What's inside the printable
This planner gives you a single A4 sheet you can keep on the desk during practice papers for AQA GCSE English Language Paper 1: Explorations in Creative Reading and Writing. The paper is 1 hour 45 minutes long and worth 80 marks, split evenly between reading (Section A) and writing (Section B).
The sheet maps the 105 minutes onto every question, with space to write your own start and finish times when you sit a mock.
How the time breaks down
The planner uses the standard "one mark per minute" guide that AQA's mark allocations imply, with thinking time built in. The full structure is on the page, but the headline split looks like this.
Warm-up (5 minutes). Before you write anything, read the source through once. Annotate the opening, the key shift, and the ending. Note the narrative voice and the time/place. This is the single highest-leverage move in the paper, because Q4 in particular hinges on whole-text awareness.
Section A — Reading (about 60 minutes, 40 marks).
- Q1 — list four things (4 marks): around 5 minutes. Quick retrieval from a defined section of the source. Don't overwrite.
- Q2 — language analysis (8 marks): around 10 minutes. Two short paragraphs, each pinned to a method and a precise effect.
- Q3 — structure (8 marks): around 10 minutes. Whole-text focus. Beginning, shift, ending — what the writer does with the reader's attention.
- Q4 — evaluation (20 marks): around 25 minutes. The biggest reading question. Two developed paragraphs that engage critically with a statement about the text.
Section B — Writing (about 35 minutes, 40 marks). Q5 is one extended response: a description or narrative, often linked to an image or prompt. Aim for 5 minutes planning, 25 minutes writing, 5 minutes checking. Crafted openings and a deliberate structure score above sheer length.
Cool-down (5 minutes). Use the final five minutes for a focused SPaG sweep on Q5: sentence boundaries, apostrophes, ambitious vocabulary spelt correctly, and one rewritten sentence per page if time allows.
How to use the planner
Print one copy per practice paper. Write your real start time at the top, then fill in the planned and actual finish time for each question. After the mock, circle any question where you ran over and note what slowed you down — usually it is unplanned writing on Q4 or Q5.
Pair the planner with the AQA English Language hub for the full specification, the Paper 1 walkthrough on the blog for question-by-question technique, and the for habits that transfer across papers.