1. Work on drawing up an essay plan

Try to come up with an essay strategy. Don't just do past year papers to prepare for the examination's Paper 1 (Writing). It's one way, and it gives you language skills, but it takes a lot of time. An easier way is to create an essay plan in list-form and pick three topics, to find examples and to expand on them. This step should take about 5 minutes to do. Planning is typically something students never do, which makes a big difference between a frustrating essay and a well-developed one.

2. Use the Ten-Year-Series (TYS) to boost grammar

The TYS can be really helpful. If you are working on a TYS question, look at your responses and ask yourself why something is correct. Singular and plural nouns, time and subject-verb agreement are common issues.

3. Paper 1 approach

Strive to define the key terms in the topic and rely on relevant knowledge of the subject. Before the paper, try to define common themes in fields such as innovation, climate, family matters and athletics, and create notes using what you learn about the subjects.

4. Check out an A-Level English paper of the past year.

Just try it one time. The significant jump in complexity will give you a morale boost as you return to glance again at the questions of the O-Level TYS!

5. Air your views with your friends or parents

Periods of examination may also be periods of tension and loneliness, so do not go through this alone. Talk to your friends about things that bother you or don't really comprehend. Although your parents are not educators, they'll be able to share their viewpoints and give you a dose of support.