How to get 8/9s in English?
I'm achieving 7s at the moment (school assessments) and would really like to attain 8s and 9s. I know it isn't the end of the world to get a 7 (it's actually quite good) but my target is an 8 and I would like to try and meet it.
Currently I am in Year 9 but I am planning to make notes over the summer holidays so I am prepared for Year 10.
Any advice or help would be appreciated, thank you.
Currently I am in Year 9 but I am planning to make notes over the summer holidays so I am prepared for Year 10.
Any advice or help would be appreciated, thank you.
Original post by IDK321
I'm achieving 7s at the moment (school assessments) and would really like to attain 8s and 9s. I know it isn't the end of the world to get a 7 (it's actually quite good) but my target is an 8 and I would like to try and meet it.
Currently I am in Year 9 but I am planning to make notes over the summer holidays so I am prepared for Year 10.
Any advice or help would be appreciated, thank you.
Currently I am in Year 9 but I am planning to make notes over the summer holidays so I am prepared for Year 10.
Any advice or help would be appreciated, thank you.
For language I’d say a lot of practice while using mark schemes to know what they want for top marks. Reading other people’s work also helps get new analytic ideas.
For literature, practice also, but learn your books and poems, it’s critical you know them back to front.
(edited 5 years ago)
For literature DON'T RELY ON YOUR TEACHER.
Make sure you're able to come up with a few of your own original ideas and analysis. You want to be able to impress the examiner but teachers will usually give you the same points that they've already given to many other classes. Adding your own original ideas will make your essay stand out
Make sure you're able to come up with a few of your own original ideas and analysis. You want to be able to impress the examiner but teachers will usually give you the same points that they've already given to many other classes. Adding your own original ideas will make your essay stand out
1. Watch Mr Bruff on YouTube and download his book if you can afford it (£5 ish).
2. Learn the technical devices and what they mean in a piece and why they are used by the author.
3. Learn the sentence structures and what they mean in a apiece and why they are used.
4. Mind map each of the two papers, the types of questions and what to look for in each.
5 Do past papers.
6. Read across the different centuries of authors, photocopy the first page from novels then analyse them as you would in the exams.
7 Read different types of newspapers, and see how they are worded, their layout and the flow of the piece
8. Just write anything that gives you extra practice. Do a journal about your day etc.
9. Learn to edit your work fast - I found even with extra time last year I didn't have long to do that.
10. You'll have to do a presentation, so think about what subject you would do, and do some more research, learn technical lingo etc.
11. Learn what you need to do for each grade - it's like a pyramid - you have to achieve the bottom criteria to move up a grade, so make sure you get the basics right and build on it. (ie to get the basic grade you have to write in paragraphs while higher you have to use discourse markers etc)
12. Look for the inferred meaning - the under story that isn't actually said but is inferred ( ie the black cat with a dark man infers to a witches familiar and so the guy being a warlock).
Just enjoy writing!
I got an 8 with merit doing the above, and was only 6 short of a 9.
2. Learn the technical devices and what they mean in a piece and why they are used by the author.
3. Learn the sentence structures and what they mean in a apiece and why they are used.
4. Mind map each of the two papers, the types of questions and what to look for in each.
5 Do past papers.
6. Read across the different centuries of authors, photocopy the first page from novels then analyse them as you would in the exams.
7 Read different types of newspapers, and see how they are worded, their layout and the flow of the piece
8. Just write anything that gives you extra practice. Do a journal about your day etc.
9. Learn to edit your work fast - I found even with extra time last year I didn't have long to do that.
10. You'll have to do a presentation, so think about what subject you would do, and do some more research, learn technical lingo etc.
11. Learn what you need to do for each grade - it's like a pyramid - you have to achieve the bottom criteria to move up a grade, so make sure you get the basics right and build on it. (ie to get the basic grade you have to write in paragraphs while higher you have to use discourse markers etc)
12. Look for the inferred meaning - the under story that isn't actually said but is inferred ( ie the black cat with a dark man infers to a witches familiar and so the guy being a warlock).
Just enjoy writing!
I got an 8 with merit doing the above, and was only 6 short of a 9.
(edited 5 years ago)
Thank you for the advice. 😊
I've just done my GCSEs and in my mocks, I was getting 8s in English Lit & Lang, I'm hoping for the same when I get my results in August.
For Lit: just remember short quotes for whatever text you're studying & practise timing of your writing as its very important. I also made a list of useful words to use, for example, I studied A Christmas Carol so I researched high-vocab words which would spice up my writing and memorised them such as parsimonious and niggardly (to describe Scrooge). Purchasing revision guides for whatever your studying helps as long as you can retain enough info.
For Lang: I barely revised this but if you have a way with words then this should come natural and you should be getting the higher grades. Once again, its good to practise timing as its quite important too. You could memorise high-vocab words and implement them into your writing. Also, you could purchase language workbooks/revision guides, believe me, they help.
Hope this helps you! Good luck in Year 10 & 11!
For Lit: just remember short quotes for whatever text you're studying & practise timing of your writing as its very important. I also made a list of useful words to use, for example, I studied A Christmas Carol so I researched high-vocab words which would spice up my writing and memorised them such as parsimonious and niggardly (to describe Scrooge). Purchasing revision guides for whatever your studying helps as long as you can retain enough info.
For Lang: I barely revised this but if you have a way with words then this should come natural and you should be getting the higher grades. Once again, its good to practise timing as its quite important too. You could memorise high-vocab words and implement them into your writing. Also, you could purchase language workbooks/revision guides, believe me, they help.
Hope this helps you! Good luck in Year 10 & 11!
Answer is simple mate, your ideas don't need to be good you just need to back them up. Constantly back stuff up and you will do fine, it's what I do and I get 8's
Hiya, I got 8's in GCSE lit and lang last year despite not having any aptitude for english. I really didn't like english but dedicated a lot of time to it as I knew it was one of my weaker subjects.
I studied Macbeth, Conflict poetry, AIC and Jekyll & Hyde (I think I was edexcel). For my revision I created both theme and Character mindmaps for each text I studied. I then put my key character and theme quotes with analysis on to the flashcard app Quizlet and kept going over them every so often to consolidate my knowledge - I think I still have some notes if you wish to see them. I also completed extra essays at home around once every fortnight and my teacher marked them for me (I don't think she was to happy about this but it certainly helped me haha). I also used to print off random extracts from Macbeth and try and annotate them in 5 minutes to practice for the extract-type questions as well and to improve my own analytical skills and come up with my own ideas.
If you are aiming high, as well as getting the GCSE revision guides for your texts, I would buy the A-level ones too as they provide a much more detailed analysis. They will cover a lot more than you need, and I don't recommend using them on their own, but I was able to combine some of that analysis with my own ideas and my teachers ideas to provide many layers of meaning and multiple interpretations. I had the York Notes A-level Macbeth revision guide and I truly believe that is what helped me get 75/80 on that paper (paper 1 I believe? I can't really remember) . I didn't do as well on the second paper hence why I got an 8 rather than a 9. But I was proud of myself considering I was getting 6's at the beginning of year 11.
As for language, I basically did many past papers just practicing how to write a short story. I also made a few short story plans in advance that could be applied to many of the prompts. I also revised the basic structure of things such as reports and newspapers for the transactional writing. I honestly think my 8 in language was a fluke. But for language, I'd recommend just lots and lots of practice.
I hope this helps & good luck
I studied Macbeth, Conflict poetry, AIC and Jekyll & Hyde (I think I was edexcel). For my revision I created both theme and Character mindmaps for each text I studied. I then put my key character and theme quotes with analysis on to the flashcard app Quizlet and kept going over them every so often to consolidate my knowledge - I think I still have some notes if you wish to see them. I also completed extra essays at home around once every fortnight and my teacher marked them for me (I don't think she was to happy about this but it certainly helped me haha). I also used to print off random extracts from Macbeth and try and annotate them in 5 minutes to practice for the extract-type questions as well and to improve my own analytical skills and come up with my own ideas.
If you are aiming high, as well as getting the GCSE revision guides for your texts, I would buy the A-level ones too as they provide a much more detailed analysis. They will cover a lot more than you need, and I don't recommend using them on their own, but I was able to combine some of that analysis with my own ideas and my teachers ideas to provide many layers of meaning and multiple interpretations. I had the York Notes A-level Macbeth revision guide and I truly believe that is what helped me get 75/80 on that paper (paper 1 I believe? I can't really remember) . I didn't do as well on the second paper hence why I got an 8 rather than a 9. But I was proud of myself considering I was getting 6's at the beginning of year 11.
As for language, I basically did many past papers just practicing how to write a short story. I also made a few short story plans in advance that could be applied to many of the prompts. I also revised the basic structure of things such as reports and newspapers for the transactional writing. I honestly think my 8 in language was a fluke. But for language, I'd recommend just lots and lots of practice.
I hope this helps & good luck
(edited 5 years ago)
Look for subtle techniques in the text, everyone can spot a simile and a metaphor.Look for things like mirroring, speech (how it is used and why) and, of course, structure. For my exam board (I assume it applies every exam board) it was imperative to look for the change from the start of the text to the end.
Original post by xxNoodlezxx
Hiya, I got 8's in GCSE lit and lang last year despite not having any aptitude for english. I really didn't like english but dedicated a lot of time to it as I knew it was one of my weaker subjects.
I studied Macbeth, Conflict poetry, AIC and Jekyll & Hyde (I think I was edexcel). For my revision I created both theme and Character mindmaps for each text I studied. I then put my key character and theme quotes with analysis on to the flashcard app Quizlet and kept going over them every so often to consolidate my knowledge - I think I still have some notes if you wish to see them. I also completed extra essays at home around once every fortnight and my teacher marked them for me (I don't think she was to happy about this but it certainly helped me haha). I also used to print off random extracts from Macbeth and try and annotate them in 5 minutes to practice for the extract-type questions as well and to improve my own analytical skills and come up with my own ideas.
If you are aiming high, as well as getting the GCSE revision guides for your texts, I would buy the A-level ones too as they provide a much more detailed analysis. They will cover a lot more than you need, and I don't recommend using them on their own, but I was able to combine some of that analysis with my own ideas and my teachers ideas to provide many layers of meaning and multiple interpretations. I had the York Notes A-level Macbeth revision guide and I truly believe that is what helped me get 75/80 on that paper (paper 1 I believe? I can't really remember) . I didn't do as well on the second paper hence why I got an 8 rather than a 9. But I was proud of myself considering I was getting 6's at the beginning of year 11.
As for language, I basically did many past papers just practicing how to write a short story. I also made a few short story plans in advance that could be applied to many of the prompts. I also revised the basic structure of things such as reports and newspapers for the transactional writing. I honestly think my 8 in language was a fluke. But for language, I'd recommend just lots and lots of practice.
I hope this helps & good luck
I studied Macbeth, Conflict poetry, AIC and Jekyll & Hyde (I think I was edexcel). For my revision I created both theme and Character mindmaps for each text I studied. I then put my key character and theme quotes with analysis on to the flashcard app Quizlet and kept going over them every so often to consolidate my knowledge - I think I still have some notes if you wish to see them. I also completed extra essays at home around once every fortnight and my teacher marked them for me (I don't think she was to happy about this but it certainly helped me haha). I also used to print off random extracts from Macbeth and try and annotate them in 5 minutes to practice for the extract-type questions as well and to improve my own analytical skills and come up with my own ideas.
If you are aiming high, as well as getting the GCSE revision guides for your texts, I would buy the A-level ones too as they provide a much more detailed analysis. They will cover a lot more than you need, and I don't recommend using them on their own, but I was able to combine some of that analysis with my own ideas and my teachers ideas to provide many layers of meaning and multiple interpretations. I had the York Notes A-level Macbeth revision guide and I truly believe that is what helped me get 75/80 on that paper (paper 1 I believe? I can't really remember) . I didn't do as well on the second paper hence why I got an 8 rather than a 9. But I was proud of myself considering I was getting 6's at the beginning of year 11.
As for language, I basically did many past papers just practicing how to write a short story. I also made a few short story plans in advance that could be applied to many of the prompts. I also revised the basic structure of things such as reports and newspapers for the transactional writing. I honestly think my 8 in language was a fluke. But for language, I'd recommend just lots and lots of practice.
I hope this helps & good luck
Wandered if i could look at your notes to help me with my revision thanku
To gain good marks on English papers at GCSE you need to know proper exam technique. Are you talking language/lit or both? Either way go to the exam board website and go to past papers and model answers, do a couple of those and look at the mark schemes. You won't know what to write if you don't know what the examiners want to see so that's why I would recommend that. If you do this for lit you will also get some inspiration for topics that might come up in a future exam, even if the question won't quite be the same next time (although you never know with aqa!) you will gain ideas. Can't tell you what grade I got as I just did my exams but I was predicted a 7, although hope I will do better but idk
I just sit my GCSEs so here’s some advice
nglish lit:Personally I had a REALLY great teacher, which made it easy for me to do well in. The best things to do are- Learn around 5-6 quotations for each character/theme- Know a detailed outline of the plot - Know the social and historical context wellIN MY OPINION THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO DO IS...- MAKE ESSAY PLANS. Overall I think I did around 200 essay plans for all the characters and themes and possible questions that could come up. It is really useful to do this because the questions you practice may come up.The day before the exam I decided to do a random question and wrote it, turns out it was the question in the exam which helped me as i practically wrote it word for word.Another important thing to do is get your teacher to mark anything you do.... although my 200 essays may seem like a lot, my teacher marked over half of the good ones, and commented on how to improve. This really helped me. If this isn’t possible because you haven’t got a good teacher, then send them to me and I’ll have a look at them.Finally, please remember that you are only in year 9! From experience, I worked myself up over all these exams since I started school and it’s my biggest regret. I know everyone says it... but really... THEY DO NOT DETERMINE YOUR FUTURE. If you aren’t achieving grade 9s in everything at the moment, DONT PANIC. You’ve got time and if you end up not getting straight 9s, that is also okay. At the beginning of year 11 I was working at 5/6 for everything, and on results day I’m hoping to get 7/8/9 in everything... it is possible to turn it around last minute.Good luck!xxxx
nglish lit:Personally I had a REALLY great teacher, which made it easy for me to do well in. The best things to do are- Learn around 5-6 quotations for each character/theme- Know a detailed outline of the plot - Know the social and historical context wellIN MY OPINION THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO DO IS...- MAKE ESSAY PLANS. Overall I think I did around 200 essay plans for all the characters and themes and possible questions that could come up. It is really useful to do this because the questions you practice may come up.The day before the exam I decided to do a random question and wrote it, turns out it was the question in the exam which helped me as i practically wrote it word for word.Another important thing to do is get your teacher to mark anything you do.... although my 200 essays may seem like a lot, my teacher marked over half of the good ones, and commented on how to improve. This really helped me. If this isn’t possible because you haven’t got a good teacher, then send them to me and I’ll have a look at them.Finally, please remember that you are only in year 9! From experience, I worked myself up over all these exams since I started school and it’s my biggest regret. I know everyone says it... but really... THEY DO NOT DETERMINE YOUR FUTURE. If you aren’t achieving grade 9s in everything at the moment, DONT PANIC. You’ve got time and if you end up not getting straight 9s, that is also okay. At the beginning of year 11 I was working at 5/6 for everything, and on results day I’m hoping to get 7/8/9 in everything... it is possible to turn it around last minute.Good luck!xxxxYou should always link your points for eng lit back to the reader and question ( and author if u can). This will automatically make the examiner think that you know what you are talking about. I found that just including this in my mocks helped my grade go from a 7 to an 8 ( and my teacher marks harshly) cus that is where i was losing marks
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