Loading your exam home
GCSE English Lit · Learn
15 lessons in 6 units, about 23 h of reading and core practice. Each lesson ends with a quick check.
Specification
Unit 1
The skills every board rewards on every text: close analysis of language, form and structure (AO2), a critical argument supported by well-chosen references (AO1), context and interpretation (AO3), and accurate written expression (AO4).
4 lessons · 5 h of study · ≈28% of the test
Unit 2
The Shakespeare play at the heart of every board: dramatic methods and Elizabethan/Jacobean context, then text-by-text study of the most commonly set plays.
2 lessons · 3 h of study · ≈11% of the test
Unit 3
The literary-heritage prose text: the most commonly set 19th-century novels with their characters, themes, methods and Victorian or Romantic contexts.
1 lesson · 2 h of study · ≈5% of the test
Unit 4
Post-1914 British plays and novels (and board-specific modern world texts): the most commonly set texts studied for character, theme, methods and context.
1 lesson · 2 h of study · ≈8% of the test
Unit 5
The studied anthology cluster (compared from memory with a printed poem) and unseen poetry analysis and comparison, which together carry around a fifth of the marks on most boards.
3 lessons · 6 h 30 min of study · ≈24% of the test
Unit 6
The task types that decide top grades: extract-to-whole questions, unseen prose commentary, timed planning and quotation revision, and coursework or controlled assessment where a board uses it.
4 lessons · 4 h 30 min of study · ≈25% of the test
Start here
Core literary skills: the assessment objectives · Lesson 1 of 4
How to analyse word choice, imagery, sound and rhetorical techniques, and link a writer’s methods to meaning and effect.
1 h 15 min of study≈9% of the test
Start the first lessonSign in to keep your place and see your mastery on every topic.
Every lesson is free to read. With an account, finished lessons are ticked off, quick checks feed your mastery, and flashcards come back for review.
Strategy, scoring and test day, beyond the syllabus.
Learn, then practise
Each lesson ends with three quick questions. For more, practice adapts to the topics you’re weakest on.
Open practice