English (continuous writing) mock papers

These papers prepare for the Nonsuch and Wallington Second Stage Entrance Examination, sat for admission to Nonsuch High School for Girls and Wallington High School for Girls. They are original mock papers written by Revision Library, not past papers and not official specimens.

Time allowed: 45 minutes
Questions: 1
Format: Written answers
Answer sheet: In the booklet

What this paper tests

Writing to argue, persuade and advise
Writing to explore, imagine and entertain
Writing to inform, explain and describe
Writing to analyse, review and comment
Matching register to a named audience
Genre conventions for a named form
Covering a supplied planning scaffold
Structure, paragraphing and cohesion under time pressure
Spelling, punctuation and grammar within continuous prose

What is official, and what is our reconstruction

Officially confirmed: one continuous piece of writing, roughly 40 to 50 minutes, addressing one or more of the four National Curriculum writing triplets, with the form named on the paper. There is no comprehension section and no separate spelling or grammar section at this stage - those sit in the SET.
The schools state that an answer which is obviously prepared in advance, and does not address the form or task set, is awarded no marks. Our papers reproduce that warning and our rubric gates on it.
No mark scheme, band descriptors, mark total or expected length is published. The 25-mark scheme in these papers is ours, built to reward the things the published guidance emphasises.

The papers

The set is a ladder, not interchangeable papers. Work through them in order: the early papers are for getting used to the format, and the last is a genuinely competitive simulation.