair with a character knowledge map.
- Repeated unseen-poetry answers: using the same argument for both questions. Repair by planning separate foci.
- Coursework authenticity risk: relying on others to rewrite assessed work. Repair through independent student drafting under centre rules.
Specific diagnosis helps more than another unreviewed essay.
Repair, stabilise and extend
A learner needing repair should practise understanding events, selecting textual evidence and explaining one language choice at a time. Short passages make misconceptions visible.
A learner needing stabilisation may know the story but struggle with unexpected questions. Use unseen extracts, varied essay titles and delayed retrieval without a teacher’s notes.
A learner ready for extension can compare interpretations, discuss nuanced structural effects and evaluate the significance of small details across a whole work.
A student can be strong at prose essays and weak at unseen poetry, or thoughtful in class discussion but uncertain in coursework planning. Treat those as distinct learning targets rather than assume one overall literature grade describes every skill.
Effective support develops independent choices: which evidence matters, which interpretation is defensible and how to communicate it clearly.
The goal is not to replace the student’s own response with the tutor’s preferred reading.
A four-session weekly literature routine
Session one — close reading: choose a short unfamiliar passage and identify its main meaning, a supported inference and one writer’s method.
Session two — set text: study one important scene or poem and develop a short answer to a new title, using textual evidence rather than plot summary.
Session three — unseen poetry: read an unfamiliar poem, make a concise plan and answer two different questions about it. Check whether each answer has a distinct focus.
Session four — reflection and correction: revisit an earlier analytical error and practise a revised interpretation. For coursework candidates, follow the centre’s authentication rules and use only permitted forms of support.
The schedule should be manageable. Reading a little regularly and revisiting significant moments can be more valuable than an exhausting final week of model essays.
Full timed papers belong later in preparation, after basic close-reading habits have become reliable.
A twelve-week preparation roadmap
Weeks 1–2: confirm the 0408 exam year, approved coursework texts and set-text options. Diagnose prose, poetry, drama and essay skills.
Weeks 3–5: strengthen evidence selection, word-level analysis, structure and character development. Practise unfamiliar extracts and disciplined short responses.
Weeks 6–8: deepen set-text knowledge and prepare independent coursework within the school’s real assessment schedule. Add weekly unseen-poetry work.
Weeks 9–10: complete current-format Paper 2 and Paper 3 timed tasks, paying attention to the equal-mark questions and question choices.
Weeks 11–12: consolidate recurring errors and check the examination year, set text and administrative details one final time.
This is a revision framework, not the formal coursework calendar or a guarantee of a particular grade. Coursework deadlines may occur much earlier, and the school’s instructions control.
The goal is steady analytical development, not last-minute copying of finished coursework.
Frequently asked questions
How many components does Cambridge World Literature 0408 have? Three for 2025–2027: Coursework, Unseen Poetry and Set Texts.
Is coursework worth half the grade? No. For 2025–2027 it contributes 38.5%; Unseen Poetry contributes 23% and Set Texts 38.5%.
What is the coursework requirement? One 800–1200-word critical essay and one 600–1000-word empathic response, using different appropriate prose and drama texts from different cultures.
Can coursework use short stories? A critical essay can use a suitable selection covering at least two stories, but an empathic response must be based on a novel or play, not short stories.
What does Paper 2 ask? Two compulsory 15-mark questions about one unseen poem or extract, in 1 hour 15 minutes.
What does Paper 3 ask? One extract-based and one essay question about set text material, 25 marks each, in 1 hour 30 minutes.
Can I take in annotated set books? Follow the current paper and centre instructions. Do not assume any private notes or annotated edition can be used merely because it was useful in lessons.
Will the 2028 papers look the same? No. Cambridge has announced substantial changes in titles, questions, duration, set-text emphasis and component weightings.
Official resources and companion student guides
The primary authority is Cambridge IGCSE World Literature 0408 and its 2025–2027 syllabus. Read the complete 2027 set-text list, the coursework instructions and Cambridge’s specimen questions before choosing your practice programme.
If the candidate will examine in 2028, use the new 2028–2030 syllabus, not this article’s earlier 38.5/23/38.5 structure. Some literary methods transfer, but assessment arrangements do not.
For related learning, explore How IGCSE Literature in English Works, How IGCSE First Language English Works and How IGCSE History Works. Each has its own syllabus; use transferable reading and reasoning habits rather than copy its papers.
Final student checklist
- I have confirmed Cambridge World Literature 0408 and the correct examination year.
- I know the three 2025–2027 component weights and paper timings.
- My coursework text choices are approved, distinct and culturally appropriate under the rules.
- I know the critical and empathic response word ranges.
- I can identify a character’s circumstances and write a plausible voice without inventing later knowledge.
- I can interpret an unseen poem and answer two distinct questions on it.
- I can prepare one extract-based and one whole-text essay answer.
- I can explain the effects of language, structure and form using precise references.
- I can write an informed personal response without relying on unsupported opinion.
- I protect the authenticity of coursework and check Cambridge’s current set-text list.
IGCSE World Literature works when students can connect textual knowledge, careful interpretation, writer’s methods and a genuinely informed response. Its purpose is not just passing a literature examination but learning to read complex human experiences with accuracy and curiosity.
Official source: Cambridge IGCSE World Literature (0408). This eduKateSG guide is independent educational commentary, not a Cambridge publication.
More IGCSE Student Guides — This Batch
Explore the other Cambridge IGCSE guides in this eduKateSG batch. Always confirm each syllabus code and examination year before using its paper-specific advice.