GCSE English literature and language

Hi. I’m in year 11 and I’m currently getting 4-6 in both my English gcses. I’m hoping for a grade 8/9 in the real thing. Please could someone suggest how to get on my way to achieving these grades. And any tips for the exam. I do edexcel but I’m sure the tips will be similar between exam boards so any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks a lot.

Practice papers are the main tips, especially for English language. You need to learn the structure of every question and what the examiner wants you to do.

For English literature, make sure you make resources on each play and novella. Start now rather than leaving it till January; it will make you feel more prepared.

You can find all the past papers on the edexcels website

Hi,

My school had a very good structure for writing paragraphs in English Literature. It’s lengthy but writing 2-3 of these will help you get a 9 - like I did in my English Literature GCSE in 2018. This covers the whole markscheme and can be shortened down to the acronym BET CAR WEB.

Big Idea
Explained Evidence
Technique

Close Analysis
Alternative Explanation
Reader’s Response

Writer’s Intentions
Environmental Factors
Be Evaluative

I’m not sure if this will make sense to you as we were trained to write this way since the beginning of Year 10, but I used this structure, did very little revision of quotes and managed to get a 9 so hopefully this helps.

If you need anymore clarification or sentence starters for each point feel free to ask.

learn how to write sophisticated essays - make sure to get marks for structuring even if your points aren't as good! plan points about each character/theme, and explore subtle ideas in the texts.

one of my friends got a 3 in her english lit mock, but a 9 in the real thing - don't give up hope!

Thanks for the tag, @BrandonS15!
I sat my GCSEs last year. I scored 95%+ for both English language and English literature. Your GCSE journey does not have to feel like a torturous experience. It just requires a reasonable amount of practice and dedication. I also sat the Edexcel papers, so I'm pretty comfortable with them (admittedly, it has been a while since I saw them).

My answers from the exams are actually on this site!

Here are my tips that I think will help you succeed!

1. Know your enemy. Learn the assessment objectives and paper configurations off by heart. This is a major part of the battle, and sometimes quite overlooked (especially the former). Even now, if someone asked me to tell them the GCSE English language and English literature AOs, I would recall them concisely and correctly. That's the standard of a top-quality student in most subjects really. They know not just how to learn the syllabus content, but also how to navigate the syllabus itself.

2. Realise the importance of quotes. And I don't mean just chucking them in there. I mean knowing how to use them as well. This is why I mostly use the quotes that I remembered in my exam. They were the ones that I remembered because I was really fond of them. Why? I felt that they said a lot about the character, setting or plot. They really revealed a lot.

3. Practice makes perfect. Look at your weak areas. Do you struggle to analyse form, or maybe struggle to properly integrate context? Can you evaluate an excerpt well? Well, now's your time to find out and ameliorate those struggles. You should still revise what you are good at, but much less than the departments in which you are losing marks.

4. Read the examiner reports. These aren't always good, but they can show you where students performed poorly and where they succeeded. You can not only see the common errors and misconceptions, but you can see what examiners like to see from students, which may also reveal what they don't like and what you should be including/are missing in your essays.

5. Appreciate the subject, even if you don't want to. Respecting the knowledge that you are gaining from any particular class can help a lot when it comes to revision. You have a desire to learn more. You want to go further! It builds a passion that makes work a lot less stressful for you. Don't ask yourself, 'When will I ever need this in life?' Just don't, and if you are, STOP! If you really want to succeed, you better give your subjects the treatment they deserve. I had to do this with subjects that I wasn't particularly fond of, and I would have definitely been worse off if I didn't take this approach

Hiya I got an 8 and a 7, so not a 9 but my biggest tips would be:

English Language

Quality over quantity, I used to write about 3 pages of waffle and got 6s nearly every time. I started just condensing what I was writing and I never wrote more than the equivalent to an A4 page and started getting 30-36/40. Literally that happened overnight. I would also strongly suggest responding to the questions in 1, 2, 4,3 ,5. As I remember that question 4 asked us to look at both texts and it made no sense to go from both texts (that we were already looking at) to one and then to both again, you would lose your train of thought. Also, prioritise section A, Section B I answered in the actual exam in 25 minutes and the only reason I didn't get a 9 is because my script for paper 1 (my strongest paper) was lost and so they had to match what I scored on paper 2.

English Literature

Read your texts, I was let down because I didn't have proper knowledge and look at context. There are some really good resources such as Mr Salles, Mr Bruff (to an extent), LitCharts and also some good contextual information that you can research. Like knowing London by William Blake came from the 'Songs of Experience' poetry anthology shaped a lot of my argument and I spoke about that.

Hi,

My school had a very good structure for writing paragraphs in English Literature. It’s lengthy but writing 2-3 of these will help you get a 9 - like I did in my English Literature GCSE in 2018. This covers the whole markscheme and can be shortened down to the acronym BET CAR WEB.

Big Idea
Explained Evidence
Technique

Close Analysis
Alternative Explanation
Reader’s Response

Writer’s Intentions
Environmental Factors
Be Evaluative

I’m not sure if this will make sense to you as we were trained to write this way since the beginning of Year 10, but I used this structure, did very little revision of quotes and managed to get a 9 so hopefully this helps.

If you need anymore clarification or sentence starters for each point feel free to ask.