GCSE English

I am going into year 11 but I don't really have a clue on how to revise for English properly because of the mark schemes aren't really helpful and in school, they never tell us how to revise for it.

depends on what exam board you're doing

What exam board are you doing and what books and poems ?

Hi, I revised English by reading all of the texts/poems and annotating them, reading through revision guides and websites about the meanings of quotes, making mind maps for themes and quotations, and for poems, making flashcards including the poems they link to, key themes, and the key quotes that you can apply to multiple themes.
I highly recommend Mr Bruff, if you haven’t heard of him already, and make notes from his videos.

Exam technique is also a big one - make sure you have structured your answers well, maybe introductions and conclusions but make them only a line or two, and don’t spend too much time on them. In my exams, I would leave a few lines for my introduction, write out my answer and then go back to the introduction so that everything links together. However, make sure you know your timings well, especially paper 2, and how long to spend on each question and each of the assessment objectives.

Language is also important , instead of using “this shows” or “this makes the reader want to read on”, use words like conveys, exemplifies, highlights, portrays, connotes etc.
But, make sure that you use them appropriately and so that your answers still make sense.

Honestly, I didn’t start revising early, when I really should have, because I was stuck making revision materials in May. It’s good that you’re starting now, but don’t overwork yourself.

I did AQA and studied Macbeth, A Christmas Carol and An Inspector Calls, as well as the power and conflict poem cluster and achieved a 9 in both language and literature. If you have any further questions, feel free to pm me

Just practice. Watch teachers on YouTube who teach you how to approach a question. You can also find some model answers on those channels to get an idea of the standard your answer needs to be. Marking GCSE English Language solely depends on the person who is marking it - there is not really a mark scheme as I found out this year.