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Ready for GCSE English

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Everything you have learned in Key Stage 3 leads into GCSE. Most students study GCSE English Language, and many also take GCSE English Literature. Here is how your Key Stage 3 skills fit in.

Two different GCSEs

An example: Pearson Edexcel

Schools choose an exam board (such as AQA, Pearson Edexcel, OCR or Eduqas). In Pearson Edexcel GCSE English Language, Paper 1 has an unseen 19th-century fiction extract and imaginative writing; Paper 2 has two non-fiction extracts and transactional writing. Spoken Language is a separate endorsement, reported apart from the 9 to 1 grade.

Your KS3 skills at GCSE

Inference and evidence: every reading question.
Language and structure analysis: with subject terms.
Comparison: poems and non-fiction texts.
Context: linked to the texts.
Writing: imaginative and transactional, with accurate spelling, punctuation and grammar.
Worked example

A friend says 'I don't need to learn quotations because I can take the book into the exam.' Is that right?

  1. GCSE English Literature in England is closed book.
  2. You cannot take the text into the exam.
  3. So you need to learn short, useful quotations.

Answer: No. GCSE English Literature exams in England are closed book, so you need to learn key quotations.

Key idea

English Language tests unseen reading and your own writing; English Literature tests set texts, including Shakespeare, a 19th-century novel, poetry and a modern British text. Literature exams in England are closed book.

The interactive lesson includes the diagrams for this topic.

Check you have got it

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Practise this lesson free (6 questions)All KS3 English lessons