7 in Eng lang/lit and 9 in everything else

I don't know how to write...
Please help.
I have my GCSEs in a week and I'm going to focus on english as I find my 8 other subjects alright.
What can I do to improve?

Reply 1

username6927542

I'd heavily recommend looking at Mr salles on youtube if you haven't already. He has some videos showcasing some top mark essays that you can learn from and sometimes steal tiny bits from

Reply 2

E7han

English language:
Paper 1: in the exam do the questions in this order 5-1-3-4-2, and make sure you time yourself and don’t spend too long on one of the 8 markers
Pre-prepare a level 9 creative writing piece, learn it word for word, and copy it out in the exam. Tips for writing a level 9 piece are to talk about/reference the weather and war, and make sure to use fancy words and punctuation(an example of these 3 things in practice “alabaster white clouds opulently decorated the azure sky: the uncontested sun stealing the spotlight with its benevolent smile and altruistic warmth. However, brewing on the horizon - the gateway to interminable doom - was an army of acronymous clouds devising their invasion of natures haven.” Is this pompous? Yes. Does the forceful use of fancy words sound ****? Yes. But this is the sorta crap that will get you a 9). You might already know this but your creative writing piece doesn’t actually have to relate to the question AT ALL
Paper 2: answer the questions in a set order, it matters a bit less but still start with Q5 followed by Q1, then it’s up to you to determine what works best after that, and also make sure you stick to strict timings.
I’ll be happy to send you one if you dm me, but learn a good structure for the persuasive writing question, and make sure your language is emotive and actually interesting to read

General advice for English language is to learn the mark schemes, a lot of people lose marks or limit how many they can achieve as they never looked at the mark scheme. Also, in both questions 5s use an array of punctuation (for example … : ; - !) and make sure to use an array of good vocabulary, especially in the creative writing piece

I remember significantly less about English lit as I found it painfully boring but here’s my advice:
Memorise a bucket load of solid quotes from each of the books/novels you’ve done. Make sure the quotes you remember are easy to talk about, and preferably contain language techniques and methods (like oxymorons and juxtaposition). Also, and I know it seems basic, just make sure you have a good understanding of the actual stories themselves, and make sure that you’re knowledgeable about each of the characters. If there’s a question about an irrelevant character that you didn’t revise, than you’ll be done for. For poetry, outline about 6 poems that you find the easiest to talk about, and focus your revision on them. Obviously do some revision on each of the other ones, but I’d honestly say you only need to spend about half an hour tops on the poems that you haven’t outlined. On top of outlining 6, select 2 or 3 of them that are quite different from each other and you find easy to talk about, and revise the holy living **** out of them, this way you’ll be all set for the unseen question. Again, I’d also recommend you look at the mark schemes as this way you’ll be able to understand what you must do to maximise your marks.

It’s been nearly a year since I did my GCSEs so I don’t remember much of the more detailed stuff, but this I found this advice to be the most useful and it is what got me the majority of my marks. Hopefully it’s useful, although it might not be to you, but feel free to dm me if you need more help or have any questions