By Lipa Bunton, Education Blogger
Remember that you are a good English speaker before you even begin studying for your GCSE (or retake!). It is likely that you have the aptitude to succeed in your English GCSE exam if you are an English native speaker or have spoken the language for the majority of your life; it just depends on how you choose to use those abilities to get the grades you want. You can hone your spoken and written English through activities like TV watching, radio listening, social media interaction, and basic conversation. Tens of thousands of words will be said, heard, and interacted with every day. Through participation in discussions, YouTube videos, and advertisements, you are constantly learning to decipher language and assess its meaning.
Yes, English Language is a required subject, but you excel at it every day of your life. You either pass or you don’t, as with all GCSE grades. You use sophisticated language constantly and change your tone to fit the audience and the situation by alternating between humour, slang, formality, solace, criticism, and defense—perhaps more than any other generation.
By demonstrating effective time management techniques, a GCSE English Language tutor or online English tutor will revise you in revising effectively. Additionally, they will support your spoken language, help you practise questions under exam conditions, and work with both fiction and nonfiction. A GCSE English tutor will have advice that is far superior to any of your revision materials and a wealth of tools to aid in your exam performance. Make sure your language and structure knowledge, as well as your timing for writing fiction papers, and a host of other issues, are up to par if you want to get a grade 8 or 9, rather than a grade 4 or 5. If not, you will need to find tutors and teachers to help you with your exam preparation.
What subjects are tested on in the GCSE English Language exam? The GCSE English Literature exam covers what material? For AQA and all other English exam boards, are the GCSE English revision guides the same?
AQA details – www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/english/gcse/english-language-8700
Edexcel details – qualifications.pearson.com/en/qualifications/edexcel-gcses/english-language-2015.html
OCR details – www.ocr.org.uk/qualifications/gcse/english-language-j351-from-2015/
Each exam question must be answered with details that the examiner is looking for specifically. Realizing this during the exam can give you a nice confidence boost. You must completely understand the examiner’s expectations for every question. Then, in order to “tick the boxes” on their mark scheme and earn the highest score, you must. Look at the exam requirements and the marking criteria for sample test questions provided by your exam board. By using these to comprehend precisely what the examiner is looking for at each stage, you will be able to meet their requirements. To begin, select one of the links below for the AQA, OCR, or Edexcel exam boards.
How to pass the GCSE English Language paper 1 or paper 2 | Does the exam require me to analyse a variety of reading texts?
There is a lot to do, so plan your time effectively. Before starting the questions, give yourself about ten minutes to read the excerpts on both papers. After that, take into account the number of points allotted to each question. If there are fewer marks available for each question, less time should be spent on it. Check the scores given to each question before exams to get a sense of how much time to devote to each. Plan some time to review your responses again (in particular spelling, punctuation and grammar in the writing sections).
In your English GCSE exam, try to respond to each and every question.
It’s important to attempt each test question. The examiner will be attempting to reward what you do, as King Lear famously said, “nothing will come of nothing.” Try to finish the papers completely to improve your chances of earning all possible points on the exam. Give it a shot and let your English skills shine, even if it is something about texts from the 19th century! Answer the inquiries in the order they are listed on the paper. Principal examiners put a lot of work into creating the exam papers. They are designed to assist you by posing easier questions at the beginning and to lead you through the entire text from beginning to end. Therefore, responding to them in a different order is pointless. Furthermore, there is a higher likelihood that you will completely miss some questions. Make sure to repeatedly practise using old papers. Don’t just write down what you have memorised; instead, concentrate on providing an answer to the question.
How to revise for English Language GCSE | Can you revise for GCSE English Language?
- Plan your study schedule
Planning is a key component of the revision process, regardless of whether you are retaking your exams or taking them for the first time. Create a schedule for your revision, taking care to leave enough time to go over each problem area in detail. This will not only make it easier for you to manage your time, but it will also let you see how far you’ve come. This will give you a little confidence boost as you go along. - Preparation for revision
This one might seem silly, but revision is the most important step in the exam retaking process, and you’ll frequently find that the second time around, you can understand and remember the material much better. Create thorough revision notes for yourself, whether they come in the form of bullet points, spider diagrams, voice notes, or any other format you find best supports learning, and then test yourself repeatedly until you are correctly answering every question. - When you need assistance, ask for it.
Getting the assistance you require to ensure you are fully prepared for your GCSE English exam is more crucial than ever. If one or more of the subjects you are studying are particularly challenging for you, ask your teacher if they would sit with you and explain what you are studying. As an alternative, you could ask a friend who did well on the first exam for help. They may be able to offer you some priceless advice since they will have just finished the process.
What percentage of students pass their GCSE English Language exams? How many marks are required for a pass? How does the marking scheme work?
GCSE English scores
The pass rate at 4/C was still higher than in 2018 even though it dropped from 61.8% to 69.8% in 2019. A grade of 7/A or higher was awarded to just over seven in ten (77.5%) students who submitted work in English literature. Students need a 4 or 5 to pass with a standard or strong grade. A candidate is considered to have passed all of their exams if they receive nine grades of 4. The new GCSE will award grades on a scale of 1 to 9, with 9 representing the highest grade (lowest). This means that having excellent GCSE scores is more important than ever for getting into the best universities and programmes. A mark scheme that specifies “the kind of answers anticipated” was developed by the principal examiner and a group of subject-area experts and is used by teachers to grade controlled assessments. A moderation procedure, however, is intended to guarantee fairness. When grading creative work, there is a “degree of subjectivity.”
Can you retake the GCSE English Language exam? How does it compare to the first time?
Retaking GCSEs and A-levels typically requires waiting until the summer after your initial exam. You can retake the GCSEs in math, English language, or all three in November. Universities typically schedule exam retakes for early in the subsequent academic year or just before the subsequent year’s exams. You’ve actually made some good progress and are already in a better position than when you last took the exam, despite the fact that it might seem like you still have a lot to do. You will understandably be disappointed that your initial results fell short of what you had hoped for, and I won’t try to persuade you otherwise. You may even feel as though you are at your lowest point and must climb a mountain. The rock face has essentially been climbed halfway. Since you started studying for this exam, you’ve finished a full year’s worth of reading, lessons, practice, and revision. Additionally, you’ve even attempted to take a real exam! For many people, just turning up on exam day, sitting down in the exam room, and facing the exam paper is already a tremendous accomplishment. The fight is still going on despite the conclusion of the first round. You’ll be much more prepared the second time around because of all that knowledge!
Could you benefit from English tutoring to revise effectively?
Yes!! Exams in English Language and Literature are serious business, and many students must retake them if they do not pass the first time. It’s okay, though, because you’ll try harder the next time and aim for that 9! An English tutor can be helpful here because General Certificate of Secondary Education courses demand a lot of reading and proper time management, especially if a student is aiming for grade 9. To ensure you receive the most points possible, you must work diligently on practise papers and be extremely well-prepared.
Expert online GCE English tutors can assist students who need to retake the exam as well as those who are struggling and unable to adequately prepare for it. Additionally, GCSE students who require assistance in other subjects may work with a private English tutor. GCSE science or math, for instance. GCSE Economics and Computer Science are equally as popular as GCSE English and Maths.
Online tutors can teach you the language skills you need to get good grades in English Literature GCSE, possibly even a 9 in GCSE English Language, regardless of the exam board you are studying with for English language and Maths GCSE. Retake exams for the GCSE in English are nothing to be concerned about because you can get the necessary exam assistance from a qualified online English tutor!
