How to GUARANTEE a Grade 9 in Literature

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]I'm often asked, "How do I guarantee a grade nine?" I'm going to show you and how that applies to grade 8 and grade seven. There are actually just six simple steps. Let's dive in and see how they work. At number one, you need to write an argument. That means you need a point of view. And the evidence in your essay proves your point of view. But the examiner wants to know about your point of view of what it is. The writer's viewpoint. What does the writer think?

[00:00:36]What does the writer want us to believe?

[00:00:39]And what on earth do we care about? The writer's view of society at the time this text was written and the human condition. Examiners love these two things. Let's unpack them. Society is the rules of behavior that we all agree on. And what you typically get is a story where those rules get broken.

[00:01:05]That illustrates the author's viewpoint.

[00:01:09]The author always has a point of view about the ideal society, how we should all relate to each other and then contrasts that with the reality in their text. Then we come to the human condition and this idea is if you take a human being for example me yes I am human and you drop me 200 years ago or 500 years ago or a thousand years ago what would be the things that remained the same feelings our passions our desires these would stay the same and these are therefore the human conditions Each character is an exploration about what the author thinks about human nature and how we ought to behave. And you can see how those overlap because society, religion, science, education, all that stuff that influences how we behave. So those two phrases, society, human condition, guarantee of those top grades.

[00:02:20]Then we come to the examiner's next favorite thing. They're going to ask you about a character. But what they don't want you to do is write about that character as though they are a real person. You know, McBth is not your neighbor. Scrooge is not your uncle. Bob is. Nice joke, Mr. Salis. But they don't want you to think about the characters as real people. Stop telling us just about their personalities. However insightful you are about the personalities. No, you need to go a step beyond. A little madness reference for you there. What you need to do is write about the characters as constructs. What the hell does that mean? Well, it doesn't mean that the author has built this character out of Lego, but it's close to that. The author has built this character to show what they think about guess what?

[00:03:16]Society or human nature. You see how all this draws together? So a character reveals the author's viewpoint. More importantly, how the character behaves or what happens to the character is done deliberately to show us the author's viewpoint of the world, society or of people, the human condition. So when you write about the character being constructed, the examiner goes, "Oh, genius student. I want to give you a top grade. And then they're reading to see what you say about why the writer has constructed them this way to give you a seven, eight or nine, depending on how convincing you are. Well, how are you going to be convincing then? You are going to write about the arc of the character or the theme. What does the arc mean? So, this is what an arc looks like. Beautiful visual metaphor.

[00:04:14]Beginning, arc, end. The whole idea is that the character changes from beginning to end. There are characters who don't, in which case you say, "Hey, Mr. Berling, he never changes at all."

[00:04:25]No character arc if you want. But writing about the character arc, yes, a golden phrase. Writing about the character arc is going to force the examiner to understand you've understood this journey. And the journey of course is a construct. And the construct is supposed to influence what we think or feel about society or the human condition. You're keeping up. Now, it doesn't have to be a character. It can be a theme. And a top tip, if you get a character question, link it to the themes. Because what are the themes? The themes are just another way of writing about the writer's ideas. Every time you write about a theme, you're therefore writing about the author's ideas. Now, this is a cunning little bit of knowledge about the mark scheme. The writer's ideas and perspectives, you can put that in quote marks. It's always in the top band. Oh my word. So, all I have to do is write about the writer's ideas and perspectives and the examiner wants to put me in the top band. Yes. As long as what you say makes sense and starts to be convincing, you're going to get a grade seven or more. It is a guarantee.

[00:05:42]How goldplated that guarantee is, I will tell you at the end. So, make sure you stick there or fast forward. Now, we come to context. Everybody is obsessed about AO3. The examiners, they hate AO3.

[00:05:57]They put it in the mark scheme. Why do they hate it? Because students do this.

[00:06:01]I've got this super knowledge about the context of the time that's going to be all about society. I'll just whap that into my essay and I'll get loads of marks. No, no, no. Don't whap it in your essay. Treat it as a quote. You only use the context for one reason, and this is it. To prove number one, to prove the writer's viewpoint.

[00:06:31]Don't tell me anything about the time this text was written in unless you use that fact to prove the writer's viewpoint about society or the human condition. Yeah, context only has that job. If you put in a date, any reference at all that is not linked to the character's viewpoint, the examiner is going to withdraw that guarantee. They now think you're stupid.

[00:06:57]You're just trottting out some history and they will despise you. Not literally. Examiners are nice people, but they're under pressure and they will form this mental picture. And therefore, the opposite is also true. You use the context to show what the writer's viewpoint is. And they're going, I've got a genius here. And actually, only 20% of students get a grade seven or above. So you will be a genius because they won't see ideas like this all the time. How easy is it to be a genius?

[00:07:29]Very easy if you revise loads on my channel. So now we come to number five.

[00:07:37]Frame your argument. What do I mean about that? What do I mean by that? I mean thesis statement at the beginning, conclusion at the end. What goes in the thesis statement? the three ideas about the writer's viewpoints. You can get away with two, but why not do three? And then at the end, what goes in the conclusion? In the conclusion, you don't just sum up everything you've proved.

[00:08:02]You say what the author's idea is at the end of the text. And this is a gift of every single text you ever read. Not just now for your exams, but in life.

[00:08:13]Imagine you might read some books. They all work exactly this way. All the author's ideas that have been exploding from their heads all over these pages, they are all wrapped up in a nice tidy little bow or served up as a nice little hamburger patty. They're all resolved at the end. And therefore, you're going to write about at least two quotes from the ending because that, boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen, grade sevens to grade nine, that is going to give you an awesome argument. Our whole story has been leading to this ending. This ending is a construct to reveal what the writer thinks about SOCIETY AND THE HUMAN CONDITION. SHAZAM!

[00:09:02]I'm gonna get my grade seven, eight, or nine. And this just leaves the bit that I've never heard a teacher teach, but it is absolutely true because I've read every single answer the AQA have ever published in the history of AQA. That's not quite true. But since this exam came into existence in 2015, which is 11 years ago, when I was still a very old man, and therefore what I know is this.

[00:09:29]On average, every grade nine essay, but this is on average, remember, is at least 900 words long, often much longer.

[00:09:39]So, if you want a full mark answer of 30 out of 30, it's normally a,000 or,00 words. But let's not go for full marks.

[00:09:47]We just want the grade nine 900 words.

[00:09:49]Grade 8, 800 words. Grade seven, 600. No, I'm coding. 700 words is a magic formula on average. And so have you done these six things? Yes, you have because the exam is imminent.

[00:10:06]Is it a goldplated guarantee? So this is good news and bad news. Let's start with the bad news. The bad news is an examiner will give an essay the right grade only 50% of the time. That's not me telling you. That is a fact. Offqual have discovered it. They tested examiners. Only 50% of students will get the right grade for each essay.

[00:10:39]However, if you do all of this, the examiner will be forced to give you a top grade because so few students ever do all of this. Take a look and decide which is harder.

[00:10:59]I think the hardest one is the 900 words and it's also the easiest one to control. You just have to go on the B of bang. It's not literally a bang, but as soon as the examiner says start writing, blooming, well, write as fast as you can.

[00:11:20]That, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, sevens to ners is your guarantee.

[00:11:26]If you'd like to know more, check out another video. I'm going to get about 400,000 views tonight because everyone's revising.