A GCSE Spanish Writing Exam Checklist

The GCSE Spanish Writing exam focuses on both showing off and accuracy. In terms of showing off, this includes both vocabulary and grammatical constructions. In terms of accuracy, this means ensuring you have used the correct spelling, gender/plural agreements, and verb conjugations.

Here are my tips for what to check to make sure you have access to the top marks in your Spanish GCSE Writing Assessment.

Content

• have I covered all of the bullet points?
• have I stayed at the word limit?
• have I written in the tense that I was asked for?
• have I written in the style that I was asked for?

Gender/plural agreements

• have I used the correct gender for all nouns mentioned?
• have I made sure all adjectives and past participles agree with the gender and plurality?

Spelling & accents

• have I checked the spelling of everything written? (taking special care with double letters because there are very few double letters in Spanish)
• have I correctly used accents (especially to show verb tenses)?

Vocabulary

• have I used a variety of vocabulary and avoided repeating any words/verbs?
• have I included advanced, topic-specific vocabulary? (for topic-specific vocabulary, use the specification to memorise key vocabulary)

Tenses

• have I used a variety of tenses in a variety of verbs?

Conjunctions

• have I made good use of conjunctions to separate my ideas?

Opinion phrases

• have I shown my own ideas and opinions if asked to?

Comparatives

• could I use a comparative?

Present subjunctive

• could I correctly use a set phrase that needs a subjunctive?