GCSE English Literature
There are three main exam boards in the UK offering qualifications at GCSE level in English Literature. These are AQA, Pearson Edexcel and OCR.
Whether you’re a student yourself or a parent looking to provide support hopefully you’ll find something that will help. From how to get started to pointers for making the most of revision resources we’ll cover it all.
Find out what course you're doing
As noted above there are three different exam boards that offer a GCSE in English Literature, and each one will offer a multitude of different options within the specification. Your school website will typically provide details of which exam board they use and which options they choose, but if you’re struggling to find it reach out to your teacher for confirmation.
Broadly, as part of the course you will study something in the following areas:
1) Shakespeare
2) A 19th century novel
3) Poetry
Each school will be able to choose from a number of different options in each area, and so it is really important to be clear on which texts you will cover.
Do your homework before your start
A really good place to start is to familiarise yourself with the specification for the course. Listed below are links to the specifications for each of the exam boards.
Pearson Edexcel – English Literature
When going through these there are a number of things you’re looking for including:
- The number of exam papers you’ll need to sit and how long each one is.
- What texts are covered by which exam.
- How many questions you’ll need to answer and how many marks each is worth.
- The weighting of each paper (are they equally weighted across or does one paper contribute more to your grade than another).
Work to your strengths
When it comes to revision it’s important to identify how you learn best. Some people learn best by making copious notes, some prefer to work visually and will watch videos or make mindmaps. Others prefer to focus solely on question practice. Once you know what works best for you’ll be better placed to work more effectively.
We’ve included some links to some of the most helpful resources we found. Some of these are books you’ll need to purchase from third-parties, others are materials we’ve developed ourselves which we hope you enjoy.
Practice, practice, practice
Your teacher should also spend a lot of time with you explaining how to approach each question so you can maximise the marks you earn. This is something that takes quite a bit of work – so don’t be disheartened if you don’t get it at first. Speak to you teacher and ask them for pointers as to where you can improve. Making mistakes and getting things wrong are all part of learning, in fact you’ll probably learn more from a mistake as it’ll show you where to improve, so embrace it and don’t let it get you down.
Its also a good idea to take a look at some of the mark-schemes and model answers from past papers as these will give you a very good idea of what the examiners are looking for in terms of quantity.
We’ve included links below for past papers for each of the exam boards. Exam boards will not release papers for at least the last two exams taken as these are generally used by teachers as mock-exams. Spend a LOT of time practicing these questions as it won’t just help you remember the content, but will also give you plenty of practice with structuring your answers effectively.
When you’re starting to feel more confident with content then do some past exam papers in exam conditions too – sticking stringently to the time limits as this will encourage good time-management during the exam itself.
Useful Resources
The web is full of useful resources to help with your studies. Whatever your learning style there is something for you. See our separate page ‘English Literature – By Text’ which provides a mixture of downloadable resources and external links to other sites which we have found useful.
Keep up to date
This is a site which is very much growing and each day we try to add more. If you’re keen to stay informed when we upload new resources please sign up to our mailing list and we’ll keep you up to date.