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How can I improve my English GCSEs?

Hi, I got a 5 in English language and a 2 in literature. I have no clue on how to improve my grades and I really want to get a 7-8 in language and a 6 in literature by mid October. I am willing to do large amounts of revision if needed. Does anyone have any advice or tips with how I should write and how to revise quotes?

Reply 1

strugggles

For me in English, the thing that was holding me back (specifically in Literature) was lack of quotes. I had to work much harder on this than other areas.

The way I remembered quotes was by making a mind map with as many as I could find online. My branches were mainly character based but also themed.
Once I'd made the mind map I would then try and write out as many quotes as I could remember off of it going through the branches in my head :smile:

this really helped me to learn them.

You could also use Mr.Bruff's quote songs online - despite not being on the billboard hot 100 - they are very useful for key quote memorisation.

For non-fiction creative writing I used DAFOREST to remember what to include :smile:

D- Direct Address
A- Alliteration
F- Fact
O- Opinion
R- Rhetorical Questions
E- Emotive Language
S- Statistics
T- Triples (Rule of 3)

I just wrote out this checklist at the beginning of the question and as I answered, made sure I included everything.

For fictional creative writing you can use:
METAPHORS

M- Metaphor (haha)
E- Emotive Language
T- Triplet (Rule of three)
A- Alliteration
P- Personification, punctuation
H- Hyperbole
O- Onomatopoeia, oxymoron
R- Repetition
S- Simile

In terms of punctuation I also do a checklist as you get marks for a variety -

Comma ,
Full stop .
Question mark ?
Exclamation mark !
Dash -
Brackets ()
Semi-colon ;
Colon :
Speech marks "" (use this in stories rather than descriptions)

I hope these tips gave you some more ideas/helped you :smile:

Good luck with your exams! ☆彡