 Hello and welcome back to another GCSE revision video. Now guys, this video today is going to be a first for this channel. For those of you that follow this channel, you've subscribed, you've watched the videos, you will know that this channel focuses on trying to get you guys those grades 7, 8 and 9, okay? Trying to get you guys into ideally model English students who get those grades 8 and 9 in your final GCSE. Whilst lots of you guys have really benefited from those lessons, the model answers and so on. There's also been quite a number of you guys who've put in the comments, who've messaged me, who've even emailed me and said, okay, it's really useful to know what it takes to get that grade 8 and grade 9. However, for me, I actually just want to pass English and be done, okay? I just want to get these English GCSEs. I want to get my grade 4, my grade 5, simply just pass my GCSEs and then I'm out of here. Then I'm going to move on to do exactly what I want. So when it comes to those of you who simply just want to see what it takes to get a pass, okay? A grade 4. What a grade 4 response looks like. What I'm going to do in today's lesson is literally tell you guys my top three tips. When it comes to just trying to secure that grade 4 slash grade 5, follow these tips and you will be absolutely fine for your upcoming exams. But then also what I want to do towards the end of that video or this video is show you guys what a grade 4 paragraph looks like so that you can kind of also see in the actual real time what it, you know, what goes into a grade 4 and a grade 5 paragraph, okay? And actually this is taken from AQA's examiner responses, okay? So I literally scoured the internet, found some really interesting and marked AQA responses which show a grade 4 response. And what I also want to do is juxtapose it with also a real student response which got a grade 8, okay? Just to show you guys, especially for those of you that want to get a grade 4 or grade 5, this is what your paragraphs should look like by the time your GCSEs come round. But also guys, I want to show you in case, for example, you're currently on a grade 3, grade 4 or grade 5 and you just want to maybe budge up your marks just a little bit. You're not interested in the grade 8, grade 9, but you want to maybe see, can I incorporate some elements from say a grade 8 response and maybe include that? I want to show you a model response to the same question, okay? So when it comes to those of you guys who have heavily requested for this video and you just simply want to know, okay, what are the three main things I need to do between now and my final GCSE English exams that's going to get me that grade 4? These are the three things of my three top suggestions. Number one, you want to almost play with the mark scheme and think, okay, what is the easiest way to get as many marks as possible in just the simplest way? And in all honesty, guys, I've noted or written SPAG is half the battle. SPAG means spelling punctuation and grammar. Guys, bear in mind that when it comes to your GCSE exams, okay, so GCSE language and GCSE literature, SPAG points are worth 20% of marks available for these exam questions, meaning if you literally just focus on making sure that your spelling punctuation and grammar is on point, you literally are securing 20% of the marks available for your language and literature paper, okay? So literally, you've literally fought most of the battle simply by focusing on writing in a way that is accurate in terms of spelling, punctuation and grammar. That's the first thing, okay? So pay attention to your SPAG. The second thing that you should do between now and your final exams, if you want to secure that grade four, grade five is always see English GCSEs as a memory game. Remember that when it comes to English, and this is both for language as well as literature. It's all about what you can remember when it comes to techniques, the language and structure, when it comes to quotes, when it even comes to storytelling and also the nonfiction aspect. So guys, a great way to secure that grade four slash grade five in your final GCSEs is literally memorize, number one, a really powerful story plan. Don't memorize like a whole actual story, okay? Because you want to memorize a story plan, which you can then kind of twist and use in different story ideas, okay? That's for question number one or rather question number five of language paper one. But also for language paper two, try to make sure you memorize some interesting made up anecdotes or statistics, okay? So you can say, you know, I'm going to go in and say, if I'm supporting an idea, I'm going to say 75% of students interviewed by Oxford University believe that, keywords in the question for question number five for language paper two, okay? And of course also this memory game applies to literature, okay? For literature paper one, paper two, this is Shakespeare, Christmas Carol, whatever. Memorise at least one quotation and one context point and you're absolutely fine for your language and literature exams. And the third and final thing to do if you want to secure that grade four and grade five in your final GCSE exams is make sure you try every question, a minimum of one paragraph per question. Now, a really common mistake that students make, they assume that English is negative marking, right? So for example, if you write a paragraph and maybe some of the ideas that you've put in the paragraph don't directly answer the question, oh, you know, you might as well have not written it because you're now going to start losing marks. There is no negative marking in English, okay? In fact, with English, it's all about how much you can write, okay? Because even if you write something that roughly maybe 30% of it is actually answering the question, well, you're getting at least those 30% of marks, right? As opposed to say math, science, whatever, it's either right or wrong, okay? So if you at least write one paragraph per question, well, you're maximizing your chances of collecting marks as you go along with each question within the exam, okay? So try your best to make sure you answer every single question. Now, what I want to now present to you is especially when you're thinking, okay, this is great. This is super useful. What would my paragraphs need to look like if I'm literally just trying to get that grade four? So as I said, I have selected an actual student response, in fact, two student responses that AQA examiners marked, and then this is public information, okay? So if you literally want to download this, you can just go and google and find this. And the question, this is a language paper one question two response, okay? This is language question. And this was the question for this particular paper is how does it write to use language to describe the storm? By the way, this was the paper, it's called a mock paper. And the main story was to do with Alex Colt, okay? Again, you can find this available online if you want to practice that paper, okay? Now, I want to first go over a grade four response to of course remember the keywords in this question is language. So you're talking about techniques and also when you're considering the other keyword, the storm. Let's have a look at a graded response by AQA. What does a grade four paragraph look like, okay? So the student and also of course, as you can see, there's different colors to this paragraph because basically it's been laid out in a point evidence explanation structure, okay? So the opening point in this grade four response was in line six to 11, the writer uses language to describe the storm by being descriptive. What have they done? That's good. Firstly, they've used keywords from the question, language and storm. And of course, they've just launched straight into the answer by answering that question, okay? Then they move into the evidence, okay? So this is how they, this is the quotation they've chosen. The readers in the reader's head wind lashing the trees. This gives us a good image in our head. Again, what has the student done really well in this part of their evidence? They have obviously selected evidence from the text, okay? Again, lots of students literally forget this, okay? And then they're like, why did I get a grade three in this response? Well, you haven't used evidence, okay? And essentially simple as including this. Now let's look at the explanation. I'm going to read it and then kind of tell you guys what has been done that's strong, but also something to bear in mind, especially even if you're aiming for a four or a five, what to pay attention to, okay? Wind lashing makes us feel that the storm is very violent. Picture the roaring pacific ocean. This emphasizes that the sea is very aggressive and angry. Roaring this personification, the writer has used this to represent the sea as massive aggressive and as unhappy. Tangled suggests that he is struggling to forget about the storm. Now, again, this grade four response is great in so far as in the explanation part, adding and kind of analyzing interesting quotations, okay? So they first talk about, you know, this quotation that they've used, then they add another quotation and also they've mentioned interesting subject terminology, the word personification, okay? And that means, obviously, they're getting the A02 marks. However, what they've maybe confused themselves through doing, okay? So they've written a lot, okay? They've literally written 13 lines and this is a grade four paragraph. What they have done is they've gone off from this one quotation, which in your explanation, your pill paragraph, you just want to unpack and go into detail, maybe zoom in a little bit on. And they've just added lots and lots of different quotations, which means that their analysis is a little bit fragmented, they don't go into a lot of detail. And literally, they've added and they've written in so many lines, but the, so they've worked really hard. In fact, they've worked just as hard as a grade eight student, okay? So the grade eight student did one extra line, 14 lines. So this person has actually written just as much, okay? But they've added lots of different quotations rather than doing one quote and then a deep dive, okay? So if you just are aiming for a grade four or grade five, try to also pay attention to the quality of your analysis. It's good to add your quotation, but rather than adding a bunch of different quotations, literally take that one quote, take the word, identify and label it and then go into detail what images it paint in our minds. Now, I want to also present the grade eight response. Of course, if you're aiming for a grade four, grade five, grade eight might not be just something that you're interested in, okay? It doesn't fit into your overall goals and that's okay. However, what I wanted to present to you with this grade eight paragraph is so that in case, for example, you're in a grade four, but you may be thinking, okay, how can I just make it slightly better, okay? How can I tweak it to at least try and get to the grade five or even the grade six? Pay attention to, you know, the language that's used in this paragraph and then also see, okay, when I look at my own paragraphs, can I incorporate those elements, okay? So this is the same question, how the writer's language has described this storm. So this is the opening point. Pay attention to the fact that the opening point is literally the same amount as the grade four students. So literally working in the same amount of work has been put into this grade eight response as this grade four response. In fact, a lot of students always think, oh, if you get in a grade eight, grade nine, you've got to write, like, you know, a whole novel in exam conditions. You don't. It's more so the quality of your analysis, okay? So this is the opening point, okay, because it's even written out as a pure paragraph, okay? Point evidence, explanation, and then link. So the opening point says, the writer describes an aggressive image of the storm. Great, they're answering the question, they're using keywords from the question. Here's their evidence. The writer describes the water as spilling inferior waves. Great, just one piece of evidence taken from the extract. Now pay attention to the explanation, okay? You don't have to use all of this stuff. Just take what works for you and then see, okay, if I compare it to the grade four, is there maybe one or two things I can add to my own responses that could be helpful, okay? So this is the explanation. This personification portrays aggression as vicious connotations come to mind. Connotations is the associations of a word that we have in our mind, okay? As the waves are described as furious, so now they're zooming in, they're doing some word-level analysis in this response, okay? Same quotation. As the waves are described as furious, this adjective describes a storm as having an emotion which makes it act so aggressively as if it's taking its anger out on the rocks. This adjective also comes across as exaggerated as it is a high level of anger. So in this response we have just one word, so you had one quotation and then the student has then just zoomed in on one word as opposed to, here we've got lots and lots of words and lots of different quotes but there hasn't been that same level of zooming in, okay? And on top of that, obviously they mentioned the word personification as well as adjective to do the word-level analysis and then this is the link back to the question. So they also add one extra step linking back to the question. Therefore, we can see the aggression of this storm as it's depicted as having extreme rage. Now, going back to, for example, if you're just aiming for a grade four or grade five, what I want to show you first off is when it comes to English, students give up because they think, oh, you know, if I want to get a grade grade eight, grade nine, even grade seven, I've got to write these long reams of writing, I've got to do like, you know, students who get grade nine are writing little mini novels when they come out of their exams. What I want to show you guys is actually a grade eight student has written almost just as much with just one extra line as a grade four students. They're literally working just as hard as each other. The only thing is, if, for example, you're aiming for a grade four, actually work less hard to find different quotations, select one quote but then now do a deep dive into that quotation. If you're able to do that and you're currently a grade four and you produce something like this, but literally you only focus on just the quotation, the original quotation you're given, this paragraph, if it was just focusing on that original quotation, probably would have gone up to grade five, okay? I'm also showing this and just supposing this to show you guys, okay, is there also anything else that's been mentioned in this response, for example, the word connotations, associations, that maybe I can borrow in my paragraphs, okay? Can I maybe focus on just one quotation rather than having a bunch of different quotations and include that in my response, okay? So again, all of this just budges you up in terms of mocks because you're now collecting other mocks, right? So your examiner's like, okay, they're going into more detail. Great, I'm going to give them a grade five, maybe as opposed to grade four. However, of course, if you just want a grade four, this is what a grade four response looks like. So of course, make sure you then compare what you're doing currently in your mocks, in your essays, and if it's falling short of that, well, follow this structure, okay? So that's really it when it comes to how to secure a grade four for your final GCSEs. And as I said, make sure you just implement those three steps and by the time, you know, you're done with your GCSEs, you can walk out and say, I will never think about English ever again.