GCSE English (9-1) - Q & A

Dear Friends,
I'm not pretending to be an English Expert through this thread, but it is one of my strong subjects, I've been achieving high grades
(i.e '7s' & '8s' ) and I'm currently revising Lang + Lit for my upcoming mocks.

My intentions for this forum are to assist fellow students and gain support myself, as there is a difference from a teacher advising and a student offering aid since we have the edge of relatable experience including common pitfalls, hacks & the best resources.

I'm studying for the AQA exams and I welcome students from other boards to come and say hello and put themselves forward as 'Board Representatives', a list of handy names which will be displayed/updated at the end of this OP. On this note, wherever you feel my answers are inadequate/misinforming please do pitch in

Let's do LIT in Lit!

Board Representatives:
@adamantacademic - AQA

Anyone doing A Christmas Carol? It actually makes me want to tear my eyes out and I just don't know what to write about ughhh

(along with AQA power and conflict, Macbeth and An Inspector Calls)

Hiya! This is a really great idea!

I took my English Lit/Lang GCSEs last year and got 9s in both so am also happy to help!

Last year, my exam board was AQA too and the texts I studied were:
Poetry Anthology: War and Conflict
Book: Jekyll and Hyde
Drama: Macbeth and Blood Brothers

If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask away! I am currently taking English Lit A-Level so if any of you are intending to take it for next year I am happy to give you my unbiased view on it so far. Some teachers have a tendency to glamourise the subjects so you'll take them, whereas I think I can give a fairly honest opinion on it all so far.

is this year 10 or year 11

Hi! so cool well done on getting 9s! I just wanted to ask is the jump from GCSE English lit to ALevel english lit big? If so what are the differences? Also what texts are you studying and how do you find them? lol Sorry for bombarding you with questions I'm just a bit curious. I'm considering picking English lit as an ALevel too- It's one of my favourite subjects! Thanks!!

ACC seems to be very unpopular this year in terms of schools teaching it, nevertheless I hope a fellow reader popes by.

In the mean time you might want to review Mr. Bruff's series on it for revision and possibly buy the E-Book:
Series
Book

Hiya! Thank you so much and glad to help!

The texts I'm doing this year are:
Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams (really interesting play, fascinating characters, well-written)
Duchess of Malfi by John Webster (not started yet)
Poetry Collections: The Whitsun Weddings by Philip Larkin (lots of really good poems but also a few not so fun ones; Larkin is a bit of a weirdo so context is fascinating)
Mean Time by Carol Ann Duffy (i'm not personally a fan of Duffy's but her style is interesting and the poems cover some really interesting topics!)

In Year 13 I will be doing:
Hamlet or King Lear (depends on which teacher I have)
Paradise Lost Book IX

We also have a section of coursework where we choose one Pre-2000 novel and one Post-2000 novel and write a comparative essay- the books you choose are entirely up to you so long as the Exam Board approves of your choices!

I'm not too far into the course at the moment but I would definitely say there is a bit of a jump in terms of what you're expected to do in the exam and the complexity of the actual texts you have to analyse. In the exam you basically need to do everything you did in GCSE but with slightly more advanced analysis- you also need to cite quotes from critical essays in your response and debate meaning with those.

The one plus is that for the poetry exams, you get a blank copy of the anthologies in the exam so you don't need to memorise poetry quotes!

The workload currently is quite big but manageable- you need to be organised and able to stay on track but if you can, you'll be fine. You also need to be really self-motivated to do your notes properly out of lessons because it is easy to get behind and hard to get back on track.

The one thing I will say is that it's really nice to do English Lit A-Level if you enjoy English Lit because you will be surrounded by people who also love it. Like you, English Lit is my favourite subject and although I liked it at GCSE, the one downside was that the other people there weren't huge on it. At A-Level, because of the difficulty and workload, only people who really love it will take it forward. As a result, the lessons are really relaxed and so much nicer because everyone actually takes an interest in it.

Overall, I'd say English Lit A-Level has pluses and minuses like any other subject. The workload is quite big, the texts are a little harder to analyse and I will admit to feeling a bit sleepy when we have to analyse a few of the less action-packed poems BUT it is a subject that will open doors for you in the future and, if you love reading and/or English Lit in general, I think it's a subject you'll do well in and even enjoy.

Hope that helps!

does anyone know where to get the new gcse biology AQA specimen paper 2 set 2 ?

Should be on the AQA website

the set 2 ones ??

those will likely be for your mocks.