How To Go From Grade 4 To Grade 7 In Your Power and Conflict Poetry GCSE Exams 2026 Exams

Hello and welcome back to another GCSE revision video. Now, when it comes to power and conflict, if you find yourself stuck at grade three or grade four level in advance of your final GCSE exams and you're really desperate to really boost those grades and to push up those marks, especially having so little time left to your GCSE literature paper two exams, want to show you exactly what you should do between now and your literature paper two exams in order to go from four to five, six, and even seven, up by three GCSE grades in power and conflict, especially if this is the most challenging area that you find in your upcoming literature paper two exams that keeps on just letting you down. You just cannot, however much you've tried, boost those grades. I'm going to show you exactly how to go up from four to seven in your upcoming power and conflict GCSE exams. Let me get straight into it. These are the steps you absolutely must take if you're really serious about going up in power and conflict and really boosting those grades, especially in this final stretch to the final GCSE exams. Number one, would suggest, especially if you're finding yourself really, really struggling, and also considering in power and conflict, of course, you've got 15 poems, right? And it can be quite challenge to remember all quotations and lots of different quotations for all 15 poems. My suggestion would be this instead. Number one, focus on learning six poems really well. Usually, hear students sometimes saying, miss, should just learn one or two poems really well and then cross my fingers walking into the exam hall that that poem is going to come up or that theme is going to come up?" think that's extremely risky. However, given that you don't necessarily have time on your side, would also say that it's probably unrealistic expecting to learn all 15 poems. really good happy medium that can still work very well in your favor is making sure that you learn six poems across all the four big ideas that are explored in this collection, which are war / conflict, okay? So, of course, you can anticipate question either war or conflict, also power, identity, and nature. You must absolutely memorize at least one to two poems to cover each of these main ideas that you can expect one of these themes to come up, okay? And of course, you then cover yourself nicely so that you don't maybe overfocus on just remembering only the war poems or the power poems, and then you're kind of going to be in bit of trouble if you get nature question or an identity question. And this is actually the suggestion of poems that would suggest knowing them really well, inside out, back to front. For war and conflict, I'd like to suggest Charge of the Light Brigade. Now, this poem, the reason why I'm suggesting it is because it's the only poem that doesn't actually criticize war. It tends to celebrate the patriotism of the soldiers, whilst all the other war poems, Exposure, Bayonet Charge, Remains, are also very critical of war and conflict. So, Charge of the Light Brigade is really good poem to know inside out because it has completely contrasting view on war in contrast to the other war poems, okay? So, that one's really nice one to go for, as well as would say Remains. So, Remains is really good as war poem to know inside out, back to front because of these reasons. Number one, of course, this poem is extremely critical of war, but actually the other aspect, the other layer of Remains, is it also adds PTSD aspect, and it talks about and shows the real personal impact that war has on soldier who is affected by PTSD. So, these are two really good poems that would have you really nicely covered for war or conflict question. Equally, when it comes to power, would suggest going for London and My Last Duchess. London exploring the power and the abuse of power by institutions, the church and the monarchy. My Last Duchess, the abuse of power by an individual. These two are really good, you're going to be nicely covered when it comes to nature. actually really recommend The Prelude. The Prelude is really nice poem because, number one, it's showing this journey of this speaker as they realize that nature can be quite dark, can be quite threatening, but also this poem is really nice and complex in terms of its ideas, and also it's got some really simple language that it uses, which you can easily memorize in terms of nature, in terms of how nature is shown as being an opponent of man, but also nature's dark side. So, it's really nice contrast to the other nature poems. And finally, when it comes to identity, for sure, you want to go for Checking Out Me History. And of course, if you don't know what quotations to go for or if you don't know where to start, don't forget that I'm going to be having one-off power and conflict GCSE masterclass. This is going to actually be on the 7th of May on Thursday. This is going to be the week before the GCSE literature exams officially kick off, and in that masterclass, you'll not have one, but two GCSE model answers that you can use to revise from. I'm going to be going over one full mark model answers during the class, and also following up with another GCSE model answer that you can revise from. And I've also put together cheat sheet with all the quotations plus quotes that you need for these poems, as well as all the remaining poems, okay? So, that's the first step in boosting your marks, and this is how you strategically approach it. Now, number two, what would suggest is after you've focused on knowing these poems inside out, back to front, then would suggest memorize at least one to two quotations from the remaining poems. That would be your other approach because what you don't want to do is be completely clueless about the other poems. But what you don't need and don't have time for is to go into too much depth and detail. Now, step number three in terms of your strategy for boosting your marks in power and conflict is make sure by every means necessary you absolutely master your poetry comparison structure. Lots of students who are writing power and conflict poetry don't do well in their written essays because they don't know how to compare. They don't know how to write comparatively. You need to make sure you master your comparative writing skills. And this is how you do so. would suggest adopting this really nice and easy framework that shows that you're comparing both poems. You're not talking about one poem in one paragraph and another in different paragraph. That is not comparison, you're integrating. This is how you do so. Open your point by talking about both poems, then you add quotes from both poems in your evidence, then in your explanation, this is where you go into talking about both poems, the context, language, form, and structure that the poets use, and so on. Then, finishing off by linking back to the question and mentioning both poems. You try and do that at least two comparison paragraphs, if not three, in your power and conflict essay. Make sure you absolutely master comparative paragraph framework. Now, number four, and this will, honestly, the moment you start including this in your essays, you are immediately going up to grade five at the very least, is context. Do not neglect context, which is worth 7.5% of the overall marks. This, including context, actually will even determine if your borderline marks, right? So, if your examiner is marking and they don't know whether they should award you grade four or grade five, or you're boundary, borderline, grade five, six, seven, eight, this, adding context, can literally make all that difference. It then pushes your mark over that boundary and gets you into the higher category and the higher grades. Equally, number five, do not neglect your AO2 marks, which is the bulk of the marks available for power and conflict. 27.5% of the marks available when your examiners are going to be marking your power and conflict essay, is to do with your use of language, structure, and form. Therefore, of course, when you're memorizing these poems and you're learning these poems well and selecting your quotations, you need to also be clear on the poets' use of language, form, and structure in your selected quotes from these six poems. And again, you don't have to figure this out. literally have included this in the cheat sheet that I've put together for power and conflict, and of course, I'm going to be sharing this in my power and conflict GCSE revision class before the literature exams, and this is going to be, obviously, as said, on the 7th of May at 5:00 to 6:00 p.m. And finally, your strategy for boosting your marks and going up from four to seven in power and conflict is now learning how all of this comes together and how all of this is synthesized through revising from model answers. Well-written model answers will literally show you exactly how to put together. So, for example, if you have war question that you're revising and you have full mark model answer that you're reading from, you will then see how all of this information is synthesized. And again, it's for that reason why during my live lesson, will be going over model response, which I'm going to be putting together. It's grade nine model response that I'm going to be writing, of course. And the reason why do this and the reason why I'm also going to be giving all of my students to join in an extra model answer that they can revise from for separate GCSE exam paper in addition to the main one go over in the class, is for this very reason, okay? Revising from model answers is really powerful. Not only can you learn the ambitious language and even the way to synthesize the information, but also, let's say you get question on one of these key topic areas, right? So, war, power, identity, and so on, you will have known, looking at these model answers, how that looks like and how you can lay out your response, okay? So, as said, it is definitely possible to go up from four to seven as long as you follow this and you immediately begin to implement this in your approach to power and conflict. It is possible, it is doable, as long as you really knuckle down, and of course, you were consistent in your practice and revision.