English Language Exam 16 th Nov Two Papers – ONE hour each taken in succession: Reading: 4 questions that fall into Tracking and Retrieving, HOW and Comparison types. Each one should take 12.5 minutes and you need to make 10 points for each. If you don’t stick to the timing, you won’t finish the paper. Writing: 2 non-fiction writing tasks that take 30 minutes each. You need to divide the 30 minutes into: Planning – 5 minutes. Writing – 20 minutes. Proof Reading – 5 minutes. Remember – SSPS is worth 35% of your GCSE grade. English Literature Exam 23 rd Nov Two Papers taken on different days: Paper 1 (2 hours) – Of Mice and Men / Poetry: 1 hour - Of Mice and Men (Extract and Essay) – must show contextual knowledge) 1 hour – Poetry Extract Questions (20 minutes) 3 quotations from across the extract using WAC Essay Questions (40 minutes) The 40 minutes is divided into: Planning – 5 minutes. Writing – 30 minutes. Proof Reading – 5 minutes. Remember – SSPS is still graded on Literature.

1.Ensure that you know the difference between the different types of questions. 2.Make sure know the different types of language devices needed for a “HOW” question. 3.Ensure you know how many points you need per question for your target grade. 4.Do some wider reading of non-fiction texts – newspapers, web pages, travel writing, magazines etc. 5.Remind yourself of the reading strategies needed to help you if you come across challenging words in a text. 6.Practise past papers using a stop watch. Remember – the key thing about the language paper is how much you can do in the time required.

1.Ensure you know what the different non-fiction texts look like. 2.Learn the features/language devices needed for the different non- fiction text types. 3.Practise using a variety of sentence types (INSPACED). 4.Practise and revise your key punctuation marks – especially apostrophes. 5.Learn key homophones and spelling rules. 6.Practise past papers using a stop watch. Remember – you must divide your 30 minutes into planning, writing and proofreading. 7.Make a proofreading checklist that you can use in the exam. Remember that SSPS is worth 33% of your writing grade, therefore is it essential. 8.Practise writing in a formal tone or from a different viewpoints – again this can be done by looking at past exam questions.