hello there and welcome to the only video you will need for GCSE English language disclaimer this is what helped me it should help you but I'm not a qualified teacher so these are just some tips that helped me get from grade six to grade nine in this video I'll be covering how to revise English language then what you specifically can do for paper one and what you can specifically do for paper two and then what got me from a grade six to a grade nine what did I change so how do you revise English you can't revise English you can only practice it so how do you practice English do you do a whole full paper no don't do Full Pass papers it'll be much more effective if you practice doing singular questions for example only spending 10 minutes on question two after you've done these questions you can ask for feedback you can get your teachers to Market and then you can see what you can improve with the answer you should try and do this with all the different types of questions but especially question five personally for me I was not so good at creative writing I had not done it in years the last time I like wrote creatively was like in year six and then I was in year 10 11. so what I did was in half term I would set a size 45 minutes a day and use a random image generator on my computer get a random image and then use that as my stimulus and then I would write a story from that image my school personally encouraged us to do the picture so in question five you get a choice of using a picture or the words although sometimes I found that the words were a better stimulus for me they said that the picture would be better because it's a visual stimulus and you can pick stuff from it immediately and start describing what you see I'll talk about that later in the video and now we're going on to a paper one so what is paper one paper one is all about fiction the characters are not alive what is the author trying to tell you through the characters what message are they giving you so to do people one you should first read for at least 15 minutes actually you don't have time to do any more than that you should read for 15 minutes that's because AQA expects you to understand the extract that they've given you the questions on paper one are there to test your understanding of the text and how you interpret what the author has been trying to tell you so I would suggest that the first 10 minutes you read through the extract the first time you're going to read it you're going to be Panic reading it you're not actually going to be reading it properly the second time you know you're reading it you're getting the gist of it then read it again and then actually understand what you're reading try and do that read at your own pace as well once you've finished reading you should go do question one question one what I did was I just quoted from the extract therefore I could never be wrong since the extract said it so after you've done question one you should then look at all of the questions and then read the extras again but then highlight some of the quotes that you may be using for your answers then you're getting a head start question two you need Word level analysis what is Word level analysis you need to zoom in in certain phrases and explain why the author chooses to write certain words in that phrase I'll be giving you a list of methods that you should be identifying in the extract I always found alliteration anaphora anaphora is based basically you know Martin Luther King I dreamed a dream the Lola I dreamed the Dream I Dreamed A Dream anandfora is the repetition at the beginning of a phrase or a sentence so that can be used for emphasis maybe the author's trying to say something didactic there you should be looking out for a synthetic listing and polysynthetic listening what are those asyntastic listing is basically a list without any ends and polysynthetic listing is too many ends a synthetic would be I went to the shops and I bought apples bananas carrots whereas poly synthetic listing would be I went to the shops and bought apples and bananas and carrots so polysynthetic's more like an emphasis of how many things there are I always found the way to include polysynistic or asyndetic listing in my analysis it was always there for me hopefully you'll be there for you prophetic fallacy is good it's when the weather mirrors the character's feelings semantic Fields I love semantic Fields it's when there's a group of adjectives there all have like a similar feel for example an aggressive semantic field punching striking stabbing that's like an aggressive semantic field sibilance I love sibilance it was always there for me as well sibilance normally has two effects it's either I either for everyone it has Sinister atmosphere or it would have a tranquil peaceful atmosphere like a soothing atmosphere soothing tone you can also analyze the basic verb metaphor personification but to put that up another level you should add an adjective in front of that for example the violent verb the unusual personification of the Rat my examples are really weird they're just coming from the top of my head so there are more techniques than what I just listed but those are the main ones that I used and found in the extract now we're going on to question three we should also be spending 10 minutes on this question three is all about structure now you need three words to include in your answer you need establishes develops and resolves those are your three main paragraphs done what do I mean by that well you should start by saying what is established has the scene been set have the characters been established has there been a character description have you established what the characters look like or maybe they're feeling or maybe their social background like whether they're rich or if they're poor in society and then what's being developed what has been revealed what information has been revealed to you the audience has any attention been built up maybe conflict there's always going to be tension so always mention intention and you can use phrases such as the writer tantalizes the reader with this description or that description then finally what has been resolved are we left on a cliffhanger was the ending foreshadowed by the way there's always going to be foreshadowing so you can always just say the ending is foreshadowed in this sentence or maybe this paragraph or maybe in this description maybe there's an anti-climax anti-climax like when you build up all this tension and then the reveal is just really not a big reveal it's really disappointing actually and question three you can also talk about tone you can talk about what person is used like first person second person third person first person you know what's in the character's mind you know what they're thinking but if it was in third person perhaps they're withholding their character's thoughts because maybe it reveals information later you can also talk about whether the speaker is omniscient or limited what do I mean by that Omission means the speaker or narrator is all knowing they know what's going to happen yeah they're telling you the story but they already know what's happening or is the speaker like you limited they don't know what's going to happen they're experiencing the adventure along with you and so on that's just a few things you can do that's enough for a really good answer now question four you should be spending 25 minutes on this you can mention anything that you said in questions two and three but you're not really going to be mentioning anything you said in question two because question two is probably from the beginning of the extract and question four they say from lines thingy downwards those lines are normally towards the end of the extract so you'll probably shouldn't mention what you said in question two in question four you'll get a statement from either like a student or a teacher and so you need to decide if you strongly agree strongly disagree partly agree somewhat agree you know any like that but don't just say agree or disagree and whatever side you choose you need to counter that somehow I'll give you an example my friend who's really good at English told me that at the beginning of your answer you should always counter your point by saying for example if you agree with the student would be like I strongly agree with the student however they fail to mention that the death of Jimmy was being foreshadowed at the beginning of the extract for example yeah you can always say something to counter it but try not to make anything up only do if you can see it it needs to be convincing you need to convince the examiner make sure you have Word level analysis here too you should make your point and then choose a quote quote it and then go into further detail and actually pick out certain words that you can use to analyze and support your argument also in your answer remember the characters are fiction they're made up they're not real so you can't say oh Alice said this you should say the writer presents Alice to say this this is because Alice is always the name that AQA use for some reason so basic now we're moving on to question five the meaty question our school always try to get us to do the picture question as I said before but let me give you an example when that was not useful for me there was a picture of a Marketplace and I could not think of anything to write but I had to force my ideas out because I was like oh no my teacher's gonna be like oh no why did you do the writing we literally said to do the picture question but the word stimulus was so much better in my opinion it said write a story with the title abandoned that sounds way more interesting to me than writing about a Marketplace but anyway I I got like a grade seven in that writing because I was not fully committed to that Marketplace I did not like it in the real thing I actually chose the writing I kind of went against my school's advice but you know it's up to you if you're going to go against what your school has said then you should do that question in the mock in one of my mocks I did do the writing and I actually got um 35 out of 40 which is quite good so that's what I knew I was like the writing is definitely for me okay here's a sneaky tip I'm gonna give you you should pre-plan your story plot before you sit the exam wait isn't that cheating it's not cheating but what I did was I had three story plots they were all contrasting in case whatever the question could be I could adapt to my story plot to it I did two story plans and then one description plan because you don't know whether you're gonna get a story question or a description question so make up something really original something that reflects your personality don't copy someone else's story plot because the examiners want to see something original in your story or your description the description should have a storyline to it still which is confusing but a career like that your character needs to have some sort of realization there needs to be some change in your story so you need to have some contrast in there some contrasting descriptions yeah I would practice writing your story plot but don't memorize your actual writing of your story plot because you're not going to be able to write exactly that in the real thing you should be able to adapt to your story plan to the stimulus that they've given you in one of my mocks I'm memorized a piece of description and I put it into my Mock and then after that I was like what do I do now I'd memorize that really good description and now what do I do it kind of fit it wasn't the best fitting but I put it in and then I was stuck I didn't know what else to do don't memorize actual paragraphs of writing memorize a story plot that you can adapt and you can write in real time during the exam okay now I'm going to give you some smart tips that you should use if you're writing in third person have a character name that's short so you're not wasting your time writing out like supercalifragilisticexpialidocious no and you should make a description profile for your character so you know exactly what they look like in your head and you know what description roughly you're going to be writing in the real exam I actually had a character name called KOA k-o-a and it meant Brave I think it's a Hawaiian name and I had like this fringy storyline where she would like be kidnapped or something and should have really low self-esteem and stuff and then she should be like I need to live up to my name Koa it means warrior I am a warrior I didn't actually write about that in the real Rock but that was just my idea because the character had a change in heart and then they got out and it's a heavy ending but yeah so your character name should be short and they should have a realization in that story you can choose whether you want to write in first person second person or third person I began to write in third person when I first started doing story writing because it's easier however I actually found first person to be easier for me yeah experiment in your mocks what person you want to write in I actually wrote in second person in one of my mocks it was it was like a creepy story but it was kind of cool I wouldn't write in second person unless you're really confident of your writing anyway have fun with your story this is the time to show your creativeness to The Examiner and to your teachers whatever you want to do in the real GCSE make sure you've done it in your mocks so you've practiced it and that your teacher has given you feedback on it so you know that it actually works for you okay now I'm going to be telling you how you can actually plan your question five this is not a pre-plan this is about the plan that you're going to write in the row exam because you spend 45 minutes with the creative writing you spend around 15 minutes planning this is what I did I would suggest you do it you write down the five W's who what when where why and you need to make sure that you've established who or when where why in the first paragraph three main things need to happen in your story thing one and then thing two then thing three and then above that I would put what I would do for the introduction and how I was going to introduce and set the scene and then at the bottom I would write how it would resolve like what's going to happen your examiner might read your plan and it will help them understand your story more so make sure you leave your plan on the paper finally make sure your story has a title this makes your story look way more professional and like an actual short story it just gives a native presentation and it gives like an overview of what your story is about which is good now I've always found English to be the hardest subject personally and I would always try and find as many resources as I possibly could this includes Grade 9 model answers videos to help my understanding and past paper walkthroughs to go through why am I saying all that First Rate tutors gives you all of that in one package normally if you need extra help with subjects such as English you return to a private tutor which would cost maybe around 50 pounds to 60 pounds an hour now First Rate Shooters gives you all that I said before which was Grade 9 model answers it gives you annotations that you can use for your English literature exams Etc it gives you all of this for a one-off purchase of 59.99 with this you will gain lifetime access to hundreds of videos the course is self-paced and it is constantly being updated to fit with your spec and your paper that you're going to be sitting if you're more of a visual person or prefer to watch videos as revision and if you feel as though your teacher hasn't really gone through everything that you need to secure your grade this course is for you the link is in the description now we're going to move on to paper two non-fiction I didn't like non-fiction but this is the paper where you need to understand whether the writer is informing you about something are they writing for entertainment why are they writing this piece why have they made you read this are they trying to emphasize a point like what are they trying to do this paper is harder than paper one because you're given two texts for the same amount of time that you had that one text in paper one that means you're gonna have to read two texts in 10 minutes question one was actually the hardest question in My GCSE paper why was crushing around so hard question one they're trying to trick you out you have to choose four things that are correct or something but this time it's not explicit information it's implicit information that means you really need to understand the text you really need to properly read the text when you're given the time so yeah beware of question one they're trying to trick you out and you need those four marks the gray boundaries in English language are really tight since you guys are going back to the old marking where the gray boundaries were a bit higher the gray boundaries are going to be much tighter too so for question two spend 10 minutes on this again just like paper one but this time you're comparing the two extracts question two will either be like a summary or a comparison or they'll get you to describe like a boat maybe in both extracts and how they're different contrasting you know um my main tip for this question would be to use quotes from one of the extracts to describe the other extract if we're talking about a boat for example an extract one was like it was a big boat the next track two was like it's a large boat I would say extract one shows the same large boat as extract one question three is all about Word level analysis you're gonna hear me saying that all throughout this video Word level analysis I'm gonna put on the screen an example of a paragraph I wrote in my seven out of 12 answer and my 11 out of 12 answer and we're gonna okay don't judge guys I was really bad in my seven out of 12 answer because I totally misunderstood the text um I forgot the paper was non-fiction so I thought I could analysis eyes of black eyes black eyes in a non-fiction text literally mean nothing but I was saying how that person was evil okay guys don't say evil see more lying how that person was maligned that was really bad don't do that remember paper two is non-fiction the people are real some people just have black eyes so don't judge so this is from my um seven now twelve answer however Finn also presents sister Brendan as deceiving by describing her eyes as black and glittering these adjectives are juxtaposed next to each other to emphasize that whilst her score is perfect her intentions are not black symbolizes malignity and portrays no light insinuating that sister Brendan is faking this enthusiastic act all she wants is an exceptional Rapport Finn only has this and then it just goes on waffling okay now I'm gonna read my 11 out of 12 answer the writer immediately describes the fantail switch to being blue packet shaped like an isosceles triangle with one corner missing okay I used a really bad part of the quote but I'm needed it to improve my point this geometrically specific description suggests that the writer admires the sweets and loves them so much that they'll hear a lot of detail to just the wrapping of it they are intrigued as each individual is wrapped in a piece of paper it conveys the writers further care for detail and perhaps his enjoyment of unwrapping the sweets themselves as they are individually wrapped it highlights how the factories have put a lot of effort into the presentation of the suite and the writer admires it as part of the experience of eating them okay my wording is not very good but the analysis is there yeah as you can see I have some perceptive ideas about how there's a lot of detail put into it there's a lot of care and presentation put into it that may not necessarily be right but it was in my interpretation and I brought that idea forward so that's fine also question three is now 15 minutes because it's 12 marks instead of eight marks you should now spend 20 minutes on question four and you should be comparing their attitudes and how they present their attitudes when I say how they present them attitudes I mean their method this is where you can add your perceptive ideas if you're not sure if they're correct you should add them here because you lose nothing for example ideas that you think could be correct but you're not sure you could just say it could be interpretated that thinking will be thinking what we think it will be now moving on to question five where you spend another 45 minutes of your life it doesn't really matter if it's an article essay or a letter because you will have the same essay structure it's only the introduction that changes again in your answer you're going to have three main points that you argue you need to choose what side you're on whether you agree or disagree you do need to take in account the other perspective of the quote but you know you don't need it as much when I say the intro it's different for a letter it could be dear so and so I'm writing to inform you that blah blah blah blah or if it's a news article you would need a headline and then a strap line I'll give you an example what that could be here if it's a magazine article I think you're right in third person if it's a newspaper article you're right in first person that's the only difference between those like I said you need to choose what side of the argument you're on are you for the statement or against a statement if you can't decide right all the points you have for for it and all the points you have against it see which side you have more points for and then argue that side when you're planning I would put your ideas in a mind map then pick your best free ideas and then write it as your answer I'll show an example here as you can see I've done like a mind map with the question and I put my points around then I've added more points for those main points that I could argue and then I've organized them into what um what order I would argue them in and basically the the planning for my essay I'm now going to be telling you what I did as a grade six student and what I changed to become a Grade 9 student I'm more of a maths person so personally English did not come that easy for me luckily I had a good friend who's very good at English actually all my friends are good at English I'm just the only Maps person in my friend group that it is what it is I would look at their answers and what goes through their mind as an English person like why are they getting better grades to me why are they scrolling higher than me I was seeing what they were doing in their answers and I'm going to tell you what I found out as a grade 6 student I was missing four things number one I was not doing Word level analysis I've said this so many times in the video hopefully it's gone into your head you need Word level analysis what I mean by that is I was giving a general overview of the text rather than zooming into particular words however in order to do word level analysis you need number two you need to understand the texts you really do need to read the text at least three times to actually understand it you're going to be Panic reading you're going to be skimming through the text you you just need to calm down breathe breathing is really important that's how you survive breathe and then read the text in your own time it doesn't matter what everyone else is doing block them out in your head do what you need to do for your exam number three three you're not using Advanced vocabulary this is not as important but it does make your answer a bit more professional looking you can say suggests one of my friends just wrote suggests and she got grade nine but that's because she's really good at English for us newbies I would replace the word suggest with portrays emphasizers highlights conveys insinuates when I say replace suggests I mean when you say this suggests that instead of saying that so this highlights how the characters developed this portrays her feelings you know something like that number four do not say what you think the examiner wants you to say because you don't know what examiner wants you to say and the examiner is like why didn't they write this express your own ideas of how the text influences you you are gonna probably find stuff that other people haven't found because you're reading it to yourself for the first time you're interpreting it in a different way that other people are in school when we discuss the texts like for English language after read it I always thought everyone else had much better ideas than me and so I always kept quiet I didn't really say much don't be impressed about it learn what other people are seeing in the text what are they analyzing why have they noticed that there isn't going to be a discussion in the real exam so you're gonna have to express your own ideas you might as well come to terms that they're your ideas and they're actually good ideas if you think about it so keep it up sorry this was kind of a lengthy video I wanted to fit everything into you have the best video you can for English language this is like absolutely everything I could say about English language I don't think I could put anything else in this video if you found this useful which I hope you have because I've always lost my voice for you like And subscribe it's free and I'll see you in the next video bye