gcse english

Im currently on a 6 in both English lit and lang. what would be the best way to try and push they to at least a 7 by the real thing.
In addition i have a shakesphere mock (edexcel ) next wee. if possible please could you tell me how to do well in this. (even if you did aqa any advice is welcome) thanks a lot.

Hi, I’ve answered questions on English advice a lot so will copy and paste it all below, then feel free to ask any specific questions.


English Lit advice:

(question was about how to revise Macbeth but this advice and the YouTubers I mention also cover other texts and English Language help too):

1. Make sure you’ve fully read through Macbeth and understand the key characters and events/plot. This is common sense but there are some difficult/irrelevant scenes (such as the Ross/Old Man scene and the Macduff/Malcolm scene) so ensure you have at least a vague idea of what’s happening in each scene.

2. Learn quotes for specific characters and themes separately - if a question requires both a theme and character you should already have covered it by doing theme and characters separately. If you haven’t, grade boundaries will be pretty low if it’s that difficult. Try and aim for 6-10 quotes for the main characters and main themes; I recommend Mr Bruff, Mr Salles and Stacey Reay videos to help with higher level quote analysis.

3. Pick the hardest scenes, or the scenes you like the least, then pick the biggest theme/character and invent your own question, and plan a response. If you have a go at devising your own questions and thinking like an examiner it will help you to appreciate the bigger themes and threads in the play.

4. Try and read through the play as many times as you can. Try and read even just a chapter a night - if you can try and absorb as much as possible, hopefully you’ll subconsciously memorise more quotes than you think.

Poetry advice:

So for poems, I made a condensed page of notes (just a single A4 side) on every poem. I’d put top level analysis (Mr Bruff is good for structure analysis and Stacey Reay is good for language analysis), plus contextual points. I’d try and analyse at least 5-6 quotes for each poem minimum, and I’d also make a note of bigger themes and symbolism so it was easier to see links between poems. Then I just kept reading through the notes a few times, and did lots of practice essays to think about which poems compare well.

General essay advice:

1. Be concise! In both Englishes and in History, quality is more important than quantity! For longer essays it’s vital to plan for a few minutes and have a clear, logical structure. For English Lit I used to do three points (in each point there’d be quotes from an extract than a link to elsewhere, or references to two contrasting characters) and usually two would be language points and one may be a more structure based point (especially for poetry essays). For History, I usually did three clear points that were different and used statistics and specific evidence/references to back them up.

2. As I’ve just touched on - use evidence! For English Lit this is quotes, for History dates, names, quotes or references to specific events. You can’t get a grade 7-9 without using lots of evidence in your answers as this shows factual knowledge and is also helpful in focussing your answers.

3. It’s good practice to have an introduction and conclusion, with the introduction outlining your main point/argument or eg to what extent you agree with the question. For English Lit essays introductions should be a small paragraph (3-4 lines) and include context; History introductions just need to be 1-2 sentences for the longer essays. Both English and History require more detailed conclusions though - ideally a good 5-6 lines.

4. A bit of advice for English Language now - for the reading questions, the YouTubers in my first response are great and cover everything you need. For the writing tasks, here are a few more tips:

- Make sure you know the different forms eg article, leaflet, letter and the features of those to get structure marks
- Look back over past writing tasks and make a list of words you use often. Then google synonyms for them and create a word bank to learn, so eg instead of saying ‘blue’ you say ‘azure.’ This can improve the overall quality of your writing.
- The main thing, is just to do as many practice tasks as you can, go through them with your teacher and learn from feedback to keep improving. Practice does make perfect and is so vital. In my real Paper 1 exam, I was freaking out and had no clue what to do for the creative writing, but because I’d done so many practices I remodelled what I’d written in my mocks and it worked out fine. So be prepared for anything and practice a wide variety of photo prompts - don’t try and look for patterns lol because they’ll then throw you a curveball like they did for my year!

thanks i appreciate it. what grade did you get and did you use any paragraph structures such as PEE or any others ?

I got a Grade 9. For English Lit essays, my structure was generally intro, point, quite, analysis, links to wider themes/author, context, then repeat that for elsewhere in the novel or the second poem. Then I’d have three big paragraphs like that in total (so each paragraph would have something from both the extract and elsewhere, or from both poems), and a conclusion to finish.

I got a Grade 9. For English Lit essays, my structure was generally intro, point, quite, analysis, links to wider themes/author, context, then repeat that for elsewhere in the novel or the second poem. Then I’d have three big paragraphs like that in total (so each paragraph would have something from both the extract and elsewhere, or from both poems), and a conclusion to finish.

what does "quite" mean?

Sorry, typo - I meant quote!