Grammar schools / NWSSEE English (continuous writing) / Mock 1
Nonsuch and Wallington Second Stage Entrance Examination · Second Stage
NWSSEE English Mock Paper 1
Preparation for the Nonsuch and Wallington Second Stage Entrance Examination, sat for admission to Nonsuch High School for Girls and Wallington High School for Girls. This is an original mock paper written by Revision Library. It is not a past paper and it is not an official specimen.
Print the paper (PDF)Paper and mark scheme (PDF)
- Time allowed
- 45 minutes
- Total marks
- 25
- Questions
- 1
- Level
- Familiarisation
- You have 45 minutes for this paper. There is one task and it is worth 25 marks.
- Spend about five minutes planning and checking your work, and about forty minutes writing.
- Write your answer on the lined pages of this booklet. There is no rough paper, so make your plan in the space beneath the task.
- Read the whole task, including the planning box, before you start. Marks are given for covering everything you are asked to cover.
- Marks are given for how well your writing matches the form, the audience and the purpose you are given, and for your spelling, punctuation and grammar.
Continuous Writing
Answer this one task. Write in sentences and paragraphs.
- 125 marks
"We move in on the 14th. Mum says you have to tell me everything, because I know absolutely nothing about this place."
Your cousin Farah is moving to your town at the end of the month. She has never lived here, she knows nobody, and she has just sent you the message above.
Write a letter to Farah to describe your town to her and to explain what she can expect when she arrives.
Planning: your letter must cover all three of these points.
- what the town looks like, sounds like and smells like on an ordinary weekday
- one place you would take her in her first week, and why that place rather than any other
- one thing about living here that she may find harder than she expects, and what she can do about it
An answer that has obviously been learnt before the examination, and that does not answer the task set here in the form you have been asked for, will be given no marks.
Spend about 40 minutes on this task.
Answers, mark scheme and worked explanations
- 125 marks
Gate: form and task (pass or fail)
- The answer is a letter. It opens with a greeting to Farah, sounds throughout like one person writing to another, and closes with a sign-off. A description of the town with no letter around it fails here, however good the description.
- It is written to Farah, not to a general reader or to an examiner. Her question is answered and her situation is taken into account.
- Its purpose is to describe and explain, not to tell a story about a day out or to argue that the town is the best place in Britain.
- All three planning points are covered. A letter that covers only two of them cannot pass this gate, however well written it is.
- An answer that is plainly a memorised piece with this title attached, and that does not address the form or the task set, is awarded no marks overall.
Content and audience (10 marks)
- 9-10: The three points are covered with real substance. The description rests on precise, chosen detail rather than lists. The honest point about what is harder here is handled thoughtfully and followed by useful advice. The tone is warm and informal but never careless, and it is clearly pitched at a cousin of the writer's own age.
- 6-8: All three points are covered and the letter reads as a genuine letter to Farah. Some detail is precise and some is general. The advice is sensible if a little thin.
- 3-5: The points are touched on unevenly, or one is squeezed into a final sentence. The town is named rather than described, and the reader could be almost anybody.
- 0-2: Little more than a list of amenities, or a letter that forgets Farah after the greeting.
Structure and style (8 marks)
- 7-8: Clear paragraphs, with each planning point given room of its own and linked smoothly to the next. Sentence lengths vary on purpose. Vocabulary is well chosen, and the informal register is controlled rather than slangy. The opening and the sign-off feel deliberate.
- 5-6: Sensibly paragraphed and easy to follow, with some variety of sentence structure. One or two joins are abrupt.
- 3-4: Paragraphing is thin or arbitrary, and the letter reads as one idea after another in the order they occurred to the writer.
- 0-2: Unparagraphed or disordered, so the reader has to work to follow it.
Technical accuracy (7 marks)
- 6-7: Sentences are demarcated accurately throughout. Commas, apostrophes and speech punctuation are used correctly. Spelling is secure, including ambitious words. Tenses are consistent.
- 4-5: Mostly accurate. A few slips in more difficult spellings or in comma use, but nothing that obscures the meaning.
- 2-3: Repeated errors in sentence demarcation, including comma splices, or spelling errors in common words.
- 0-1: Errors are frequent enough that the reader loses the thread.
A strong answer here sounds like a real letter to a real cousin. From the first line the examiner should be able to tell that you are writing to Farah and to nobody else. Answer the thing she actually said, use her name once or twice, and mention what she will genuinely want to know, such as whether anyone her age lives on your road.
Describing is not listing. Saying there are lots of shops tells your reader nothing at all. Saying that the market only runs on a Thursday, and that by nine o'clock the whole street smells of doughnuts and wet cardboard, tells her exactly what a Thursday here is like. Pick three or four details you can genuinely see in your head and write them precisely, rather than fifteen details you can only name.
The third planning point is what separates a good answer from a safe one. You are asked to say what she may find harder than she expects and what she can do about it. That needs honesty first and advice second. Do not skip it because it makes the town sound less lovely. The marks for content are for covering what you were asked to cover.
Three mistakes cost marks on this task more often than any others. The first is losing the letter itself: no greeting, or a final sentence that simply stops instead of signing off. The second is sliding into a story about a day out with your cousin, which is a different form and a different kind of writing altogether. The third is writing the whole thing as one enormous paragraph, when each planning point deserves at least one paragraph of its own.
Use the time like this. Spend five minutes planning: write the three points down the side of the page and put one precise detail beside each. Write for about thirty-three minutes, checking as you go that you are moving through all three rather than perfecting the first. Keep the last five minutes to read the letter back slowly, listening for missing full stops and for any sentence that has run away from you.
Nonsuch and Wallington Second Stage Entrance Examination, Second Stage, English (continuous writing). Written by Revision Library on 2026-08-28, independent check pending.
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