Can You Predict It?

On one large student forum, a thread has a very simple title: “has Banquo ever been a question?” We counted 116 threads on that forum, over about sixteen months, asking what will come up in GCSE English or what came up last time.^[1] No other topic there drew as many replies.

It is easy to see why students ask. They have three texts, a cluster of poems and a few weeks left, and they want to know where to spend those weeks. A list of likely questions seems to make revision far more manageable.

So here is a question for you, before we show you our own numbers. If a teacher you trusted gave your child a list of the most likely questions, how much of the revision would you want spent on that list?

Our own lists put the question near the top a third of the time

Before the 2026 exams, we wrote down the questions we thought most likely to come up for twelve texts and poetry collections set by AQA for GCSE English Literature. The files were saved before each paper was sat, so the lists could not have been changed after students came out of the exam and started posting the questions online. Afterwards we checked them against fifteen real questions, as students remembered them, because AQA had not yet published the papers.^[2]

The right topic was somewhere in our top ten for twelve of the fifteen questions. That sounds impressive until you look higher up the list: the right topic was in our top five only six times, and in our top three only five times. So even a list built with care put the real question near the top only a third of the time.

At three places and at five places, our lists did no better than a standard revision guide’s list of main characters and themes. At ten places ours did better, but fifteen questions is too small a sample to prove anything. With so few questions, our real rate could be anywhere from about eight to fourteen in fifteen, and the guide’s result falls inside that range. It would take several years of results to show a real difference.^[2]

Macbeth shows what those numbers mean for one student. The 2026 AQA question, as students reported it, was about guilt. Guilt was on our list, but in sixth place. A student who had revised only our top three for Macbeth would have met the one topic they had set aside.

Why a careful list still misses

Nobody outside the exam board sees the paper before the day, however many past papers they have studied. Each text also holds far more possible questions than the one or two that appear on it each year. A list can shorten the range of possibilities and make a sensible guess about which topics are due, but no amount of care can turn a guess about someone else’s decision into knowledge.

The obvious answer to that uncertainty is to choose the most likely question and prepare it until the answer is ready. We think this does harm in two separate ways.

The first harm happens in the exam hall. A student who was sure of the prediction opens the paper and sees a different question. Before they can plan anything, they have to recover from the surprise, and the minutes spent recovering are minutes the essay never gets back.

The second harm happens months earlier, during revision. Once a prediction is the centre of the plan, the prediction becomes the goal. Progress starts to mean “how many predicted essays can I write from memory?” instead of “can I build an argument about any part of this text?” The first question measures a list, while the second measures the skills the exam actually marks.

Practise the question, but do not rely on it

None of this means a student should avoid likely questions. Themes and characters are what the questions are about, so practising essays on them is exactly what a student should do. If a practised question then appears in the exam, the student has a real advantage, because in a sense they are writing an answer they have already prepared.

What matters, then, is how the student holds that practice. Practice treated as practice makes a student better at the next question as well. Practice treated as a promise leaves the student ready for one question and worried about all the others.

Here is a simple test of which one your child has. After they have practised an essay on one question, ask them to plan an answer to a different question on the same text. If the plan comes quickly, the practice built skill. If they cannot start, the practice built a memory of one essay.

One of our students met a question in 2026 that he had never seen before, on the setting of The Sign of the Four, and he scored full marks on that question. We told his story in Stop Timing Essays.

You cannot predict the words, but you can predict the kind

The exact words cannot be predicted, but the kind of question can. On a novel or a play, the question will almost certainly be about a character, a theme, or both. Here are the two questions AQA set on An Inspector Calls in June 2024.^[3]

“How does Priestley use the character of Mrs Birling to explore ideas about social class?”

“How does Priestley use the Inspector to suggest the need for social change in An Inspector Calls?”

Look at how each question is built. The first names a character and a theme in the same sentence. The second names a character and asks what the writer uses him to say. So a student who revises characters in one pile and themes in another is revising the play in two halves that the exam puts back together.

Other boards set questions on the same play in the same year, and we checked what three of them asked.

Edexcel GCSE English Literature, Paper 1. The mark scheme rewards answers that “explore the ways Eva Smith/Daisy Renton is significant in An Inspector Calls” on one question. On the other question it rewards answers that “explore the ways selfishness is important in the play”.^[5] One question is about a character, and the other is about a theme.

Eduqas GCSE English Literature, Component 2. The question began: “Write about Mr Arthur Birling in An Inspector Calls and how he is important to the play as a whole.”^[6] This question is about a character.

OCR GCSE English Literature, Component 1. The first question asked students to “Compare how family tension is presented” in an extract from the play and an extract from a second text. The second question asked them to “Explore another moment in An Inspector Calls where tensions in the Birling family are revealed”.^[7] Both OCR questions are about the relationships inside a family.

We have not compared the Edexcel International GCSE or Cambridge IGCSE questions. On the three boards we checked, every question named a character, a theme or a relationship.

Setting can also be asked about. That same year, AQA’s question on Jekyll and Hyde asked students to “explore how Stevenson creates an atmosphere of fear and danger”. Among the things AQA suggests an answer might include is the “portrayal of city and aspects of setting to reflect Hyde’s character”.^[4] So even a question about atmosphere leads back to a character. This year a setting question surprised us too, on The Sign of the Four, which is why setting belongs in revision alongside character and theme.

Start with the protagonist

If the question will be about a character or a theme, which one should a student study first? We start with the protagonist, the character who changes most, because their journey is what reveals the meaning of the story. Once a student understands that journey, they can work out how every other character and theme supports it, and a question on any one of them becomes a question about the same story seen from a different side. Guilt in Macbeth is one example, because guilt is part of what happens to Macbeth and Lady Macbeth after the murder of Duncan. A student who understands their journey has already studied guilt, even if guilt never appeared on a list.

We also want students to understand the setting and the relationships between the characters, because those are the places where the journey happens. We explain the step-by-step method in Literature: Where to Begin?.

We hope to publish a bank of practice questions for students, built from patterns across past papers. If we do, please treat it the way we will: as material to practise with, and never as a forecast of the paper.

Four things to do this week

1. Ask your child what they are revising for. If the answer is a short list of predicted questions, ask what they would do if none of them came up. If they can answer calmly, and explain how they would still build an argument, the list is doing its proper job as practice.

2. Write one page on the protagonist’s journey. Who is this character at the beginning, who are they at the end, and what changed them? Your child should write it in their own words, with the book closed.

3. Swap the question. Take one essay your child has already practised, and ask them to plan an answer to a different question on the same text. The plan should use the same knowledge and reach a new argument.

4. Cover all four areas. For each main character, write one line on the themes they carry, one on the places they are linked to, and one on the relationships that change them.

If you would like to know where your child’s own writing stands today, our free assessment takes five minutes.

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