What should I study (and how) to achieve a good grade in Chinese Mandarin GCSE?

FIrst of all, you need to enter the so-called 'Chinese mentality' when writing in Mandarin. In other words, you need to be aware of the main sentence structure (Subject , Verb, Object) and its variants. My long experience with this language made me aware that this is initially seen as something impossible but trust me, it's not! Furthemore, you will have to develop your listening skills and have a good knwledge of a limited number of Chinese characters.