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Whether you're aiming to boost your confidence or push into the top grade, this resource is your secret weapon 💪📚

AQA GCSE English Language Paper 1

Paper Title: Explorations in Creative Reading and Writing
Total Marks: 80
Total Time: 1 hour 45 minutes
Split:

• Section A: Reading (40 marks)

• Section B: Writing (40 marks)

📖 Section A: Reading (1 fiction extract) – 45 mins total

You'll be given an extract from a novel. All questions are based on this.

🔍 Question 1: List four things

Marks: 4
Timing: 5 mins
Style: Very literal—pick out four simple facts or details from a specific part of the text.
✅ Tip: No analysis needed. Just quote or paraphrase accurately. Don't explain!

✨ Question 2: Language analysis

Marks: 8
Timing: 10 mins
Style: How the writer uses language to describe/impact/create effect.
✅ Use a strong paragraph structure, like PETAL
✅ Focus on word choice, similes, metaphors, sentence structure, etc.
🎯 Try to cover 2–3 short quotes and explain how they affect the reader.

🧱 Question 3: Structure analysis

Marks: 8
Timing: 10 mins
Style: How the writer has structured the whole text to interest the reader.
✅ Comment on shifts in focus, contrasts, opening/ending, paragraphing, etc.
✅ Use terms like narrative perspective, zoom in/out, or cyclical structure.
🎯 Try to write 2–3 paragraphs, focusing on the effect of structure.

🗣️ Question 4: Evaluation (your opinion)

Marks: 20
Timing: 20 mins
Style: “To what extent do you agree?”
✅ Use evidence to back up your opinion
✅ Analyse the language/structure like Q2 and Q3
🎯 Make sure to cover both what the writer does and why it's effective

✍️ Section B: Writing – 45 mins total

You'll choose one task, usually a descriptive or narrative writing prompt.

✨ Question 5: Creative writing

Marks: 40
Timing: 45 mins (including planning and proofreading)
Choose ONE of:

• Write a description inspired by a picture

• Write the opening or continuation of a story based on a theme

✅ Spend 5–10 minutes planning (characters, setting, structure)
✅ Use a clear structure—a beginning, a build-up, a high point, and a resolution.
✅ Aim for vivid vocabulary, varied sentence structures, and literary techniques (similes, metaphors, personification, etc.)
✅ Proofread at the end to fix spelling, punctuation, and grammar.

🎯 Marks Breakdown:

• 24 marks for content (imagination, clarity, structure)

• 16 marks for SPaG (Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar)

🕒 Suggested Paper Timing Overview:

✅ Final Tip: Practise each question type individually AND as full papers. The more familiar you are, the more confident you’ll feel on exam day 💚

AQA GCSE English Language Paper 2

Paper Title: Writers’ Viewpoints and Perspectives
Total Marks: 80
Total Time: 1 hour 45 minutes
Split:

• Section A: Reading (40 marks)

• Section B: Writing (40 marks)

📖 Section A: Reading – 1 hour total

You’ll be given two non-fiction texts (from different time periods). All questions are based on comparing and analysing these.

📋 Question 1: True or false

Marks: 4
Timing: 5 mins
Style: Select four statements that are true based on Source A
✅ Tip: Just shade or tick the correct boxes—no explaining needed. Be careful not to infer or assume anything that isn’t directly in the text!

✨ Question 2: Summary

Marks: 8
Timing: 10 mins
Style: Summarise differences or similarities between the two sources.
✅ Focus on content only, not language
✅ Use short quotes to back up your points
🎯 Use a simple structure like:

• Both texts show... but in different ways

• Source A says... whereas Source B shows...

🔍 Question 3: Language analysis

Marks: 12
Timing: 15 mins
Style: How does the writer use language to... (only Source B)
✅ Choose 2–3 quotes and zoom in on word choices, tone, figurative language, etc.
✅ Talk about effect on the reader
🎯 Use PETAL or PEAZ (Point, Evidence, Analyse, Zoom-in)

⚖️ Question 4: Comparison of viewpoints

Marks: 16
Timing: 20 mins
Style: Compare the writers’ attitudes/viewpoints and how they express them
✅ Cover both content and tone/language
✅ Comment on methods (tone, emotive language, rhetorical devices)
✅ Use comparison phrases: whereas, similarly, on the other hand
🎯 Structure tip: alternate between sources (A then B) or group points by theme

✍️ Section B: Writing – 45 mins total

You’ll write a non-fiction text—often a letter, article, speech, or essay—on a given topic.

🗣️ Question 5: Transactional writing

Marks: 40
Timing: 45 mins (include planning + proofreading)
Examples:

• Write a letter to your MP about school lunches 🍽️

• Write a speech arguing for or against mobile phones in schools 📱

• Write an article about the importance of protecting the environment 🌍

✅ Identify form, audience and purpose—this affects your tone and structure
✅ Use clear paragraphs and linking devices (however, furthermore, in contrast)
✅ Include rhetorical techniques: facts/statistics, emotive language, direct address
✅ Plan your 3–4 main points before you begin
🎯 Marks Breakdown:

• 24 marks for content (how convincing, clear, and structured your argument is)

• 16 marks for SPaG (Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar)

🕒 Suggested Paper Timing Overview:

✅ Top Tip: Know how to adapt your tone—formal for a letter to an authority figure, passionate and persuasive for a speech, and informative but engaging for an article.