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Helping with English revision when it isn’t your subject

You do not need to have read Macbeth to help with Macbeth revision. These are the jobs a parent or carer can do well, and a few to leave alone.

Quick guide for parents and carers · 3 minute read

A parent who has never read the book can still check the two things English revision depends on: what your child can remember, and how well they can explain it. Both work in short sessions at the kitchen table.

Quiz the quotations

AQA’s Literature exams are closed book. Apart from the printed extract or poem, every quotation your child uses has to come from memory.

Ask for the quotation list from school, or use our pages for Macbeth, A Christmas Carol and An Inspector Calls. Read out the first half of a quotation and ask for the rest, or ask who says it and when. Five minutes is plenty. Keep the ones your child misses in a separate pile and start with those next time.

Testing works better than reading notes again. In a review of study techniques, John Dunlosky and his team of researchers rated practice testing and spreading practice out over time “as the most effective of those we reviewed”. Re-reading had “inconsistent effects”, and marking up notes with a highlighter pen failed to help. How to learn quotations so they stay learned is written for your child and uses the same methods.

Ask them to explain

Pick a character or a theme and ask for three quotations and what each one shows. You do not need to know the answers. Listen for whether the explanation makes sense to you, and ask why one more time than feels comfortable. A gap shows up quickly when someone has to explain out loud.

Keep the questions short. For example: why does Scrooge change, or what does Lady Macbeth want in Act 1? Talking about the set texts at home has more questions that get a teenager talking.

One timed answer a week

As the exams get closer, ask for one answer a week written in the real time, with no notes. AQA’s Literature Paper 1 allows 1 hour 45 minutes for two essays, so about 50 minutes each. Your job is to keep time and keep the notes out of reach.

Afterwards your child compares the answer with a model answer or with their teacher’s feedback. What a grade 4, 6 and 8 answer looks like shows the differences. Our revision packs include model answers at grades 4, 6 and 8 to 9, with notes on what earns each grade, which helps when you cannot judge an answer yourself.

Short and regular

About 30 minutes a day, five days a week, does more than a long session at the weekend. Spreading practice out is the other technique Dunlosky’s team rated highest.

Our free Year 11 countdown turns this into a twelve-week plan with one focus each week, starting twelve weeks before the first English exam. In 2027 the first one, English Literature Paper 1, is on Wednesday 12 May, so the countdown starts on Wednesday 17 February. Planning your English revision is the version written for students.

What not to do

  • Do not write or rewrite their paragraphs. In the exam they work alone, against the clock.
  • Do not put a grade on an essay yourself. Grades depend on AQA’s level descriptors and on boundaries that move each year. Leave grading to the teacher, and ask what would move the answer up a level.
  • Do not spend sessions re-reading notes together. It feels like work, and it does less than testing.
  • Do not let revision eat into sleep. The night before an exam, one read through the quotation lists is enough, with black pens and a spare in the bag and bed at the usual time.

If revision is causing real worry at home, Helping with exam worries has ideas and places to get support.

Sources

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