here is the ultimate guide to writing a solid grade 9 english lit essay this is the second part of a series that i'm doing to help you ace your gcse exams and today i'm going to be going through everything from how to plan your essays under exam pressure to how to analyze quotes to get the top marks okay so before you even start reading the extract make sure to read the question at least three times if your essay doesn't answer the question it is really difficult for the examiner to give you any marks at all so it is pivotal that you understand the question also by reading the question first you'll know exactly what to look for when you're reading the text so that will save you a lot of time the next thing to do is to read the passage and i always take my time on this even though i'm not a particularly fast reader also i always highlight anything that i think will be relevant to answering the question i know some people use lots of different colors but for me personally i think that takes too much time and making your exam paper aesthetic won't boost your grade at all something my teacher always emphasized is that the actual extract that you use and you write on never goes off to the exam board unless they request it so you can write all over the page if that's something that helps you one thing to note however is that when i'm highlighting i never highlight more than five words if it's a phrase because the exam board is looking for close textual analysis and if it's anything more than that you won't be able to fully analyze the quote after reading the extract once i will always skim through it again very quickly and then read through anything i've highlighted then i will write my so-called plan which literally takes about two minutes essentially i will quickly group all the quotes i've highlighted in my head to come up with around four or five points and quickly jot them down then i will order them in terms of how good they are and usually i will use about three of them because it's always more important to talk about a point in depth rather than just glossing over and having six or seven points if it's an unseen paper where we have about one hour and fifteen then i will usually use four points but if not three is more than enough okay so after you've made your plan it is really important to have a framework that you can use for basically every analytical essay that you write since you only have 45 minutes in the exam and you've probably already used five minutes planning and reading the extract you'll only have about 40 minutes to really write so my teacher says it's basically futile to have an introduction because people generally just restate their points in the intro and so the examiner can't really give you any extra points because you're not adding any layers to your essay so if the question is how does the author make this extract memorable i would start off by saying one way in which the author makes this extract memorable is through x i would then add in quotes and analyze them to support whatever point i put forward my second paragraph would then start with another way in which the author makes this extract memorable is through why and my third paragraph would be a further way in which the author makes this extract memorable is through zed this allows the examiner to quickly identify the points that you've mentioned in the essay and also gives you a really easy framework to stick with so if you panic or you're in a stressful situation you can literally just apply this it also makes you feel so much more confident because after you've practiced so many times if it comes on the second nature also essentially what you're doing is rewording the questions so it helps keep your answer focused and helps ensure that everything you're writing is relevant to the question now let's talk about how to analyze quotes so it is really important to have a huge bank of synonyms for the word suggest so have words like implies conveys demonstrates connotes evokes insinuates illustrates displays and creates throughout your essay you should also know some synonyms for emphasize like enhances highlights strengthens heightens etc now this next tip is the most important and will help you boost your score to the top band so instead of saying the phrase grab the golden goose is alliteration and insulting the examiner's intelligence as my teacher would say incorporate it into your analysis and say the alliteration of the guttural g in the phrase grab the golden goose suggests xyz other language features that are really common in texts are sibilants similes metaphors and monosyllabic phrases so make sure to use them in your essay if they are in the text and are relevant to answering your question also when analyzing specific words you could say the adjective obnoxious implies xyz or the verb scrambles insinuates xyz okay so now let's move on to different types of texts today i'm going to be talking about plays prose text and poetry so as obvious as it seems it's really important to demonstrate to the examiner that you know your different text types so for example if it's a play make sure that you talk about the audience so if it's a shakespeare play talk about the reactions of a shakespearean contemporary audience versus a modern audience also you could talk about directorial interpretation and make sure you pick up on the status of different characters through the way in which they speak so for example some characters will speak in blank verse others will speak in free verse and prose so the next text type we're gonna move on to is prose text and the only piece of advice i really have for this is have an army of synonyms for unsettling like disconcerting sinister ominous eerie and easy daunting etc because at least from my specs cie they always had these relatively ominous eerie texts in the unseen and just by learning some synonyms beforehand this helped me avoid repeating certain words like unsettling in my analysis finally for poetry i always make sure that i have a paragraph dedicated to talking about the title and structure of the piece this is really important because it's a really easy way to incorporate a lot of language features so for example you can talk about the enjambment sejura and what the implications are and also the rhyme scheme and rhythm of the poem now let's talk about some really common mistakes so firstly don't say emphasize if you haven't established a point yet because there is nothing to emphasize so instead you would say something like the phrase x creates an unsettling atmosphere through why and then every time after that you can say that it emphasizes the unnerving or sinister atmosphere but not before that secondly make sure you don't make easy grammar mistakes so for example apostrophes make sure you sort those things out before you go into the exam because you don't want to lose marks over the nitty-gritty thing some examiners are really strict on this and that will really cost you finally let's talk about pronouns and nouns so this is something that i really struggled with at the beginning of year 10 and although it sounds really simple to substitute the character's name with he him she her they them sometimes you can get really caught up in the analysis and forget to interchange them apart from that you could also refer to a character as the latter or the former and that will help you avoid repeating the same words over and over again if you enjoyed this video then make sure to subscribe for more gcse content and motivation to study also give this video a cheeky thumbs up if you found it useful and comment down below what subjects you're taking for gcse anyways i hope you guys have a productive week and hopefully i will see you guys on my next video [Music]