How to improve in English Lit and Lang

It's difficult to say what your next steps should be without knowing exactly what you're doing in your tests, but I'd recommend reading mark schemes so you know what the examiner is looking for, learning answer structures so you're not writing too much or too little, and using the PEEZEL structure for literature (you may have learnt PEE lower down the school) in each paragraph of your essay when analysing a text.

P - state your Point, make a definitive statement regarding the text. ("I think appearance versus reality is a strong theme in Macbeth"

E - give Evidence for your point, most likely a quote or a plot point. ("This can be inferred from when Lady Macbeth says 'look like the innocent flower but be the serpent under it'"

E - Explain why the quote or plot point is relevant to your original point. ("This displays that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth aren't as trustworthy as they appear because..."

Z - Zoom in on a particular part of the quote. ("The word 'serpent' is used because it has connotations of..."

E - Explain (again) why this zoomed in feature is relevant to your original point. ("This is important to the theme of appearance vs reality because..."

L - Link your point and analysis back to the original essay title. You will lose marks if you don't do this. ("Therefore, I think the theme of appearance vs reality is much more important than the theme of nature, because the quote suggests..."

I hope this helps and I wish you the best of luck on your upcoming exams. Sorry for the long post but I think it really helped me in my exams (I got an 8 in lit and 9 in lang after scoring 5s and 6s in class) and I'm not sure it's taught in schools.
~ Libby, year 12