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can i get a 9 in english in 50 days??

hi i am kind of worried so i have 50 days rn till exams. ik ppl say gcses are not that deep but still , is this possible to get 9s?

on my mocks i got an 8 in language and a 7 in literature. i think i have improved in literature but i have not really attempted anything to improve language i just forgot, but i don't know how to write well. if i start now can i get a 9?

also i don't know how to memorise all the analysis for literature. for poems i am scared if i don't learn enough about every single one it could be bad, but there are some like Poppies which are hard and i just don't want to write about

if anyone has tips on how to imrpove in language aand literature , especially for someone who is more STEM smart rather than english smart, pls drop tips!! thanks

Reply 1

heya!! so this was pretty much me when i was doing my gcses - i never got a 9 in any of my english mocks, always got a 7 or maybe an 8 if i was lucky. i'm also much more of a stem person (currently doing a levels in sciences + maths), but i did manage to get a 9 in eng lang and lit, in what i'd say was a fairly short amount of time -

the main thing i did was do TONS of essays, trying my best to read grade 9 essays and see what kind of analysis was being written in there, and i'd give my teachers tons and tons of essays to mark and get their feedback - this was honestly the biggest thing for eng literature and i'd highly recommend this, if you can get your teachers (or even friends who get grade 9s) to look over your essays for you

initially in those essays, i didn't give myself a time limit and focused on just getting the content for grade 9s (i understand time is limited, so maybe don't spend too long doing that) and then moved on to trying to condense that into a short a time as possible

for the poems etc., don't even worry about learning everything for all of them - pick a couple to know in depth analysis on, and memorise important quotes for the others - you don't need to learn everything for every poem

as well as that, my school gave frameworks for how to answer all these questions, e.g. sentence starters to show analysis etc, i'm not sure if your school has given you those, but if not i'd maybe ask my teachers

for english language, we again had frameworks for how to answer pretty much every style of question - after that it is a matter of doing AS MUCH PRACTICE AS POSSIBLE - literally i would sit and practice doing qs and giving them to my teacher to mark until i was getting what i wanted

so overall, it is definitely possible, even for people more stem inclined!! hopefully this helps a little, i know it's not the most step by step guide but english does tend to be quite abstract and subjective, and i think practice makes perfect!
good luck!

Reply 2

Original post by eki23
heya!! so this was pretty much me when i was doing my gcses - i never got a 9 in any of my english mocks, always got a 7 or maybe an 8 if i was lucky. i'm also much more of a stem person (currently doing a levels in sciences + maths), but i did manage to get a 9 in eng lang and lit, in what i'd say was a fairly short amount of time -

the main thing i did was do TONS of essays, trying my best to read grade 9 essays and see what kind of analysis was being written in there, and i'd give my teachers tons and tons of essays to mark and get their feedback - this was honestly the biggest thing for eng literature and i'd highly recommend this, if you can get your teachers (or even friends who get grade 9s) to look over your essays for you

initially in those essays, i didn't give myself a time limit and focused on just getting the content for grade 9s (i understand time is limited, so maybe don't spend too long doing that) and then moved on to trying to condense that into a short a time as possible

for the poems etc., don't even worry about learning everything for all of them - pick a couple to know in depth analysis on, and memorise important quotes for the others - you don't need to learn everything for every poem

as well as that, my school gave frameworks for how to answer all these questions, e.g. sentence starters to show analysis etc, i'm not sure if your school has given you those, but if not i'd maybe ask my teachers

for english language, we again had frameworks for how to answer pretty much every style of question - after that it is a matter of doing AS MUCH PRACTICE AS POSSIBLE - literally i would sit and practice doing qs and giving them to my teacher to mark until i was getting what i wanted

so overall, it is definitely possible, even for people more stem inclined!! hopefully this helps a little, i know it's not the most step by step guide but english does tend to be quite abstract and subjective, and i think practice makes perfect!
good luck!


okay thank you so much!! this is really helpful i'll do this. i think one thing is whenever i try and do practice questions i spend wayy to long doing it but i'll do what u said and proprly time it. thank you so much!!

Reply 3

Original post by trishna17
okay thank you so much!! this is really helpful i'll do this. i think one thing is whenever i try and do practice questions i spend wayy to long doing it but i'll do what u said and proprly time it. thank you so much!!

no problem, good luck!!! :smile:

Reply 4

Original post by trishna17
hi i am kind of worried so i have 50 days rn till exams. ik ppl say gcses are not that deep but still , is this possible to get 9s?
on my mocks i got an 8 in language and a 7 in literature. i think i have improved in literature but i have not really attempted anything to improve language i just forgot, but i don't know how to write well. if i start now can i get a 9?
also i don't know how to memorise all the analysis for literature. for poems i am scared if i don't learn enough about every single one it could be bad, but there are some like Poppies which are hard and i just don't want to write about
if anyone has tips on how to imrpove in language aand literature , especially for someone who is more STEM smart rather than english smart, pls drop tips!! thanks

Hey, I did lit a year early and got a 9, i feel like the best way to memorise the poems is just a key quote for each theme.
For lang in my mocks I got a 9 too, make sure your Q5 is really strong, i averaged at a 6 on section A and then got 35/40 on section B which made my grade an 8. Hope this helps :smile:

Reply 5

Original post by username7544918
hi i am kind of worried so i have 50 days rn till exams. ik ppl say gcses are not that deep but still , is this possible to get 9s?
on my mocks i got an 8 in language and a 7 in literature. i think i have improved in literature but i have not really attempted anything to improve language i just forgot, but i don't know how to write well. if i start now can i get a 9?
also i don't know how to memorise all the analysis for literature. for poems i am scared if i don't learn enough about every single one it could be bad, but there are some like Poppies which are hard and i just don't want to write about
if anyone has tips on how to imrpove in language aand literature , especially for someone who is more STEM smart rather than english smart, pls drop tips!! thanks

Hii I’m definitely more of a stem person but I got a 9 in both lit and lang. what I did for the poems was to completely annotate the poems without looking at my notes. This allows me to come up with new interpretations along with noticing the gap in my knowledge. It may take some time but definitely worth it. I personally found the interpretations that I came up with to be the easiest to memorise and analyse.

Reply 6

hi! i do stem subjects and i got a 9 in eng lit despite revising for it 3-4 days before and getting a 6 in the january mock

i did macbeth and AIC so what i did was

rinse mr salles videos of grade 9/ 30/30 essays and make notes at the same time on a document, writing down key points like context and quote analysis that i didn't think of initially, sometimes i'd put the video in 1.5x speed too

in these videos he also showed which parts of the essay got L3 AO3 and stuff like that so i would make sure to highlight/bold this on my document

i used the same document for every essay i watched since i wanted to basically just collect a massive amount of analysis and context that i could use

i emailed my english teacher to read an example paragraph i wrote and give me feedback, and i repeated this process a few times while taking on the feedback she gave

one important thing that i remember distinguishes a grade 9 from a 8 is a thesis statement at the start which just introduces the question and what themes you're going to link it to? i dont remember too well but i think mr salles talks about this in his videos

i planned a few example essays and one of the questions i planned for was similar to the real thing

also, this is quite important - go through all past papers from previous years and see what characters/themes they have already asked and note them down, just so you can see what might be more or less likely to come up


for poetry anthology i did power and conflict

dont focus on more than 3/4 poems, you don't need to analyse all of them in depth

the ones you do analyse should be ones that can be applicable to many other poems - to work this out just briefly analyse each poem to see what the overarching theme is and write it down, then group ones of similar themes together e.g. ozymandias was one that i learnt in depth since you could apply it to many other poems

try to think of different interpretations to get extra marks, i didn't have any original ones but again i used mr salles' videos on poetry anthology because he went into depth and gave various alternative interpretations and quote analysis

for the unseen poetry it's definitely a bit more difficult since you can't just learn a bunch of stuff, but i'd say just try to practise a few before the exam and use the knowledge you collected from watching the essay analysis videos to help you think of different ways to interpret the poem?


you have quite a while, 50 days is a lot so don't be too stressed im sure you can do it!

Reply 7

I got one with like 5 days of revision, gcses aren't as hard as u think especially literature.

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