KNOWLEDGE

GCSE terminology list

Below you will find a list of all the terminology that you’ll be tested on at GCSE in your Knowledge Checks. This list is also included in your Progress Book. Terms which are new for GCSE are listed in bold.

Grammar and syntax terms

  • adjective

  • adverb

  • article

  • complex sentence

  • compound sentence

  • conjunction

  • declarative sentence

  • determiner

  • exclamatory sentence

  • imperative sentence

  • interrogative sentence

  • main clause

  • modal verb

  • morphology

  • noun

  • object (of a sentence)

  • participles (past and present)

  • preposition

  • pronoun

  • relative clause

  • simple sentence

  • subject (of a sentence)

  • subordinate clause

  • tense (present, past, perfect and progressive)

  • verb

  • voice (active and passive)

Structure terms

  • climax

  • denouement

  • exposition

  • falling action

  • flashback

  • foreshadowing

  • inciting incident

  • in medias res

  • juxtaposition

  • resolution

  • rising action

  • timeshift

Lexis and semantics terms

  • antonym

  • connotations

  • euphemism

  • figurative language

  • idiom

  • imagery

  • irony

  • semantic field

  • subtext

  • synonym

Discourse terms

  • allegory

  • antagonist

  • bildungsroman

  • biography

  • characterisation

  • conflict

  • diction

  • direct address

  • direct speech

  • discourse marker

  • dramatic irony

  • epistolary fiction

  • fiction

  • foil (character)

  • form

  • indirect speech

  • motif

  • narrative voice

  • novel

  • paragraph

  • pathetic fallacy

  • positioning

  • prose

  • protagonist

  • representation

  • suspense

  • symbolism

  • tension

  • unreliable narrator

Poetry and drama terms

  • aside

  • blank verse

  • caesura

  • catalectic

  • couplet

  • dramatic monologue

  • end-stop

  • enjambment

  • free verse

  • iambic pentameter

  • length (of a verse line)

  • metre

  • quatrain

  • rhyme scheme

  • sestet

  • soliloquy

  • sonnet

  • speaker

  • staging and stage directions

  • stanza

  • syllable (stressed/unstressed)

  • tercet

  • tragedy and the tragic hero

  • verse

  • volta

Rhetorical devices terms

  • alliteration

  • anadiplosis

  • anaphora

  • anthesis

  • assonance

  • asyndeton

  • bathos

  • consonance

  • epistrophe

  • extended metaphor

  • hyperbole

  • listing

  • metaphor

  • onomatopoeia

  • oxymoron

  • paradox

  • parallelism

  • pathos

  • personification

  • polysyndeton

  • repetition

  • rule of three

  • sibilance

  • simile