English Language is the subject students most often assume cannot be revised. It can — just not by memorising content. There is no set text and nothing to learn by heart, so revision means practising a small number of repeatable skills until they are automatic.
Nearly every mark comes down to the same move: identify what the writer has done, name it accurately, and explain the effect on the reader. Most lost marks come from stopping after the first two steps. "The writer uses a simile" identifies; it does not analyse. What matters is what the simile makes the reader feel or understand.
The writing paper is where marks are most easily gained, because it rewards technical accuracy you control completely — paragraphing, sentence variety, punctuation range and vocabulary. A well-structured piece with varied sentences will out-score a more imaginative one that runs on.
These notes cover the reading skills (language analysis, structure, comparison, evaluation) and the writing skills separately, so you can work on whichever half is holding your grade down.
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