Pupils will go back to sitting A-level exams at the end of two years of study under new plans to stop the 'dumbing down' of qualifications.
In a major overhaul of the system, AS-levels will be separated from A-levels and become a separate qualification.
Students taking A-levels will no longer sit exams after one year, and will instead be tested at the end of their two-year course.
The proposals were first laid out in a letter from Education Secretary Michael Gove to the exams regulator Ofqual.
Mr Gove said he had concluded there is a "compelling" case for a move back to A-levels with final exams.
But shadow education secretary Stephen Twigg said Mr Gove was "turning the clock back" and the plan would narrow young people's options.
And Brian Lightman, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), said he was "not convinced" AS-levels should be a separate qualification.
In his letter, Mr Gove said the AS-level should be kept but reconfigured so that it can exist as a "high quality standalone qualification".
It should be as "intellectually demanding" as an A-level and cover half the content of a full A-level, he wrote.
Students will be able to take an AS over one or two years under the plans.
The move will address concerns about pupils sitting exams in modules and re-sits leading to grade inflation.
Michael Gove wants to end the resit culture Mr Gove has already written to the exams watchdog Ofqual to say the Russell Group of top universities has agreed to oversee the content of the new A-levels.
He told the education select committee on Wednesday: "I was worried that there was too much assessment and too little learning.
"It seemed to me that one of the most effective ways we could encourage the sort of deep thinking that we want to have in people, not just who are going on to university but who are going to be entering an increasingly testing and sophisticated world of work, was to move towards a linear A-level.
"But there are certain gains, of course, in the flexibility which the AS-level has given so we didn't want to completely abolish that. We thought the best way forward was a standalone qualification."
He said the future was "open to debate", including the possibility of pupils taking AS-levels in "balancing subjects" such as English and Maths alongside A-levels.
But having relieved teachers of one burden, he said, it was important not to replace it with another - promising to proceed "on the basis of as much consensus as possible".
The new A-levels will be taught from September 2015, a year later than the original timetable of September 2014.
Mr Twigg said: "Yet again Michael Gove is all about turning the clock back. This plan would narrow the options for young people."
He said there is a need for more "high quality options" available at age 16, including all young people studying Maths and English until they are 18.
Mr Lightman said that preparation for university was "only one part of the purpose of A-levels" and the qualification had "far more purposes than that".
Under the current system, sixth-formers often sit four or five AS-levels, taking exams after one year, before deciding which to drop and which to continue on to A-level.
The new proposals effectively move the system back to where it was before Curriculum 2000 when Labour introduced AS-levels and a two-stage approach.
Christine Blower, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: "2015 looks set to be the year when everything changes in schools and for young people with both GCSEs and A-levels being replaced or altered.
"This is an unmanageable level of change which could lead to a collapse of the system."
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