Hey there - I'm not sure what books you do but hopefully this should be helpful! This was originally advice for Jane Eyre but it should apply to most books. The user above also has really solid advice!!
(I got a 9 as well)
- Make sure you've read the book twice before starting your revision, the first time I just read it, the second time was when we went through it in class so I made annotations. This gave me a really good understanding of the plot, the main themes and structure, as well as some annotations to form a basis for my ideas.
- Using as many online resources as I could find (Cliffsnotes, MrBruff's book, Mr Salles etc) and my class notes, I created a massive sheet about symbolism, motifs, pathetic fallacy and how each setting related to structure. Compiling all of this information and developing a lot of this further with my own ideas provided a really strong foundation for my revision and displayed a critical approach to the text in my essays.
- I created some revision cards to organise my ideas on context and the characters. Each revision card was divided into subheadings around a particular idea which relates to the character (eg passion vs restraint for St John), I would then use a selection of quotations to illustrate how the character relates to the idea. I would also provide some brief notes/trigger words for myself so I had an idea about what I could talk about for the quotation. (I hope this makes sense!)
- I compiled all of the quotations and learnt them using Memrise (I think it's a lot better for quotations than Quizlet). Here's the quotations that I learnt - I only put a basic meaning by each quotation since I had my in-depth analysis in my notes.
https://www.memrise.com/course/5417829/jane-eyre/- I made as many essay plans as possible in a small notebook. Lots of the questions were made up by myself and there are a range of questions available from past papers and sample questions teachers have made. I watched a lot of MrBruff and Mr Salles videos to get an idea about what I had to include in an essay. I also wrote a few essays and got them marked by my teacher.
- In terms of the time-frame for all of this, I wasn't the most organised person at GCSE so I made all of my revision resources at Easter, learned quotations from Easter till my exam and I made the essay plans 2 days before my exam, with some teacher-marked essays throughout. I wouldn't recommend leaving all of this too late, but don't worry if it gets to this point because you can still get a top grade! Since you're in Year 10 now, I'd recommend that you get your revision resources done so you don't need to worry about making them when exam season comes round.