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english literature help

how do i revise english lit beacause i want a 9 but i literally got a 6
i got 70% (112/160)overall and it was a full mock but how do i get into the top levels

anthology poetry (p&c)-20/30

unseen 16/24 and 3/8

i can’t remember the rest of my scores but i do aic, r&j and j&h and they were all at least 20/30

Reply 1

DerDracologe

Study Forum Helper

Using a clear paragraph structure is super important. I used PEAR paragraphs pretty consistently acrossmost questions because they allowed me to get lots of marks pretty consistently. PEAR stands for Point (literally answering thequestion, a topic sentence) Evidence (pick a quote) Analysis (any language structural and/or form features you can comment on) Reader (link your quote to how the reader will likely feel- its doesn’t have to be deep but using fancyish words like anticipation can make your writing sound less surface level).
Doing questions and getting feedback from a teacher is the most helpful thing to know how to improve. If your teacher wont mark your work for whatever reason then you could post in on TSR and ask for someone to mark it. You could also mark other peoples answers to help your understanding of what examiners are looking for. Or if you have a friend in your class who would be willing to swap answersand mark each others that’s also a strong option.
Learning how to annotate texts is extremely important. BBC Bitesize was how i learned how to do this i think but im sure there’s loads of videos and articles on how to do this. You need to find a way which works well for you!
Learning good quotations is immensely helpful. There’s loads of good study sets you can use which people have made or you can make your own. Either way, dont just memorise the quotations by themselves- learn the language analysis, how it links to key themes, context and characters and when it is said (this heavily influences how the reader will feel depending on if tension is rising or its a period of calm etc).
Doing lots of essays and having them marked will help you find whereyoure losing marks and then you can work on those key areas. Also reading through model essays and seeing what makes them get the highest marks is a great idea- you could use examiner reports to find common areas where people lose marks.
I used mind mapping a lot for literature so try that if you want to work on your marks. You could mindmap a quotation, a chapter,character, theme, piece of context, poem etc. Make sure that whenever you make a mindmap you include quotations which linkin and lots of details.