GCSE English Language

Practice papers with model solutions

Original practice sets for GCSE English Language, drawn from our own question bank. Each has a stable link, a printable PDF and a full worked mark scheme.

GCSE English Language - Grades 1-9

GCSE English Language Paper 1

Covers Retrieving Explicit Information, Listing and Selecting Details, Making Inferences and 9 more.

15 questions - 60 marks

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GCSE English Language - Grades 1-9

GCSE English Language Paper 2

Covers Retrieving Explicit Information, Listing and Selecting Details, Making Inferences and 9 more.

15 questions - 60 marks

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GCSE English Language - Grades 1-9

GCSE English Language Paper 3

Covers Retrieving Explicit Information, Listing and Selecting Details, Making Inferences and 9 more.

15 questions - 60 marks

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GCSE English Language - Grades 1-9

GCSE English Language Paper 4

Covers Retrieving Explicit Information, Listing and Selecting Details, Making Inferences and 9 more.

14 questions - 60 marks

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GCSE English Language - Grades 1-9

GCSE English Language Short Paper A

Covers Retrieving Explicit Information, Listing and Selecting Details, Making Inferences and 3 more.

9 questions - 40 marks

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GCSE English Language - Grades 1-9

GCSE English Language Short Paper B

Covers Structure and Focus, Punctuation Correction, Grammar and Sentence Accuracy and 3 more.

10 questions - 40 marks

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Papers scoped to what has been taught

The papers above are scoped by grade band. These are scoped by teaching point instead: each one leaves out content a student at that stage has not met yet, so a mock in the middle of the course tests what has actually been covered.

These bands are a typical teaching order, not a syllabus rule. No exam board defines what belongs to Year 10, and schools sequence the course differently. Check the split against your own scheme of work before using it to decide what a class has covered. This split is not defined by any exam board specification - AQA, Edexcel and OCR all specify only what must be covered by the end of Year 11, with no mandated year-by-year order, so "what a Year 10 class has covered" is purely down to each school's own scheme of work and genuinely differs between centres. In particular, some schools interleave Paper 1 and Paper 2 content from the start of Year 10 rather than sequencing them strictly, and reading-structure (widely considered the hardest single-text analysis skill) is sometimes deliberately held back into Year 11 alongside exam technique rather than finished in Year 10 with the rest of Paper 1 - so treat this as one reasonable default ordering, not a guaranteed fact about any particular school.

Year 10

GCSE English Language - Year 10

Year 10 Paper 1: Core Skills

Covers retrieving information from a text, listing supporting details, making inferences, correcting punctuation, checking grammar, and a short descriptive writing task.

15 questions - 60 marks

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GCSE English Language - Year 10

Year 10 Paper 2: Reading Comprehension

Covers retrieving information, listing details, making inferences, analysing word choices, imagery and sensory language, and how a text is structured.

19 questions - 80 marks

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GCSE English Language - Year 10

Year 10 Paper 3: Language and Imagery

Covers making inferences, analysing word choices, imagery and sensory language, correcting punctuation, and a short descriptive writing task.

15 questions - 60 marks

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GCSE English Language - Year 10

Year 10 Paper 4: Sentence Accuracy

Covers how a text is structured, correcting punctuation, checking grammar, correcting spelling, and a descriptive writing task.

15 questions - 60 marks

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GCSE English Language - Year 10

Year 10 Paper 5: Grammar, Spelling and Descriptive Writing

Covers retrieving information, analysing word choices, checking grammar, correcting spelling, and a descriptive writing task.

21 questions - 80 marks

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GCSE English Language - Year 10

Year 10 Paper 6: Full Practice Paper

Covers retrieving information, listing details, making inferences, analysing word choices, how a text is structured, correcting punctuation, checking grammar, and a short descriptive writing task.

24 questions - 100 marks

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Year 11

GCSE English Language - Year 11

Year 11 Paper 1: Reading and Viewpoint

Covers retrieving information, listing details, making inferences, analysing word choices, and identifying a writer's viewpoint and attitude.

14 questions - 60 marks

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GCSE English Language - Year 11

Year 11 Paper 2: Persuasive and Descriptive Writing

Covers retrieving information from a text, correcting punctuation, checking grammar, correcting spelling, and short descriptive and persuasive writing tasks.

16 questions - 60 marks

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GCSE English Language - Year 11

Year 11 Paper 3: Language, Imagery and Viewpoint

Covers listing details, making inferences, analysing word choices, imagery and sensory language, how a text is structured, and identifying viewpoint and attitude.

19 questions - 80 marks

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GCSE English Language - Year 11

Year 11 Paper 4: Reading and Writing Combined

Covers retrieving information, making inferences, analysing word choices, and short descriptive and persuasive writing tasks.

14 questions - 60 marks

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GCSE English Language - Year 11

Year 11 Paper 5: Accuracy and Analysis

Covers making inferences, analysing word choices, imagery and sensory language, how a text is structured, correcting punctuation, checking grammar, and correcting spelling.

21 questions - 80 marks

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GCSE English Language - Year 11

Year 11 Paper 6: Full Practice Paper

Covers retrieving information, listing details, making inferences, analysing word choices, how a text is structured, checking grammar, identifying viewpoint and attitude, and a persuasive writing task.

24 questions - 100 marks

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