Mastering Word Classes (AQA GCSE English Language)

Understanding the building blocks of language can really help you gain top marks in your GCSE English Language exam. Find out more about each of the grammar word classes (sometimes known as “parts of speech”) and learn some top tips for how to use them in your own writing. 

Nouns

What is a noun?

A noun is a person, place or thing. The thing can be concrete (a material object, like a plant) or abstract (an idea or quality, like power or love). Proper nouns (nouns that name a specific person, place or single thing, like William Shakespeare, France or A Christmas Carol) must start with a capital letter. 

How to use nouns in the GCSE English Language exam

The first thing to remember is to ensure you use capital letters for proper nouns, especially for any authors you mention. 

In your writing tasks, it can also be very effective to use an abstract noun as a single-word sentence. For example:

“Love. It was something that he desired, yet also something he feared.”

Verbs

What is a verb?

A verb describes an action (“walk” or “played”) or a state of being (“is” or “was”).

How to use verbs in the GCSE English Language exam

In your reading questions, instead of just identifying a word as a verb, try to identify what kind of verb it is: is it a dynamic verb (a verb describing activities or movement such as hit or run) or a modal verb that expresses a possibility or a necessity (such as would or should)?

In your own writing, use verbs to help build your characters. Instead of writing “Damien walked”, you could say that “Damien trudged” which gives a clearer sense of his character and mood. 

If you are using dialogue, don’t use the verb “said”, but instead a more precise verb such as “whispered”, “blurted out”, or “demanded”. This is called indirect characterisation and examiners love to see it. 

Adjectives

What is an adjective?

An adjective describes a noun. For example, we could use the adjectives “solitary” and “miserly” to describe the proper noun “Ebenezer Scrooge”.

How to use adjectives in the GCSE exam

In a persuasive writing task, like a speech, using emotive adjectives (“impoverished”, “desperate” or “neglected”) to describe people can help to form an emotional connection with the reader.

Using double adjective sentence starters is a great way to vary your sentences (another thing that examiners are looking for). For example:

“Desolate and scarred, the weather-beaten rock stood defiantly at the shore’s edge.”

This technique works equally well for creative writing, and some types of non-fiction writing, such as an article or travel guide.

Adverbs

What is an adverb?

An adverb gives extra information to a verb or adjective. For example, in the sentence “Tariq ate his breakfast quickly” the adverb “quickly” tells us how Tariq ate his breakfast.

How to use adverbs in the GCSE exam

Like using precise verbs, using very specific adverbs can help you flesh out any characters in your descriptive or creative writing. Instead of writing:

“Ahmed walked to the shops.”

We can add adverbs to give a better impression of Ahmed’s character and mood:

“Insolently and with fierce determination, Ahmed walked to the shops.”

A phrase that describes the verb at the beginning of a sentence is called a fronted adverbial and using these in your writing exam can help you add detail and add to characterisation.

Pronouns

What is a pronoun?

A pronoun replaces a noun in a sentence. For example, in the sentence, “Leah went home” we could substitute the noun “Leah” with the pronoun “she”. The sentence would then read “she went home” and would still make sense and be grammatically correct. Other pronouns include pronouns that show possession (his, her, their), pronouns that introduce other parts of sentences (who, which), or pronouns that point to a specific thing (this, those).

How to use pronouns in the GCSE exam

A great way to show mastery of pronouns, and get top marks for SPaG (Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar) in your persuasive writing is to deliberately use certain pronouns to engage the reader or audience. For example, you can use the second-person pronoun “you” to connect directly with your audience:

“Surely, you, as parents of the future, wouldn’t want to see your children’s potential be wasted?”

Another great way to engage your audience is to use the pronouns “we” and “us”, which creates an emotional bond between you and the audience:

“We can fight climate change together. Each of us has the power to make real change!”

Conjunctions

What is a conjunction?

A conjunction is a word that is used to connect words, clauses within a sentence, or sentences together. They can be single words (“and”, “so”, “however”) or phrases made up of multiple words (“as long as”, “provided that”).

How to use conjunctions in the GCSE exam

When crafting persuasive writing questions, using conjunctions can be very effective when introducing (and then challenging) counter-arguments. For example, you might use “however” or “while” when introducing counter-arguments:

“However, some might argue that we should focus our spending on education or health services. While those are certainly important, I believe…”

Prepositions

What is a preposition?

A preposition is a word that describes the relationship between words or parts of a sentence. Prepositions can be single words, like “in”, “on” or “behind” or prepositional phrases like “above her head”.

How to use prepositions in the GCSE exam

In your non-fiction writing tasks, it’s a great idea to use prepositional phrases as sentence starters in order to vary your sentences. For example:

“At the crest of the mountain’s peak, Heidi felt an unmistakable sense of nostalgia.”

Top tips for the GCSE English Language exam

• Vary the word classes you start sentences with:

  • Try using adverbials, prepositional phrases and double adjectives

• Be ambitious with your writing: instead of using single adverbs, use fronted adverbial phrases 

• Plan your answer before starting to write: then you can consciously plan where to include different grammatical structures in your writing

• Check over your work at the end of your exam and correct any mistakes, looking for capital letters for proper nouns