 GCSE exams start in exactly seven weeks from today. So that's 49 days from today when the exams will officially start on the 15th of May. Now, if you're new here, live in, understand me, this is a super stressful time for you. You're spending lots of play. So it's trying to stay on top of English as well as all these other topics. So to make your life easier, what we'll be doing is I'm going to be releasing a series of videos in the final countdown to the final GCSE exams, just to make your life easier when it comes to preparing for the English language, paper one, paper two, as well as the English literature, paper one and paper two exams this summer. Now, as you can see behind me, what I want to show you is exactly how you can revise for the English language, paper one exams. Okay, as you can see behind me, what I've done is created a very simplified grid to really make it easy to understand how to revise for the language, paper one, which is the fiction paper. And by the way, if you are keen on getting slightly more direct feedback and intensive revision lessons, I will be running a series of Easter group classes. So make sure you check the description box and sign up for these group classes where I'm going to be going over the 2022 exams all the way to the past papers in 2017 released by AQA. So do make sure you sign up for that. However, as I've mentioned, in addition to that, obviously I will be releasing lots of revision videos in the countdown to the final exams and to simplify your life and to make it much easier, especially to grasp how you can even prepare for the language paper one exams. What I would suggest is break it up and make it a slightly easier to understand grid system. Okay, so when it comes to language paper one, to be honest, there's just four major things to bear in mind and four major components to simplify your life when revising and preparing for this part of your exams. Okay, so let's begin with timings and structure. When it comes to understanding, if you take a step back, looking at language paper one where it tests you on, how is the exam paper structured? How is it laid out and what should you anticipate? Okay, so firstly, let's talk about timings. Okay, as I mentioned, in terms of the structure and the layout for language paper one, you've got five questions in total. Okay, and it's usually one hour, 45 minutes long. Okay, obviously you adjust depending on whether you've got extra time or not. Now in terms of planning your response and especially when you're now downloading and revising different papers, make sure you always spend 10 minutes reading all five questions as well as the insert that you're given. Then for question number one, which is where you're given four statements that you need to find from the first paragraph within the extract. Okay, so it's a statement question. You write four separate sentences, no evidences needed. Spend five minutes on this question. For question number two, which is the language question, spend 10 minutes on this question, write two pill paragraphs. Then for question number three, which is the structure question, spend around 10 minutes on this question. And of course, again, try to aim to write two pill paragraphs. Question number four, which is worth 20 marks. This is the statement. You're given a statement, usually a student having read this said, blah, blah, blah. For this question, make sure you spend 20 minutes on this question. And for question number five, which is the creative or descriptive writing question, you choose one, don't write about both. This question, which is to do with imaginative writing, spend a total of 50 minutes for this question. That is the structure that you should be by this stage if you're in year 11, you need to know inside out, back to front. You need to know literally, when I look at paper one, this is exactly how it's structured. There's five questions, here's my timings, and this is what I should anticipate for every single question, okay? That's the first thing. However, one of the things that you need to also be very, very crystal clear on by this stage is the difference between language and structure, especially because you need to know these differences when answering questions one to four in section eight. So let's quickly just talk about a very short list I've created when it comes to language techniques to identify and structure techniques, especially if you're short on time, if you don't necessarily have lots of time to maybe wrap your mind around all the different language and structure techniques. Of course, I will still say you have some time, but this is if you are pressed for time, these are the top five language and structural devices to bear in mind. Remember, language, when you're asked to write about language, especially for question number two, and of course, when you talk about language and question number four, language refers to things like alliteration, metaposimil, oxymoron, and semantic field. These are the top five language techniques, I would argue. You will find in any unseen fiction extract that you get presented to you, okay? And this is especially relevant for question number two, where you're asked to write about language. Now, when it comes to question number three, where you're asked to talk about, you know, the whole of the source, how does the writer structure the text to interest you as a reader? When it comes to structure, these are the top five structural devices to consider. The first is think about how the structure is, or rather the extract, how does it begin versus how does it end? That's the first thing when you're considering structure. The second thing when we're considering structure is, for instance, sentence types. And to be honest, the most common form of sentence, this is a very easy win, is you can identify declarative sentence. Okay, declarative sentence is, a sentence that states a fact, feeling or mood. Other structural techniques are listing repetition and narrative voice. First person versus third person, that counts as structure. This is really important, especially when it comes to, when you're answering questions, two, three as well as four. However, let's now talk about how to prepare for question number five. This is the question that's worth half of the overall's marks or half of the overall paper's marks and what you should anticipate. So of course, when it comes to question number five, where you are writing imaginatively, you are either presented with a creative story exercise or you are presented with a descriptive writing piece. Okay, you choose one, not both, but I would suggest at this stage, try to practice both and try to get familiar with both in case you get like a really difficult creative question. You can then go for descriptive writing and vice versa, okay? Let's talk about the framework for creative writing. Always go for the story mountain, five paragraph framework, to be honest, same goes for descriptive writing, five paragraphs. When it comes to story writing, always start off with your beginning where you introduce the setting, the weather, create the mood. Then as you're climbing up your story mountain, your build-up is your character, the adventure that they're going on, okay? How do they encounter something and what is really interesting in their adventure? The problem, this is the top of the mountain, this is the issue, the obstacle, the villain that they face. The resolution, which is now we're going down back down the mountain is there's some kind of climax created, they somehow overcome this problem of this issue. And then of course, the ending, it can either end as a cliffhanger or as this kind of unexpected twist, whatever, okay? That is your structure for creative writing. However, of course, don't forget to also practice descriptive writing, okay? Now when it comes to descriptive writing, as I mentioned, I tend to go for these concentric circles. Remember with story writing and creative writing. You can start at one point on your story mountain and end at a completely different point, right? So you can start off at this point where your character, it's daytime, et cetera, and then you can end in a totally different place, darkness, et cetera. You can't do that with descriptive writing. It's very static. You're given, for example, an image and you've got to just keep it within that image, okay? That's what makes it quite challenging. Now when it comes to descriptive writing and structuring your responses, I would suggest a five paragraph framework, starting off with your first paragraph, looking at the image that you're presented, thinking about what's going on in the outside, okay? So for example, what's the setting like? What's the weather like? That's your first paragraph, you go into detail describing that. Your second paragraph is your atmosphere and mood, okay? So now you're going a little bit more specific in the descriptive image. You describe, okay, is it like a tense atmosphere? Is it a menacing atmosphere? Is it a positive atmosphere? You need to describe that in one paragraph. Then your third paragraph is your central focus. So now this is where when you're given the image, you write about what's the most obvious thing, okay? Do not start your descriptive writing with the most obvious thing with your central focus. Otherwise, you're going to max yourself out and then you're not going to have anywhere else to go. So keep it to the third paragraph, at least, where you're describing the most obvious thing within the descriptive writing image. Then your fourth paragraph is described with the central focus, the most obvious thing. What could the central focus's feelings be? You can also have feelings for inanimate objects, okay? And then your fifth and final paragraph is then ever so slight change. Could you also introduce that? And remember, of course, when you're writing either descriptively or in terms of creative writing, you need to obviously use sensory language, okay? So make sure you're using lots of sensory language relating to taste, sound, sight, and so on, okay? So as I mentioned, use this grid structure when you are figuring out and when you are preparing for your English language, paper one exam. And what I've done as well, guys, is I've created a download link. So I've created this grid as a nice little PDF. I'm going to also add the link for where you can download it if you feel like this grid would be useful, okay? So it's going to be free for download. You can download it and use it and print it and use it as many times as you want. So I hope that really helps. And of course, make sure you come back tomorrow where I'm going to be going over other areas of English language and more specifically English language paper two. Thank you so much for listening.