Mastering Sentences (AQA GCSE English Language)

A brilliant way to secure top marks in your GCSE English Language exam is to become an expert in writing sentences. Understanding the different types of sentences, how to construct them and the grammatical rules will improve your own writing immensely.

What is a sentence?

A sentence is a set of words that expresses a complete thought. To be grammatically correct, all sentences need a verb and a subject. Sentences also must start with a capital letter and end with either a full stop, a question mark, or an exclamation mark. For example:

“Sumayah played football.”

In the above sentence, “played” is the verb (the action or state described) and “Sumayah” is the subject because she is the one performing the action (she’s the person who played).

What is a clause? 

To become an expert in writing sentences, it is important to understand what a clause is. Simply put, a clause is a part of a sentence. Clauses can be divided into two types:

Main clauses

A main clause can stand on its own as a full sentence. It needs to have a subject and a verb. “Sumayah played football” is a main clause because it makes sense as a full sentence.

Subordinate clauses

A subordinate clause usually has a subject and a verb, but is not grammatically complete. It depends on another part of a sentence (the main clause) to make sense. For example:

“Although she was tired out from a long day at school”

This sentence doesn’t make sense on its own, even though it does contain a verb (“was”) and a subject (“she”). However, if we add a main clause to the subordinate clause, it becomes a grammatically correct full sentence:

“Although she was tired out from a long day at school, Sumayah played football.”

There are other ways of adding subordinate clauses to our main clause. For example:

“Sumayah, who was the team’s top scorer, played football.”

“Before meeting up with her friends, Sumayah played football.” 

“Sumayah played football because the sun was finally shining.”

Subordinate clauses are great because they add extra detail to your sentences. Make sure you try to include a variety of subordinate clauses in your writing because examiners love to see a range of sentence types.

Different types of sentences

There are three main sentence forms:

The four functions of sentences

There are four main jobs a sentence can perform. Knowing the type of sentences can help you in your reading questions too: it can help you explore why a writer may have used certain sentences.

Declarative sentence

This is a statement: it tells us something. Most of your English Language exam (the reading and your own writing) will be made up of declarative sentences, because both description and facts are usually in this form. These sentences usually end in a full stop. For example:

“The climate crisis is the biggest problem the world faces today.”

Exclamatory sentence

This sentence ends with an exclamation mark and expresses surprise, excitement or emphasis. Only use this sparingly in your own writing: once is probably enough. For example:

“Time is up for pretending that global warming will somehow fix itself!”

Imperative sentence

This is a command and will contain an imperative verb. It tells someone to do something and can end with either a full stop or an exclamation mark. These can be great to use in your persuasive writing assignments. 

“Make a stand to protect our planet.”

Interrogative sentence

This is a sentence in the form of a question, and so ends with a question mark. It can be very effective in both persuasive and creative writing to engage the reader, but use only occasionally.  

“Surely we all want a place to live for our children and future generations?” 

How to link sentences together

One thing examiners always comment on is how students link their writing together. Ideally, your own writing will be “cohesive”, which means your sentences fit together well and flow naturally from one to another.

There are a few great tips for cohesive writing in your GCSE English Language exam:

Vary your sentence lengths and types

Having a variety of sentence lengths and types makes your writing more interesting (and easier) to read. 

Try to include a variety of simple, compound and complex sentences in your writing and even plan this. For example, you could plan on writing a two-word simple sentence at the beginning of a paragraph to signal an abrupt shift in atmosphere. Research has shown that the highest-achieving GCSE students on average write shorter sentences than lower-performing students. 

Use connectives

Especially when it comes to the non-fiction writing tasks in the exam, such as writing to persuade or explain, using what examiners call “discourse markers” can connect up your writing in a logical order. Some great examples of discourse markers include:

• Furthermore

• On the other hand

• Consequently

• For this reason

• In fact

Write paragraphs with purpose

Planning your paragraphs before you start writing means that your ideas will be more logically presented, and has the added benefit of allowing you to plan where to show off your expertise in writing sentencing. 

For example, you could include a single-sentence paragraph to finish your creative writing answer, leaving the narrative on a cliffhanger. This type of “conscious crafting” is exactly what examiners give top marks for SPaG (Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar).

Top tips for the GCSE English Language exam

• Check over your work at the end of your exam and correct any mistakes, especially missing capital letters and end punctuation

• Be ambitious with your sentencing: aim to use a deliberately short sentence and a single-line paragraph in your writing

• Vary your sentence lengths

• Vary your sentence types:

  • Use a variety of simple, compound and complex sentences throughout

  • Try to include an interrogative, imperative and exclamatory sentence, especially in your non-fiction writing