AQA | GCSE English Language | 2025 predictions

📣 OUT NOW! Our AQA GCSE English Language 2025 Predicted Papers are here! 📝

Get exam-ready with a full predicted paper PLUS a video walkthrough of Grade 9 example answers, packed with expert commentary on how to level up your writing. We break down exactly what the examiner’s looking for, how to hit those top bands, and the little tweaks that make a big difference. ✨

Whether you're aiming to boost your confidence or push into the top grade, this resource is your secret weapon 💪📚

AQA GCSE English Language Paper 1

Paper Title: Explorations in Creative Reading and Writing
Total Marks: 80
Total Time: 1 hour 45 minutes
Split:

• Section A: Reading (40 marks)

• Section B: Writing (40 marks)

📖 Section A: Reading (1 fiction extract) – 45 mins total

You'll be given an extract from a novel. All questions are based on this.

🔍 Question 1: List four things

Marks: 4
Timing: 5 mins
Style: Very literal—pick out four simple facts or details from a specific part of the text.
✅ Tip: No analysis needed. Just quote or paraphrase accurately. Don't explain!

✨ Question 2: Language analysis

Marks: 8
Timing: 10 mins
Style: How the writer uses language to describe/impact/create effect.
✅ Use a strong paragraph structure, like PETAL
✅ Focus on word choice, similes, metaphors, sentence structure, etc.
🎯 Try to cover 2–3 short quotes and explain how they affect the reader.

🧱 Question 3: Structure analysis

Marks: 8
Timing: 10 mins
Style: How the writer has structured the whole text to interest the reader.
✅ Comment on shifts in focus, contrasts, opening/ending, paragraphing, etc.
✅ Use terms like narrative perspective, zoom in/out, or cyclical structure.
🎯 Try to write 2–3 paragraphs, focusing on the effect of structure.

🗣️ Question 4: Evaluation (your opinion)

Marks: 20
Timing: 20 mins
Style: “To what extent do you agree?”
✅ Use evidence to back up your opinion
✅ Analyse the language/structure like Q2 and Q3
🎯 Make sure to cover both what the writer does and why it's effective

✍️ Section B: Writing – 45 mins total

You'll choose one task, usually a descriptive or narrative writing prompt.

✨ Question 5: Creative writing

Marks: 40
Timing: 45 mins (including planning and proofreading)
Choose ONE of:

• Write a description inspired by a picture

• Write the opening or continuation of a story based on a theme

✅ Spend 5–10 minutes planning (characters, setting, structure)
✅ Use a clear structure—a beginning, a build-up, a high point, and a resolution.
✅ Aim for vivid vocabulary, varied sentence structures, and literary techniques (similes, metaphors, personification, etc.)
✅ Proofread at the end to fix spelling, punctuation, and grammar.

🎯 Marks Breakdown:

• 24 marks for content (imagination, clarity, structure)

• 16 marks for SPaG (Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar)

🕒 Suggested Paper Timing Overview:

✅ Final Tip: Practise each question type individually AND as full papers. The more familiar you are, the more confident you’ll feel on exam day 💚

AQA GCSE English Language Paper 2

Paper Title: Writers’ Viewpoints and Perspectives
Total Marks: 80
Total Time: 1 hour 45 minutes
Split:

• Section A: Reading (40 marks)

• Section B: Writing (40 marks)

📖 Section A: Reading – 1 hour total

You’ll be given two non-fiction texts (from different time periods). All questions are based on comparing and analysing these.

📋 Question 1: True or false

Marks: 4
Timing: 5 mins
Style: Select four statements that are true based on Source A
✅ Tip: Just shade or tick the correct boxes—no explaining needed. Be careful not to infer or assume anything that isn’t directly in the text!

✨ Question 2: Summary

Marks: 8
Timing: 10 mins
Style: Summarise differences or similarities between the two sources.
✅ Focus on content only, not language
✅ Use short quotes to back up your points
🎯 Use a simple structure like:

• Both texts show... but in different ways

• Source A says... whereas Source B shows...

🔍 Question 3: Language analysis

Marks: 12
Timing: 15 mins
Style: How does the writer use language to... (only Source B)
✅ Choose 2–3 quotes and zoom in on word choices, tone, figurative language, etc.
✅ Talk about effect on the reader
🎯 Use PETAL or PEAZ (Point, Evidence, Analyse, Zoom-in)

⚖️ Question 4: Comparison of viewpoints

Marks: 16
Timing: 20 mins
Style: Compare the writers’ attitudes/viewpoints and how they express them
✅ Cover both content and tone/language
✅ Comment on methods (tone, emotive language, rhetorical devices)
✅ Use comparison phrases: whereas, similarly, on the other hand
🎯 Structure tip: alternate between sources (A then B) or group points by theme

✍️ Section B: Writing – 45 mins total

You’ll write a non-fiction text—often a letter, article, speech, or essay—on a given topic.

🗣️ Question 5: Transactional writing

Marks: 40
Timing: 45 mins (include planning + proofreading)
Examples:

• Write a letter to your MP about school lunches 🍽️

• Write a speech arguing for or against mobile phones in schools 📱

• Write an article about the importance of protecting the environment 🌍

✅ Identify form, audience and purpose—this affects your tone and structure
✅ Use clear paragraphs and linking devices (however, furthermore, in contrast)
✅ Include rhetorical techniques: facts/statistics, emotive language, direct address
✅ Plan your 3–4 main points before you begin
🎯 Marks Breakdown:

• 24 marks for content (how convincing, clear, and structured your argument is)

• 16 marks for SPaG (Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar)

🕒 Suggested Paper Timing Overview:

✅ Top Tip: Know how to adapt your tone—formal for a letter to an authority figure, passionate and persuasive for a speech, and informative but engaging for an article.