English gcse help

I don't know how to improve my grades as im constantly floating around 5,6,7 in my english exams ... most recently 6 and 7 in lit and lang, idk what to do; i'd consider myself fairly literate, despite that i don't read a lot but im not sure what the code is to get a 9

For my english GCSE (edexcel i think) i had some poetry and the passages. for the poetry i just did loads of practise to get my head around what kind of things get the marks: specific words and phrases. for the passages i found markschemes on the main themes and just learnt the points! Then i practised putting the points into coherent structures. Hope this helps!

i do aqa so im not sure what you mean by the passages , (sorry i forgot to specify the exam board) also what practice exactly did you do?