How to Revise for GCSE English Language

After a tumultuous few years, students around the globe are now returning to exam halls to sit their IGCSE and GCSE English Language exams. The most recent cohort of students that actually sat their exams took them back in 2019, with just over 70% of students managing to get a passing grade.

If you’re looking to smash your GCSE English Language exams, then this guide will walk you through exactly how to revise. Whether you’re aiming for a pass mark or are shooting to join the 2.8% of students that received a 9, we’ve got the perfect tips for you.

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We’ll be covering:

• Knowing your exam board
• Knowing the Question Structure
• Understanding what Examiners Want to See
• Learning Literary Devices

Let’s get right into it.

Know Your GCSE English Language Exam Board

When your school signs up for different exam qualifications, they have to make a choice between several of the UK's leading exam board institutions. Some of these, like AQA and OCR, you might be familiar with, but there are a huge range of different exam boards which your school may have selected.

The first step to effective GCSE English Language revision is to ensure you know exactly which exam board you’re going to be using. There are five main exam boards in the UK which are routinely used for English Language:

• Edexcel
• Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (AQA)
• Oxford, Cambridge and RSA Examinations (OCR)
• Welsh Joint Education Committee (WJEC)
• Council for the Curriculum, Examinations & Assessment (CCEA)
• Cambridge International Examinations (CIE IGCSE English Language)

While all of these offer an English Language GCSE qualification, they don’t all have the same test format. Due to this, if you accidentally revise from the wrong exam board, you’ll open your paper on exam day and come into contact with content that you haven’t seen before. It’s vital that you know which exam board your school uses, so you can then revise the right question format.

Equally, if you’re taking IGCSE English Language instead of GCSE language, then the general structure of your exam will be very different, meaning you should endeavour to work out exactly which tests you’ll be sitting ahead of time.

As with most things, if you’re in doubt about which exam board you’ll be using, ask your English Language teacher for clarification.

Know the Question Structure

Once you’ve settled on which exam board you’ll be sitting, you can then find past papers for each exam. Every single exam board offers a range of tests from previous years, providing you with the perfect place to get the scoop on exactly what will come up in the exam.

The English Language GCSE is one of the most formulaic GCSE exams that there are, having a very strict question structure that repeats every single year. While the content of the question changes, the question structure will remain the same. Take Paper 1 of AQA English Language GCSE, you’ll always come across:

• Two sections - Reading (A) and Writing (B).
• Section A will be 40 marks, made up of 1 short form question (4 marks), 2 longer questions (8 marks each) and 1 extended question (20 marks).
• Section B will be one extended writing question (16 marks for technical accuracy, 24 marks for content).

By knowing what you’ll find when you open your exam paper, you’re able to give yourself a huge advantage. Instead of panicking while trying to find out what to write and where to write it, you’ll be familiar with the exam and can jump into the section that you like to begin with.

In timed exams, every second counts - you’ll thank yourself by learning how your exam works beforehand.

Understand What the Examiners Want to See

One of the huge advantages of having access to past papers from your exam board is that you can see previous mark schemes. From there, you’ll be able to work out exactly what the examiners are looking for within each question, helping you to pinpoint exactly how to gain marks.

Especially with English Language, which can often seem more subjective than subjects like GCSE Maths, providing yourself with a bank of requirements for each question is a great way to save time.

By moving through the mark scheme, you’re able to see exactly what an examiner is looking for. Not only does this give you a great idea of how to structure your answers, but it also signals how much you should write per question.

Luckily, many exam boards also provide an ‘Indicative Standard’ section within their past papers, which will show a snippet of what an answer from each marking band will look like. These can show you what sort of writing you need to produce to reach different marks.

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A wonderful resource to access English Language GCSE past papers is the RevisionWorld site, which holds all available past papers from a range of distinct exam boards.

Brush Up on Literary Devices

Within both English Literature and GCSE English Language, students must be able to identify and deploy a range of literary devices within their work. AO2 (assessment objective 2) of both English Language and Literature is about selecting and explaining ‘language features’. These are known as literary devices or techniques, with even just name dropping a few into your work, allowing you to significantly boost your mark.

The most commonly used literary devices are:

• Metaphors
• Similes
• Word classes (adjective, adverb, noun, etc.)
• Semantic fields
• Natural imagery
• Narrative hook
• Climax
• Focus shifts

However, this is only just scratching the surface. We recommend you take a look at BBC Bitesize and Revision World for larger lists that you can pull from.

By memorizing what these terms mean, and being able to explain their impact inside of texts, you’ll be armed with all the knowledge you need to get full marks on Ao2. Considering that this is a heavily weighted part of the exam, this will help you get on the right track towards top marks right from the get-go.

Final Thoughts on English Language

Apart from specific exam preparation, students of both IGCSE English Language and GCSE English Language benefit from reading widely before their exams. From picking up your favourite novel to reading the newspaper, reading can take many forms.

One surefire way to boost your English Language results grades is to work with a personal tutor. With years of experience and high-achieving tutors, TutorChase will be able to help guide you through the English Language revision process.