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Edexcel 4ET1 is English Literature with set texts, an anthology and a Shakespeare/poetry component. Cambridge 0500 is First Language English - reading and directed writing on unseen non-fiction, with no set literary texts. They are different qualifications, so revise to the specification your school enters you for.
They share the same syllabus content and assessment; 0990 is the 9-1 graded version and 0500 is A*-G. Skills, papers and mark schemes are equivalent - revise identically and check which grading scale your school uses.
It depends on the route. Cambridge 0500/0990 offers an exam-only route and a coursework route; Edexcel 4ET1 is assessed by written examination. Ask your teacher which option your centre has chosen, as it changes how you prepare.
Yes. There are dedicated IGCSE hubs for Pearson Edexcel (4ET1 Literature, 4EA1 Language A) and Cambridge International (0500, 0990), with set-text guides, exam-technique walkthroughs and AI essay marking aligned to each specification.
Components cover the Pearson Poetry Anthology plus prose and drama set texts (commonly including Of Mice and Men, To Kill a Mockingbird, Things Fall Apart and a Shakespeare play). Your centre chooses the exact texts, so confirm yours with your teacher before revising.
In Paper 1 (Reading) and Paper 2 (Directed Writing and Composition) you respond to one or two texts in a specified form - a letter, speech, report or article - for a stated audience and purpose. Marks are split between reading (understanding and using the texts) and writing (style, structure and accuracy), so address both deliberately.
It depends on the syllabus your centre enters. Cambridge 0500 and Edexcel 4EA1/4ET1 are typically graded A*-G, while Cambridge 0990/0992 use the 9-1 scale. The teaching content and skills are equivalent across the paired syllabuses - check which code your school uses for grade boundaries.
Yes. Essay feedback is mapped to the relevant IGCSE assessment objectives and band descriptors for your syllabus, with targeted improvement steps. It is AI-assisted revision guidance, not an official Cambridge or Pearson result, and a human-review option is available.
Use the published specimen and assessment materials from the board, practise the exact question types under timed conditions, and self-assess against the mark scheme. Skill drills - directed writing structures, summary technique and analytical paragraphs - transfer across papers even when past-paper supply is limited.
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Analytical profiles of the Finches, Ewells, Robinson, Radley and the wider Maycomb cast - with one short, fair-dealing quotation each.
Short extracts are included under fair dealing for study and criticism. Read the complete novel for the full characterisation.
Narrator and protagonist
Six to nine years old across the novel, Scout is a tomboyish, fiercely literate narrator whose first-person voice sits at a productive distance from her child-self. Lee uses a dual perspective: the child’s bewildered observation and the adult’s retrospective judgement. Scout’s moral arc moves from literal, tit-for-tat thinking towards Atticus’s ethic of empathy.
”Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read.”
Father, lawyer, moral centre
A widowed state legislator and defence attorney, Atticus is principled, patient and almost impossibly self-controlled. Critics since the publication of Go Set a Watchman have contested the "saintly" reading, but in Mockingbird he functions as a moral yardstick - teaching courage without confidence of victory, empathy before judgement, and the separation of public duty from private feeling.
“The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.”
Scout’s older brother
Four years older than Scout, Jem undergoes the novel’s most visible loss of innocence. His fascination with Boo Radley, his growing admiration of Atticus and his shattered faith in Maycomb after Tom’s conviction trace a more bruised coming-of-age than Scout’s. His broken arm, mentioned on page one, becomes the novel’s framing wound.
”I always thought Maycomb folks were the best folks in the world…”
The accused
A hard-working, physically disabled Black labourer, Tom is falsely accused of raping Mayella Ewell after he responds to her loneliness with kindness. His disabled left arm makes the alleged assault physically impossible, yet the jury still convicts. His death, shot "seventeen times" while trying to escape prison, exposes the hollowness of Atticus’s faith in appeal.
”I felt right sorry for her.”
Reclusive neighbour
The novel’s second "mockingbird". Boo is first a Gothic childhood legend - a figure of rumour and dares - before emerging as the silent protector who stitches Jem’s trousers, leaves gifts in the oak, and finally kills Bob Ewell to save the children. His one spoken line in the novel ("Will you take me home?") is devastating in its quietness.
“Atticus, he was real nice… Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them.”
The Finches’ housekeeper and Black maternal figure
Calpurnia is bilingual in dialects - "white" at the Finches, African-American Vernacular English at First Purchase Church - embodying the double consciousness Black characters must navigate in Maycomb. She disciplines Scout, models rigorous moral expectations, and offers the children their only serious exposure to Black community life.
“Don’t matter who they are, anybody sets foot in this house’s yo’ comp’ny.”
Antagonist
The unemployed, alcoholic patriarch of the Ewell family, Bob represents the "poor white" demographic whose only social currency is whiteness. Lee uses him to separate racism from ignorance (Atticus distinguishes the Ewells from the Cunninghams) and to show how racial hierarchy props up otherwise failing masculinities.
Bob Ewell attacks the children on Halloween; Boo Radley intervenes.
Complicated victim-accuser
Nineteen, isolated, and abused by her father, Mayella is both victim and perpetrator - a figure through whom Lee examines how gender and class intersect with race. Her seven red geraniums, tended "as carefully as Miss Maudie Atkinson", register a yearning for beauty the novel treats with uncomfortable sympathy before her false testimony condemns Tom.
Atticus: “Who beat you up? Tom Robinson or your father?”
Atticus’s sister
Alexandra arrives during Part Two to drill Scout in "ladylike" behaviour and enforce a hereditary sense of Finch family pride. She represents the Southern aristocratic code Atticus has partly rejected; her tea-party grace under pressure after Tom’s death reveals a harder decency than Scout expects.
“Jean Louise, stop scratching your head.”
Summer friend
Based on Lee’s real childhood friend Truman Capote, Dill brings imagination and melodrama to the Boo Radley games and weeps openly in the courtroom. His tears function as the novel’s emotional interpreter for readers who might otherwise read the trial as procedural.
”It was just him I couldn’t stand… that old Mr Gilmer doin’ him thataway…”
Neighbour and Atticus’s ally
A progressive Baptist widow, Miss Maudie articulates the mockingbird symbol, defends Atticus’s character to the children, and after her house burns down greets the loss with humour. She is the adult female voice the novel most trusts.
“Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy.”
Short quotations reproduced under the fair dealing provision of the CDPA 1988 for criticism and review. Full text available from your school or local library.