hey what's up guys and welcome back to igcse success it's crunch time exams are looming and if you are like most students around the world you are probably trying to spin hundreds of plates all at once hoping that they don't come crashing down you've got a ton of exams to revise for whilst trying to retain some sanity not to mention that you've got to look after yourself both mentally and physically and well time is ticking first language english is tough going it's a mammoth paper and you've only got two hours to get it finished so with all that said and done here are my top 10 tips to help you succeed with paper one now tip number one is all about your timings how long you spent on each question and you have to get your timings spot on let's not forget that pre-2019 paper one consisted of the three core questions only it had the writer's effect question the summary and the extended writing response now you've got three texts to read understand annotate plan for and a bunch of smaller questions to answer as well it goes without saying you have to practice a lot and you have to practice under time conditions giving yourself over two hours is not really helpful as a general rule of thumb you want to stick to these timings for the summary question you want to spend about 20 minutes on this question that's question one f for the writer's effect question the second call question you want to spend about 30 minutes on this question that's question 2d and for question 3 the extended writing response you want to give yourself at least 40 minutes to complete this question which leaves you with about 30 minutes to complete the smaller questions and to proofread all of your answers don't forget that you need to factor in planning annotating proofreading editing any responses now tip number two is for the summary question that is question one f from paper one now it goes without saying you need to practice all of the questions from paper one but for the summary question in particular make sure you have a firm grasp of more complex sentence structures so by that i mean do you know how to construct complex sentences and do you know how to construct compound complex sentences and it also might be sensible to equip yourself with a range of subordinating conjunctions that you can try and use to help you construct your complex sentences remember using more complex sentence structures is key to succeeding with this question if you opt to use more simple sentences you'll find it difficult to group similar ideas together and if you struggle to group similar ideas together you are going to run out of words pretty quickly oh and don't forget to include a range of connectives into your writer's toolbox as well tip number three now my third tip is for the writer's effect question question 2d it is imperative that you know what is meant by explicit ideas and implicit ideas remember cambridge wants you to explore the effects of words phrases and images in order to succeed with this question and go beyond stating the obvious yes by all means start with the explicit meanings of words but really your implicit stuff your analysis is what is going to get you your marks tip number four vocab vocab vocab now if your writer's toolbox unfortunately has moths flying out of it it's a little bit dusty it's a little bit rusty in terms of the amount of ambitious word choices that's in it learn some positive negative and neutral adjectives and try and shoehorn some more ambitious sophisticated impressive word choices into question three in particular now tip number five know you're a ripe forest techniques yes this is the rather bizarre mnemonic i use with my year 11s in fact all of my classes many many years ago when i started teaching i used i think it was a forest it's evolved somewhat so now i use a ripe forest it's really handy because it includes some really powerful language persuasive rhetorical devices that you want to try and shoehorn or use in your question three responses depending on what the task is and i will try and put a little infographic somewhere on the screen just to remind you of what each letter stands for now tip number six is practice your non-fiction writing away from an exam piece remember there are seven different text types that could come up and whilst some come up more often than others you need to be prepared for any of the prescribed text types and they are let's see if i can remember informal letter formal letter magazine article newspaper report formal report speech journal interview why did i count eight eight of course if you separate letters into formal and informal letter practice writing an informal letter to your best friend about your recent holiday try writing a newspaper report about will smith slapping chris rock write a persuasive speech about healthy eating the list is endless question three is by far the toughest question and if you can't write in the eight seven prescribed text types you are going to struggle tip number seven we're almost there know your sentence types now to secure a good or top mark for question three you have to use a range of sentence types for effect do you know your minor sentences from your simple sentences your compound sentences from your complex sentences creating mind maps of visually attractive mind maps is a great way to practice now tip number eight is all about the word count and let me stress this and take this with a pinch of salt do not obsess over the word counts just remember to keep a close eye on the clock your timings you will not get penalized for going over the suggested suggested word counts for two of the call questions anyway now of course for the summary question question one f you want to try and stick to that 120 word count why because a summary is a concise piece of information which includes the main points only i mean even when i write model responses for the writer's effect question and question three i always seem to go over the word count again you're not going to get penalized for going over it really worries me when i've seen students of mine actually counting the words they've written for the likes of the writer's effect question and question three um just watch your timings now tip number nine is for question three the extended writing response and hopefully you know by now that you have to develop your ideas relevantly using a suitable and sustained voice throughout your piece now make sure you go beyond just including explicit ideas from the text this question is not about highlighting a bunch of ideas and finding synonyms for every single word within the sentence now most of the time your development can be as simple as including the characters thoughts and feelings now whilst you are not expected to develop every single idea it is considered a more challenging reading skill and cambridge will reward you well for doing it successfully now my last tip and sorry to bore you all it's all to do with planning plan plan plan plan plan know your route know your direction to that end goal for all three questions i encourage you i strongly encourage you to annotate make notes highlight the text the insert it's really really important you know what you are going to be writing about for question three the extended writing response is a good idea to have three different colored highlighters so you can have a different highlighter for each bullet point and don't be afraid to create a quick plan in your answer booklet actually cambridge like to see evidence of planning just make sure you cross this out at the end will cambridge read it absolutely will they appreciate it absolutely and there you have it guys my top 10 tips for succeeding in paper one do let me know in the comments below if you want a similar video for paper 2 and i will see you again very soon bye