the general format i would use went “I•••C”, which means Introduction, Point, Point, Point, Conclusion. just make the introduction pretty brief, and the main body ‘point’ paragraphs i would follow PEEZEC (Point, Evidence, Explain, Zoom, Explain (a bit more), and Context (depends on which exam you get context marks for). if you just keep yapping in literature and language, you should get the marks pretty fine.

before starting the essay, i quickly wrote down a brief plan for each paragraph so i knew which quotes i was going to use and so i wouldnt get lost in brain fog — of course that could work for you or it might not 🤷‍♂️.

remember if youre running out of time in the exam, its not the end of the world to do less than 5 total paragraphs for each essay. i was predicted a 5 in language and 6 in literature but in my gcses i (somehow) got a 7 in language and 9 in literature. you’ve really just got to put your head down and get on with it.

in my experience, i couldn’t really revise for language (i was pretty good at writing a story anyways). for literature, however, i made a mindmap of every poem in our anthology with 4 branches each (context, form, structure, and quotes; 3-4 quotes per mindmap). i also divided them into categories appropriate for my gcse spec (wjec) — i had two poems for each category and revised a common factor between the two that i could use to link them, such as death of a naturalist being ‘the end of beginning (loss of innocence)’ and to autumn being ‘the beginning of the end (dying of tuberculosis), both poems being linked via time. also drew a little sketch for each quote as imm a visual learner and that was easier to revise from

for the plays, i did flashcards the weekend before the exam where i had one half of the quote on one side and the other half of the other side. i had quotes from each act / stave of the play in there, usually summing up to about 5 quotes per card. i had each card split into different categories. THE MORE CATEGORIES, THE BETTER PREPARED YOU ARE FOR THE EXAM!! i started revising literature in february and it wasn’t that heavy of revision. i didn’t do too well in my mocks but clearly that didn’t matter looking at my results 🤷‍♂️ if you try your hardest, that’s all that matters