How to Revise for GCSE English
GCSE English Revision Guide: How to Revise
Tackling your GCSE English revision can feel overwhelming. Getting started sooner rather than later and revising well rather than lots is key to succeeding. While it can be hard to know how to go about revising for GCSE English, our comprehensive guide is designed to equip you with scientifically-backed strategies so you can revise effectively and do your best in your GCSE English exam.
We’ll walk you through how to structure your GCSE English revision, how to create clear notes and tips for learning them by heart and acing exam technique. With our tips and insights, you'll be well-prepared to tackle your GCSE English exam with confidence!
How to schedule your GCSE English revision
It can be really tempting when you sit down to start revision to spend hours and hours curating and colour coding your revision timetable. We’ve all done it. But it really doesn’t help.
A revision timetable is important. It is there to guide and structure your revision and ensure you cover all the content you need to in time for your exam. It should prioritise the content you don’t know or find most challenging and it should be flexible so you are constantly revising things that feel difficult.
Before you start planning out your GCSE English revision, you should spend some time reviewing. Make a list of all the topics that will come up in your GCSE English exam. Go through each of them and colour code them using a traffic light system (green, orange, red) according to how confident you would feel if you had to take the exam tomorrow.
When you plan your revision, make sure that the GCSE English topics you’ve colour coded red are the ones that you study first and dedicate more time to. Then you can schedule in the orange topics and any green ones around that. This way you can be sure that you will feel confident on all the GCSE English topics by the time of your exam and there won’t be any you still find really difficult.
U2 Tuition Quick Tip: When time-blocking your days, it’s really important to schedule in plenty of time for breaks. You cannot study nine hours straight and even if you do, it’s not an efficient way of remembering things. Find a pattern that works for you. I like working with the pomodoro method, working 25 minutes intensively and then taking a 5 minute break to get up, stretch and look away from my screen, and then taking longer breaks at various points throughout the day.
How to create notes for GCSE English Revision
If you have lots of time before your GCSE English exams, it’s never too early to start creating a bank of notes. If you can create a database throughout your studies, writing concise notes about key scenes, quotations and characters, this will save you a lot of time when it comes to the actual revision period. However, even if the exams are looming, it’s still important to create some short, clear notes for you to reference.
When creating your GCSE English revision notes, have a look at your exam board’s assessment objectives or AOs. For example, for AQA English Literature GCSE, the AOs are:
Based off of these, I would know that when making my GCSE English revision notes, I need to include:
key quotations (to meet AO1’s requirement of “textual references, including quotations”)
some key analytical terms and analysis (to make sure I can analyse language, form and structure for AO2)
historical and literary context (to meet the AO3 requirement)
So, when forming your revision notes, you need to think about including all of these so that you can memorise them for the GCSE English exam.
Start with making sure you are confident with what happens. It can be really helpful to have a set of notes that include summaries of key events and details in all your GCSE English set texts. You don’t need to condense every scene of all five acts of your Shakespeare play or every chapter of the novel you study but pick out what you think the key moments are and briefly summarise them.
As you do so, also think about key themes and central characters. For each of these, you want to create a short bank of key quotations. You can’t memorise the whole text so be selective.
U2 Tuition Quick Tip: Pick short and effective quotes to memorise. Long quotes aren’t necessarily better for your argument and are much harder to learn. It will also help reduce your work if you can pick some quotes that apply to multiple topics.
The way you create these notes is up to you. You might prefer a mind map over a list. Don’t spend too long writing them out. They don’t need to look pretty, they just need to be there so you can refer back to them and memorise them. What really matters with revision is the time you spend recalling and memorising information. Copying it out doesn’t help it stick in your brain but actively recalling it does.
You will also want to create some notes on key context:
What do you know about the historical period of your text?
What was happening when it was written?
Are contemporary religious, political or social views key to understanding it?
How do you think you respond to it differently as a modern reader?
U2 Tuition Quick Tip: Breaking down more intensive revision with other activities can also help maintain your focus. When you get tired of revising and note-taking, you could try watching adaptations of your set texts or reading modern retellings to inform your awareness of their literary context. There are also lots of great podcasts available that can help you recap the plot and remember key details. In Our Time (BBC) has a range of useful podcasts available, including ones with lots of historical context.
As you go through your notes, this is also a great opportunity to check what you don’t understand. It’s really important to be proactive about your GCSE English revision and use the resources you have available to you. If you have questions, write down a list of them and then take them to your teacher to get clarification. Alternatively, if you’d prefer more tailored, one-to-one attention, you could have some sessions with a private tutor to help you. Find out more about the tutoring we offer to help with GCSE English revision and other subjects here.
How to memorise your GCSE English Revision Notes: Active Recall
Active recall is a learning technique that involves actively engaging with the material you are trying to learn by testing yourself, rather than passively reviewing your notes or textbooks. The process requires you to retrieve information from memory, which strengthens neural connections and enhances long-term information retention, ideal for your GCSE English exam.
There are lots of different ways you can practise active recall, for example self-testing, teaching the material to someone else, answering questions.
Flashcards are one of the simplest ways to test yourself. Once you’ve built your notes, condense them even more onto a set of flashcards. It’s important that one side has a question e.g. “What are three key quotes on money in Merchant of Venice?” and the other, the answer. You may also want to use online flashcard resources like Quizlet or Anki and make your own flashcard decks on there.
Flashcards work through regular repetition and practice. Make sure you come back to them frequently. Online flashcards often allow you to “star” or mark the ones you find challenging or will automatically test you more on ones you get wrong. This is a great feature to make sure you are working most on what you find hardest. You can make it more fun by getting someone else to test you or practising with friends and testing each other.
Spaced repetition is also key to long-term retention. With spaced repetition, you review what you have learned regularly, at increasing intervals. To start with, it’s really useful to summarise what you have learned at the end of a session (from memory, not your notes!) and then to recall what you studied the previous day at the start of the next one. Here’s a great video if you’d like to learn more about how to apply spaced repetition to your GSCE English revision.
Using GCSE English past papers
GCSE English past papers are an invaluable revision method to get you confident with exam content, timing and technique. You can find GCSE English past papers online on exam board websites.
We highly recommend using them throughout your revision process, even at the beginning. They’re a great way to test what you remember and practise active recall, testing what you can remember about different topics.
Early in your revision, start small. You don’t want to try and write a whole GCSE English past paper in timed conditions before you’ve even memorised any quotes. Find a past paper essay question and try and plan out a first point. Start without your notes, setting a timer for 10-20 minutes and seeing what you can remember. Afterwards, go back with your notes and develop your ideas. See what you missed out, what you could add in, how you could develop your point, and start to form your answer. This kind of active recall, applying information to a question, is a really great revision technique.
As you build your confidence, you can try planning the whole answer. Then, try and write your introduction, the first paragraph and so on. This way you can build up to being able to practice GCSE English past papers in timed conditions.
It’s important to practise a few papers in full so you can get a feel for what works best for you: how long to spend on planning, writing and checking for example. Practising GCSE English past papers allows you to get used to the time constraints and grow comfortable with the format of exam questions.
However, you don’t need to do a GCSE English past paper in full every time you sit down to revise. You can break up your revision, picking just one question from the paper to plan or write in order to practise a specific topic. You should make sure you’re working on the past paper questions you find hardest and ensure that you get valuable feedback on these.
If you can, hand any past paper practice you do in to a teacher to get them marked. You may also want to work with a tutor for your GCSE English revision so you can get tailored feedback and work to improve areas of weakness. A GCSE English tutor can also create supplementary resources in the style of GCSE English past papers so you have more to work from.
Practising Close Analysis with GCSE English Past Papers
GCSE English past papers are an important way to practise close and unseen analysis. According to your exam board, the questions you will be asked will vary but generally students are expected to analyse:
a passage from one of their set texts
an unseen poem
Both require the same set of close analysis skills that you can build through practice.
For good close analysis, you’ll need a bank of key language analysis terms that you understand the meaning of. Remember, just stating something is a “metaphor” or a “superlative” is not enough. You always need to show the effect of the language being used.
In addition to GCSE English Past Papers, you can also pick out sections of your set texts for different themes and practice analysing them. For unseen poetry, The Poetry Foundation site is a rich resource, especially their poem of the day which you can get delivered to your inbox. This can be a great opportunity to think about and practise close analysis on a regular basis.
For more tips on GCSE English close analyse, have a look at our How to analyse a poem guide.
Final Top Tips for GCSE English Revision
Make concise, clear topic notes
Don’t waste time making your notes pretty. Focus on making sure they are structured and laid out in a clear and useful way. Identify key events, themes and characters and build up concise notes for each
Memorise short, versatile quotes
Pick quotations that are short as you will remember them more easily. Ideally, choose quotations that aren’t niche and can apply to multiple topics. This helps you prepare for a greater range of questions.
Actively recall your notes
Don’t passively copy out information. Test yourself throughout your GCSE English revision. Use flashcards, get tested by friends and family so you quickly learn your notes by heart.
Practise lots with past papers
GCSE English past papers are vital in the revision process. They give you the opportunity to apply active recall to specific questions and to grow confident with the exam format and time constraints. Make sure you are also getting feedback wherever you can: swap essays with friends or get feedback from a teacher or a private tutor.
Take breaks and make it fun
Taking breaks is crucial to maintaining your concentration throughout the day. Work smarter and you will ultimately remember more. If you find ways to make your GCSE English revision more fun and varied, it will also be easier to remember. So work with friends, listen to podcasts and watch adaptations of your set texts to engage with them in different ways.
Looking for a Top GCSE English Revision Tutor?
We have an outstanding team of specialist GCSE English tutors, most of whom hold degrees from Oxford and Cambridge, and have years of experience in GCSE tuition. Our private tutors are well-equipped to help students achieve their desired grades. Whether it's through assisting with GCSE English past paper practice and feedback, creating a structured revision plan or helping enhance their learning, our tutors are here to support you on the journey through GCSEs. See below for more details.
The GCSE English Tuition Process
1) We recommend an Oxbridge graduate with a specialism in GCSE English as a mentor, sending their full CV for review
We will select a GCSE English private tutor with the most experience of the student’s examination board. All our GCSE English tutors are Oxbridge-educated and highly experienced in leading students to GCSE success.
2) We recommend beginning with a 1-1.5 hour diagnostic first session
In an initial session, the tutor will get to know the student and assess their current level in GCSE English, discussing and assessing their strengths and weaknesses. After the session, you’ll be sent an in-depth feedback report on your child’s performance and a plan for future sessions. We’ll make sure you are happy with the tutor before moving forward.
3) Regular GCSE English revision sessions
Following the first session, the tutor will make a plan for a structured approach to learning and revision, ensuring they cover all the necessary topics in preparation for the GCSE English exam. With lots of past paper practice, specific feedback and tailored strategies for improving exam technique, our GCSE English tutors will strengthen the student’s performance and help them excel in their English GCSE exams. We offer sessions both in-person in London and online, able to flexibly suit your schedule.
Sessions from £75/h + VAT.