GCSE English Examiner Report: 5 Mistakes Resit Students MUST Avoid (GCSE Resits 2026)

Duration: 11:58 2232 transcript words EN summary

Video summary

The video focuses on five critical mistakes that students frequently make in GCSE English exams, based on trends identified in AQA examiner reports over the last two years. The first major issue highlighted is a persistent struggle with Question Three in Paper One, where students fail to explain how writers use structure to create specific effects like tension or mystery. Instead of merely identifying structural elements such as shifting focus or zooming in and out, students often cannot articulate how these choices impact the mood or atmosphere. To overcome this, the advice is to explicitly contrast the beginning, middle, and end of a text, demonstrating how the effect increases or decreases throughout the extract while connecting these structural shifts to tone and imagery. A second recurring problem involves "feature spotting," where students list literary techniques like similes or metaphors without providing sufficient analysis. Examiners note that simply identifying a device is not enough; students must delve into the effects of these choices on the reader, such as the images created in their minds or the emotions evoked. The transcript advises against using too many short quotations with brief labels, urging instead for fewer, well-selected examples followed by deep dives that explore connotations and reader impact. This approach ensures that the analysis is robust enough to secure higher marks, particularly in questions testing AO2 skills across both Paper One and Paper Two. The third and fourth points address issues in creative writing and general analytical depth. In creative writing tasks, students often make the mistake of prioritizing breadth over depth by cramming too many events, characters, or settings into their openings or descriptions, which confuses examiners. The recommended strategy is to adopt a simpler plot with fewer events but rich detail, painting a vivid picture for the reader rather than listing random sentences. Closely related to this is the need for sustained analysis; students often stop analyzing a quotation after just one or two lines, preventing themselves from reaching top marks. Examiners emphasize that the explanation part of a PEEL paragraph must be the longest section, focusing on detailed exploration of a single point rather than moving quickly to new ideas. Finally, the video concludes with a surprising yet significant finding regarding handwriting. For two consecutive years, examiners have reported that illegible writing has directly cost students marks because they simply could not read the answers. The transcript stresses that under pressure, students must avoid rushing to fill the page at the expense of legibility, as unreadable work cannot be awarded marks regardless of its content quality. Overall, the video serves as a guide for resit candidates and Year 11 students to avoid these specific pitfalls by focusing on structural explanation, deep analysis, detailed description, and clear handwriting, with additional support offered through upcoming masterclasses and marked homework sessions.

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Hello and welcome back to another GCSE revision video. Now, I looked at AQA's public examiner reports for 2 years in a row. And the reason I did this is because I wanted to see if there's any trends in examiner reports and examiner feedback in terms of the mistakes that students keep on making in the GCSE English exams that are not only avoidable, but cost them really valuable marks and how you can avoid them. Let's say you're watching this before you do your resits in November or also a lot of these points are also just as valid if you're in year 11 and you're preparing for your upcoming GCSE exams. These points are based on trends I've spotted from looking at two examiner reports 2 years in a row relating to two GCSE English language paper one and paper two exams. So, if you're keen to know what common errors students keep on making, especially if you're doing your reset exams, right? And how to avoid them, I'm going to get straight into it. The top five mistakes and the top five commonly occurring issues that AQA examiners keep on spotting for 2 years in a row, right? It's a recurring problem that they have spotted. And this, of course, as I said, is in the public domain. I've looked at the public examiner reports that any of you can access as well. So, number one, the first issue that AQA examiners have spotted that really costs students marks is students actually struggle with the structure question in language paper one question three. Remember that the structure question is where students are asked to talk about specific effect. How's the writer use structure to create tension? How's the writer use structure to create intrigue, to create mystery, right? This question actually has been highlighted for 2 years in a row by AQA examiners as an issue because number one, students so they've found that actually when it comes to the extract that students read, they understand what's happened, but the problem is they can't explain how structure is used, i.e. things like shifting focus, zooming in, zooming out, beginning, middle, and end. Students can't actually explain how that use of structure has created an effect. Now, how to avoid this in your own writing and when you're practicing is what you should instead do is mention what changes, i.e. when you're asked to talk about, you know, how's the writer use structure to create uh tension, right? How does tension increase or decrease by the end of the source? How does tension, you know, um affect the mood, atmosphere, and so on, right? What you want to do to overcome this is literally a really nice and easy win is contrast something from the beginning versus the middle or end and talk about how there's a shift in focus and how that creates the effect, right? Tension, suspense, whatever. And mention as well when you spot these techniques and contrast, right? So, talk about perhaps whatever effect you're talking about, quote something from the beginning and then contrast it from the middle uh to the middle or end, right? When you do so, mention, okay, has anything changed? Has the effect either increased or decreased? Also, um you can tie it to things like tone, mood. How might that structural point that you're pointing out, i.e. shifting focus, you can also obviously zoom in on something, zoom out, uh um any other techniques such as beginning, middle, and end, mention and connect that to how that impacts the specific effect you're supposed to talk about, okay? So, that's the first thing that I noticed in the examiner reports that I reviewed, okay? Now, the second thing, which is a trend in the two sets of examiners' reports for 2 years in a row that examiners keep on reporting that students are going wrong in is that students simply feature spot rather than analyze. What I mean by feature spotting is when a student is answering, you know, question 2, three, or even four in paper one and paper two. When they're talking about and quoting from the text, they mention, "Oh, the writers use a simile. The writer then has also used this metaphor. The writer has also used uh uh beginning of the essay or or the extract. The writer has also used personification. The writer has also used this noun verb." They literally students come in memorizing uh or having memorized specific techniques and just literally quote, mention the feature, quote, mention the feature, quote, mention the feature. That's the problem, okay? The reason is because identifying a technique is not the same as analyzing it. You you want to quote less, okay? So, remember that. And this is something that I always tell my GCSE masterclass students every single week in my Sunday classes. It's not enough just finding techniques, right? It's one thing finding techniques, which is important, especially for questions two and three in paper one, where you're tested on AO2, which is your uh ability to spot techniques, but that's not enough. You then need to talk about the effect. You need to say, you know, what images it creates in our minds as readers. How does it make us feel, right? That's part of analysis. And what I always encourage my students is actually what you don't want to do is when you're writing your essays and your paragraphs, have way too many quotations with loads of features, right? Uh here's one quote, this is a simile. Here's another quote, the writer has used personification. Here's another quote, there's a noun in this. No. Use fewer quotations, select one or two techniques, and then do a deep dive and analyze in more detail and talk about things like connotations, how it affects us as readers. And of course, if you're watching this and you're doing your resets in November, don't forget that I will be literally having reset masterclasses specifically for reset students who struggle with this, okay? So, remember that every single Sunday I will be going over in my reset masterclasses not only how to pass and avoid making these mistakes and showing you model responses and how to do this and avoid these mistakes that examiners keep on finding, but also as part of those reset masterclasses, I will be issuing homework. So, this is marked homework every single week. In fact, I'm going to be working with AQA examiners. So, I've taken on AQA examiners who will be marking your work and giving you marked feedback every single week so that you know exactly where you're going wrong and how to improve. So, make sure you join in in those reset classes. Now, number three, the third problem that examiners, in their report, have spotted is that students need depth, not breadth, when they are writing their creative writing answers in language paper one question number five. Now, more specifically, when it comes to creative writing, examiners have spotted the following issues and this is what this means, okay? So, when it comes to the opening of a story, right? So, the students that decide to go for the opening of a story option, examiners have found that students add way too many settings, characters, events, clichéd endings, I woke up and it was all a dream. There's too much going on. There's so many events, right? So, the the student is writing this opening of a story. This happened and this happened and this happened and this happened and I woke up and it was all a dream. Whilst actually, it's not about listing lots and lots of different events, it's about having fewer events, but then going into lots of detail describing the character, describing the setting. You're actually going to be better off in creative writing, especially with the story, having a simpler plot that you go into lots of detail in each section, rather than having lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of events happening. And for descriptive writing, this was still also an issue. When it came to description, examiners found that students literally write a series of sentences when they look at the image or when they decide to have an imaginary image, right? So, you know, students always ask at the image, you can use that for your imagination. And what students do is they just write a series of sentences. The sky was blue. Um the old man looked at uh the the grass was green. So, they have lots and lots of different sentences. There's no continuity, but also more importantly, especially for descriptive writing, there's no detail in describing each specific aspect of the image either on the paper that they're given or in their minds, okay? The most important thing, especially in doing creative writing well, is going into depth and detail, painting a really detailed image for your reader, rather than just listing a series of random sentences for descriptive writing or, if you go for the opening of a story, just saying a load of different characters, loads of uh settings, lots of different things, which makes it actually very confusing for your examiner to follow. And again, don't forget that I am going to be running a one-off creative writing masterclass. This going to be on the 4th of September, a Friday, and it's going to be just a one-off class where I go over creative writing and obviously a model of response for that. So, of course, if you're interested to know how that looks like in practice, just simply join in that live class. You can ask me as many questions as you want. Now, the next problem that examiners have spotted, actually closely connected to the feature spotting issue, but also it's a problem by itself for especially all uh four questions in section A for paper one and paper two, is students are not analyzing enough. Analysis. And this is something I always harp on every single video that I talk about. Analysis is where your marks reside. Even when I come to PEEL paragraphs, right? That's my favorite uh paragraph structure. In the explanation, I always mention in your explanation that has to be the longest part of your PEEL paragraph because that's where your marks reside. It's your analysis. And so, examiners also have stated the same thing. So, in paper one question two, uh sorry, paper one and two, especially question number four, but to be honest, this also applies to question two and three, this is a massive issue, students not analyzing enough. And um students sometimes make a a good analysis point, but then it's really brief, right? So, students will start, you know, they'll add their point, add their evidence, and then when they analyze, they maybe have one or two lines of analysis and then move on to talking about something else. And then So, examiners say that actually they're preventing themselves The students have prevented themselves from getting even better marks because they stop analyzing too early, okay? So, remember that analysis is about depth, okay? And detail on the same quotation. Now, the fifth and final point, which might be actually quite surprising, and again, this is a trend and a pattern. 2 years in a row, examiners have reported that handwriting is a problem, okay? So, examiners literally want to also ensure that they can read your handwriting. In other words, actually, examiners have reported in the examiner reports that really bad handwriting has prevented them from awarding students marks simply because they can't read what the student has written. And always remember that examiners can't award marks for answers that they can't read. So, that's another thing to really pay attention to and also take really seriously. Let's say you've got chicken scratch handwriting. Let's say, you know, under pressure, you just think, "Oh, I just need to get as much on the page as possible. Doesn't really matter how my handwriting looks like." It does because if your examiners cannot read what you've written, they can't award you marks. So, that's actually an issue that I found quite surprising, but has also been uh highlighted in examiner reports for 2 years in a row. And I want to mention the 2 years in a row, this was between 2024 and 2025 because the current 2026 exam report is still private and not in the public domain. However, I still think there's a lot to learn from those two examiner reports, and I'm pretty sure once the 2026 examiner reports do come out, they will probably also touch on the same issue. So, of course, if you're doing your reset exams and you want to avoid making the same errors the second time around in your reset exams in November, obviously make sure you avoid these issues. And as I mentioned, you can also join in my reset master classes. I'm going to be literally focusing on ensuring that my students not only pass the GCSE exam, but also actively get marked homework and marked feedback every single week from AQA GCSE examiners. So, I hope you can join in if you're doing your resets.