- Knowing exactly where the pitfalls lie and how to avoid them. For example, students often mix up Paper 2, Question 2 with Paper 2, Question 4 and on occasion just repeat themselves in this question, or they might fail to identify the WRITERS’ attitudes and perspectives or fail to pick out language and structure devices and forget to evaluate effect.
- Managing your time carefully is REALLY important on both Papers 1 and 2 of the AQA GCSE English exams. The bigger questions come later, so you need to consider how you manage this time to ensure you answer ~EVERY question on the paper without running out of time
- Paper 1, Question 3 requires you to comment on STRUCTURE, which is not the same thing as LANGUAGE. Are you confident of the difference and which devices to identify? You need to be, in order to get the marks. Ask your teacher about this.
- A good tip for timing is ‘one minute per mark plus a bit extra,’ so your timings on each question should be: 4 marker = 5 minutes; 8 marker = 10 minutes; 12 marker = 15 minutes; 16 marker = 20 minutes; 20 marker = 25 minutes and 40 marker = 45 minutes. KNOW YOUR TIMINGS & STICK TO THEM!
- Many of the questions have the word ‘HOW’ in them. ‘HOW’ is an AQA ‘Command Word,’ which means that any question which asks ‘How…’ requires you to consider the writer’s/poet’s/playwright’s methodology and their effects on the reader/audience. If it doesn’t have ‘how’ in the question, then the approach is different. How aware of this are you?
- Know your mark scheme: There are four levels (not grades) in the Language mark scheme and these correspond to Grades 1-9. Level 1 is characterised by the word ‘simple’; Level 2 is characterised by the words ‘some attempt’; Level 3 = ‘clear’, and Level 4 = ‘perceptive analysis,’ and ‘convincing.’ Whereabouts are you? You need to be at the top of Level 2 to secure a strong Grade 4.
- These papers are all about SYSTEMS & PROCESSES. If you know to approach each question, you will get the marks. Have a plan for each question. That’s where my tutoring comes in. I only focus on preparing students for the AQA GCSE exams and I have spent hundreds of hours crafting programmes and tutoring techniques that WORK. See other blogs for my students’ results.
- If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again! The sooner you start tackling these questions, the better. The thing that ultimately makes ALL the difference is you doing battle with these questions, finding out what you don’t know, making mistakes, trying again with the same question and getting as much feedback from your teacher as often you can.