Core reading skills
4 dot points across 1 inquiry question. Click any dot point for a focused answer with worked past exam questions where available.
What transferable reading skills underpin every reading question across both AQA English Language papers?
- Inferring and deducing implied meaning from an unseen text, supporting interpretations with evidence, and building from literal understanding to layered interpretation across all reading questions.
How to master inference and deduction for AQA GCSE English Language: reading implied meaning from clues, distinguishing literal from inferred understanding, and supporting every interpretation with precise evidence across all reading questions.
7 min answer → - Recognising and naming language techniques with accurate subject terminology, and using terminology to analyse effect rather than to label, across fiction and non-fiction reading questions.
A reference to the language techniques and subject terminology for AQA GCSE English Language: what each term means, how to use terminology to analyse effect rather than to label, and why precise naming supports AO2 across both papers.
8 min answer → - Recognising structural features at whole-text and sentence level, naming them with subject terminology, and explaining how a writer's ordering and shaping choices affect the reader.
A reference to structural features for AQA GCSE English Language: whole-text features such as openings, shifts and endings, sentence-level features such as length and type, and how to analyse the effect of a writer's structural choices.
8 min answer → - Identifying tone, mood and register in a text and explaining how a writer's choices create them, across fiction and non-fiction reading questions and for comparison of perspectives.
How to read tone, mood and register for AQA GCSE English Language: telling the three apart, identifying them from a writer's choices, and using them to analyse effect and compare writers' attitudes across both papers.
7 min answer →