English GCSE

So basically,
I’m a grade 7 right now in English lit and language. I will start year 11 in September and I am aiming for a grade 8/9 for gcse by next year June/July. Does anyone who has got those grades have any tips to improve my grades? What should I do over summer

I think you are on a good track to achieve those grades to be quite honest!

I got a 9 in both subjects but this was two years ago so my memory of the structure of the exams is a little rusty, so I'm sorry if I get something wrong here.

Anyways, for language, you really need to look at the questions as individuals and break down the questions and markschemes to grasp what exactly they want in the answer. You also need to deem which questions you are the best at answering and answer those questions first at the start of the exam (this is so that if you run out of time, you have already confidently answered the questions you have the best shot at). I can't quite remember which exam it is, but in language I know that there was a question that was either multiple choice or a quick one word answer, do this last!! If you run out of time you can quickly scribble down an answer or tick a random box, best to run out of time and have a guess on this than run out of time on an 8+ mark essay.

Another piece of advice for language is for the 'creative writing' section. Pre plan this! By this I mean, write a paragraph at home/during summer describing various settings and people. For example, I wrote a paragraph describing an elderly woman, a teenage boy and a middle-aged woman. I also wrote descriptions of basic settings such as cities, beaches, the sky etc. Write things like this and then have your teacher mark them. Keep improving until you are happy and then try and memories key lines (or the whole thing as I did) so that you can simply just recite this in the exam. The question will ask you to either write a short story or description based off of one given image. DO THE DESCRIPTION!! It is so easy to lose track and run out of time when writing a story. The image I had was a close up, black and white photo of an elderly man. I simply changed the pronouns and some description factors in the paragraph I wrote beforehand of the elderly woman and compared this to my paragraph of the teenager. Also don't be afraid to literally think outside of the box, the image was a close up of a man but I placed him in a city setting so that I could use that description too.

For literature, you need to focus on the themes and characters. Obviously context is important, but it is not worth as many marks as you would think. Same goes for quotes, obviously use them but embed them into your essays. Don't start a new paragraph with a quote unless the quote itself sounds like the beginning of a paragraph (if that makes sense?).

So for lit, I had large A3 posters covering every theme in every play/book. I studied Jekyll and Hyde, Macbeth and an inspector calls. So, a theme in an inspector calls for example was responsibility. I would make a huge A3 mindmap with the word/theme 'responsibility' in the middle and then I would stem off from this and have a little mindmap for key quotes, another for context, another for characters and another for key points in the play where this is shown. As I said, I did this for all of my books/plays and for all of the themes. I wrote essays on the large topics and would get my teacher to mark them, like in language I would then edit and perfect it and then memorise key points from it.

For poetry, there will always be a 'universal' poem which essentially is one that can be compared to every single poem. Discover which one this is and learn every little thing about it possible, because worst case scenario in the exam, you can write about this poem with full confidence. I found poetry fairly easy to be quite honest, I just wrote a lot of essays comparing different poems and got my teacher to mark them. I had two poetry anthologies, one I used for in depth analysis, context and highlighting, the other I used to write what the main themes were and crossovers with the other poems.

A final bit of advice works for both courses. Look for high-level vocab words. Remember that English is not tiered like maths or science, people like you who are capable of top grades will be against those who will be scrapping the barrel. So give yourself a little advantage to stand out by looking for complex words to implement into your essays and description. Obviously don't just chuck in long words if you don't understand how to use them in context, but find a few that work. I distinctly remember learning the words 'hubris' and 'catharsis' to use in my Macbeth essay, and I did in the actual exam!

I'm sorry my advice is lacking, I didn't continue to pursue English at a-level, however I hope you find something helpful and I'm sure someone else will reply! Good luck!

i got an 8 in lit and lang a massive component of my revision for both subjects was exam practice, especially english lang as there's not many other methods to revise for it! if you don't understand the questions in english lang, look through mark schemes, examiner reports and see if there's any youtube videos that break down the elements of the question. keep practicing, and keep getting feedback from the teacher.

if you can over the summer, complete notes on all the texts that you've studied so far in english lit so your revision can be mainly focused on exam questions. practice will help you to understand how your knowledge of the text can be applied to the exam question. most of my notes were on characters and themes but you also need to be aware of context, a writer's intentions and methods etc. notes should be easy to revise from and not crammed and overhighlighted. start learning a few quotes too and be confident w analysing them.

Thank you so much. You really boosted my confidence, I had begun stressing about not getting the grades.
So basically for language- PrePlan and memorise
And for literature- Do lots of practise and perfect them?
Also I know this may be difficult. But do have any of your revision stuff Or examples of your work you could email to me?

Perfect. I am aiming for around 5 Key quotes per poem. And like 5 key themes for the novels.
It that on the right track?

So basically,
I’m a grade 7 right now in English lit and language. I will start year 11 in September and I am aiming for a grade 8/9 for gcse by next year June/July. Does anyone who has got those grades have any tips to improve my grades? What should I do over summer

You’re definitely on track! For literature, I found that the poetry section was the hardest bit and we rushed through all 15 of them in class. I also find that students don’t perform as well in the unseen poetry section because we are not taught how to tackle it (and unfortunately, this can push our grades down by at least 1/2 grades). Over the summer I would watch YouTube videos on the poems and books that you have covered/will cover, as well as watching videos on how to analyse unseen poetry. ‘EnglishWithSim’ on YouTube is perfect for this. ‘Mr Bruff’ is amazing and so is ‘Mr Salles teaches English’

So basically,
I’m a grade 7 right now in English lit and language. I will start year 11 in September and I am aiming for a grade 8/9 for gcse by next year June/July. Does anyone who has got those grades have any tips to improve my grades? What should I do over summer

Watch Mr Bruff he’s really good for analysis videos, make mind- maps of themes + characters quotes and analysis of them/ practice last years papers. Ask your teacher to mark them when u get back + ask them for feedback. The questions where your marks aren’t as high just practice them more. Improve your vocabulary so maybe go over your essays and go on thesaurus to look at better words to use.

Great thanks. Do you know any YouTube videos that provide good Key quotes for a Christmas carol and lotf?
Thanks