Your two English GCSEs and their four exams

You take two English GCSEs: English Language and English Literature. They are separate qualifications, and each gets its own grade on a scale from 9, the best grade, down to 1. Each one has two papers, so you sit four English exams in all.

This page describes the papers set by AQA, the exam board. Your school chooses the board and the texts, so if you are not sure which ones you are taking, ask your English teacher.

English Literature

Literature tests the texts you have studied in class. Both papers are closed book, which means you cannot take your copies of the texts into the exam. Where the paper prints an extract or a poem, you have that in front of you. Everything else, including every other quotation, comes from memory.

Paper 1: Shakespeare and the 19th-century novel

The exam lasts 1 hour 45 minutes. It has 64 marks and makes up 40% of your Literature grade.

Section A is your Shakespeare play, for example Macbeth. There is one question on your play. It prints an extract, and you write about the extract and then about the play as a whole. It is worth 30 marks, plus 4 marks for spelling, punctuation and grammar.
Section B is your 19th-century novel, for example A Christmas Carol. It works the same way: an extract, then the whole novel. It is worth 30 marks. The extra 4 marks are on the Shakespeare question only.

That gives you about 50 minutes for each answer.

Paper 2: Modern texts and poetry

The exam lasts 2 hours 15 minutes. It has 96 marks and makes up 60% of your Literature grade.

Section A is your modern play or novel, for example An Inspector Calls. You choose one essay question from two. There is no extract, so all your quotations come from memory. It is worth 30 marks, plus 4 for spelling, punctuation and grammar.
Section B is the group of 15 poems you studied from the AQA anthology, for example the Power and Conflict poems. AQA calls each group a cluster. One question names a poem and prints it. You compare it with a second poem from the same group, which you choose and quote from memory. It is worth 30 marks.
Section C is unseen poetry: poems you have never seen before, printed on the paper. The first question asks how the poet presents something in one poem, for 24 marks. The second asks you to compare that poem with another one, for 8 marks.

That gives you about 45 minutes for each section. In Section C, spend about 30 minutes on the first question and about 15 on the second.

English Language

Language tests your reading and writing skills. All the texts are unseen, so there is nothing to memorise in the way you do for Literature. Each paper lasts 1 hour 45 minutes, has 80 marks and makes up half of your Language grade. Each paper has two sections, reading and then writing, worth 40 marks each.

Paper 1: Explorations in creative reading and writing

Section A, reading: one extract from a novel or short story written in the 20th or 21st century. There are four questions, worth 4, 8, 8 and 20 marks.
Section B, writing: one piece of descriptive or narrative writing, which means a description or a story. It has 24 marks for what you write and how you organise it, and 16 marks for technical accuracy: your range of words and sentences, and accurate spelling and punctuation.

Paper 2: Writers’ viewpoints and perspectives

Section A, reading: two linked non-fiction texts, one from the 19th century and one from the 20th or 21st. There are four questions, worth 4, 8, 12 and 16 marks.
Section B, writing: one piece that gives your own point of view. It is marked the same way as Paper 1, with 24 marks for content and 16 for accuracy.

For both papers, a sensible plan is about an hour on Section A and about 45 minutes on Section B. There is more on each question in Language Paper 1, question by question and Language Paper 2, question by question.

You will also give a prepared talk, respond to questions and feedback, and use spoken Standard English. This is the spoken language endorsement. Your teacher marks it as Pass, Merit, Distinction or Not Classified, and it is reported separately: it does not count towards your Language grade.

The dates in 2027

AQA’s exam timetable for May and June 2027 gives these dates. All four exams are in the morning.

Literature Paper 1: Wednesday 12 May
Literature Paper 2: Wednesday 19 May
Language Paper 1: Monday 24 May
Language Paper 2: Tuesday 8 June

The timetable also asks students to stay available until Wednesday 23 June 2027. That is the back-up date in case serious disruption, across the country or in one area, stops an exam going ahead.

The order to revise in

Start with Literature. Its papers come first, and it needs the most memorising: the plots, the characters and the quotations for three texts and 15 poems. Memory needs time, and it works best when you come back to the same material again and again over weeks.

One order that works is the order of our free Year 11 countdown, a twelve-week plan of about 30 minutes a day. It takes Macbeth first, then A Christmas Carol, An Inspector Calls, the poems, unseen poetry, and finally the two Language papers.

Moving on to a new text does not mean dropping the old one. Keep testing yourself on a few quotations from each text you have already revised, every week. Language is different: you revise it by practising. Answer reading questions in the real time, and write one timed piece a week. How to learn quotations so they stay learned and Planning your English revision go into more detail.

Sources

AQA, GCSE English Literature 8702 specification
AQA, GCSE English Language 8700 specification
AQA, Mark scheme: GCSE English Literature Paper 1, June 2023 and Paper 2, June 2023 (marks for each section)
AQA, GCSE exam timetable, May/June 2027
AQA, GCSE English Literature 8702: exam dates and GCSE English Language 8700: exam dates