GCSE English Literature Week 3 Exam Preparation Tips

This blog post is going to address exactly what you need to be doing two weeks before your English Literature exam! If you haven’t followed these blog posts so far, I recommend having a look at previous posts to make sure you’re on the right track (trust me, it’s an exceptionally fun read. Weird flex, but trust me).

In short, you should have all your notes finished; and you should know exactly what and how to memorise. This week is going to be a sort of continuation from last week; we are going to keep memorising. However, it is now time to start hard-core revising. By that I am, of course, talking about practice papers!

Practice papers constitute the most fundamental type of revision. It is your one-way ticket to top grades for all subjects - English Literature being no exception! It is a great way to memorise, as well as an important strategy for making sure you can walk into the exam room confident and calm. Since you have all your notes and you’ve done some basic memorisation work, now is the perfect time to start kicking into high-gear by doing practice papers. The most important thing I want to stress for this week is that you DO NOT have to do practice papers under exam conditions. At least not yet, but that is a topic for next week…

For this week, I want you to find practice papers from previous years, specifically for your exam board. There should be loads of them on the exam board website, there are also several practice questions in most English Literature textbooks, and I am sure your teachers would be happy to provide you with even more practice questions if you run out (good job if you do!). After you have your practice paper, I want you to sit down and do the paper open book and open time. This might seem counterintuitive - we want to practise the actual exam, which is (most of the time) not going to be open book and open time. But let’s be honest: doing a full paper in one sitting is hard. You will most likely feel like you are not ready to do a practice paper because you feel as if you don’t know the information well enough yet. Thus, if you tell yourself that you are going to do a full past paper under exam conditions, chances are you will procrastinate. (Here’s looking at you Tik Tok). Instead, we want to make it easier for ourselves to get started. If you want to learn how to play ‘Wonderwall’ on the guitar (cause everyone and their mother does), you start by learning the intro, then the first verse, then the chorus etc etc. You wouldn’t attempt it without the chords in front of you - at least not the first few times. The same goes for practice papers.

So, give yourself however long you need, and have a look in your notes if you get stuck. If you only have the time/energy to do half of the paper, that is okay! For English lit, you are going to be writing a lot of long-form answers and essays. Thus, it is a great idea to write as many practice essays as possible before the exam. This week is less about mimicking exam conditions, and more about building an essay-writing foundation that can be applied to a range of questions. That way, you will have a straightforward way to approach the actual exam. By practising over and over, you will start to develop a routine for how you like to structure your answers, how you like to formulate the introduction and conclusion, and how you like to plan out your answer.

Everyone is different, but I always recommend developing a somewhat formulaic approach; have a structure that you can follow regardless of the specific question, and show the examiner what they want to read. This will make the examination process easier, less stressful, and it will save you loads of time that you otherwise would’ve had to spend on planning. Instead, you already have a plan. An example of an essay structure could be:

- Introduction

- Form and structure

- Setting and imagery

- Narration

- Time and place

- Conclusion

Obviously, the structure will vary slightly depending on what type of paper you are writing, and what the content is. However, there are some things you always want to do. Firstly, you always want to have an introduction with a strong thesis statement. Make sure the examiner knows from the beginning what it is you are trying to say. You need to argue for a point - and by including it in your introduction, you can refer back to it throughout the essay, providing a clear red thread. Explain in the introduction what you are going to talk about, for example, if you are going to discuss three main themes, then mention this in the introduction (preferably in the same order as they will be discussed in the body of the essay).

Secondly, each paragraph should have a clear point. Make sure that you provide evidence (e.g., quotes) for each point, and discuss how this proves your point. A good rule of thumb is to make sure that each paragraph could be summarised in a single sentence. By checking for this, you can make sure that the paragraph doesn’t make more than one point (in which case perhaps it should be broken up); that the paragraph doesn’t really make a point by itself/doesn’t really say anything/is mostly waffle (in which case it can be removed entirely or merged with another paragraph); and that the paragraph has a key point but it doesn’t make it as effectively as well as it could (i.e. some sentences are not contributing and could be removed/perhaps some sentences need to be added to make the point clearer). Since you have a limited amount of time to write your essay, you need to make sure that everything you say is important, relevant to the question you are answering, and written in a concise manner. This week is when you want to practise these skills.

Thirdly, a conclusion should close the loop; make sure to refer back to the thesis statement made in the introduction. Also clarify how this is relevant to the question you are answering, summarise the main ideas, and include a closing sentence which (preferably) appeals to the reader’s emotions.

Another great thing to do is to make detailed essay plans for past exam questions. Although this is not as good as writing out a full answer, it is a good way of covering a lot of ground in a short amount of time (if you feel you are short on time). Next week we will discuss how to do practice papers under exam conditions, so don’t worry too much for now about not knowing the information perfectly, or not being able to write a perfect answer in the designated time. Instead, focus on what you need to do this week, and have fun practising!

Have any questions about how to prepare for your GCSE exams? Having problems with any hard to understand content or tricky past exam questions? Then ask Addie. Addie will be hosting a series of Q&A webinars in the 2 weeks before final exams. Post your questions here, and Addie will answer them in these sessions.