Grammar schools / NWSSEE English (continuous writing) / Mock 4
Nonsuch and Wallington Second Stage Entrance Examination · Second Stage
NWSSEE English Mock Paper 4
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
- Selective standard
- 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
"The lido reopened on Saturday after eleven years behind a fence. Went along? Tell our readers what it was really like."
The outdoor swimming pool near you has opened again after being closed since before you were born. You went on the first weekend. Some of it was better than anyone expected and some of it was plainly not finished.
Write a review for the What's On page of your local website to give readers a fair judgement of the reopened lido and to help them decide whether to go.
Planning: your review must cover all three of these points.
- what the lido is actually like now, so that a reader who has never seen it can picture it
- one thing that worked well and one thing that did not, with the evidence that led you to each judgement
- who you would recommend it to, and who would be better off waiting until the summer
An answer that has been written and memorised beforehand, and that does not address the form or the task set here, 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 review. It reaches a judgement about the lido and supports that judgement with detail. A description of a nice day at the pool, with no verdict in it, fails here.
- It is written for readers of a local website who are deciding whether to visit, not for the writer's teacher and not for the people who run the pool.
- It is fair. Praise and criticism are both present, as the task requires, and neither is simply asserted.
- All three planning points are covered, including the recommendation about who should wait.
- A pre-prepared piece that does not address this form or this task is awarded no marks overall.
Content and audience (10 marks)
- 9-10: A clear judgement runs through the whole review and every claim is earned by specific evidence: the temperature of the water, the queue at eleven o'clock, the one changing room that was locked. The recommendation is genuinely useful and discriminates between different kinds of reader. The voice is confident without becoming rude about people who worked hard.
- 6-8: A sound review with a verdict and some real evidence. One of the three points is thinner than the others, or the recommendation is broad.
- 3-5: Opinion without evidence, or evidence without a verdict. The reader is told the lido was amazing or awful and left to guess why.
- 0-2: A recount of the day out, with the review never arriving.
Structure and style (8 marks)
- 7-8: Organised the way a good review is organised: the reader knows early what the writer thinks, then sees it tested against detail, and leaves with a clear recommendation. Paragraphs are purposeful, and the style is lively and precise rather than showy.
- 5-6: Clearly paragraphed and easy to follow, though the verdict may only become clear at the end.
- 3-4: Chronological, working through the visit minute by minute, so the judgement is scattered rather than shaped.
- 0-2: Unstructured, or so short that no shape is visible.
Technical accuracy (7 marks)
- 6-7: Accurate sentence demarcation, correct use of commas in longer sentences, secure spelling, and consistent use of the past tense for the visit and the present tense for what the lido is like now.
- 4-5: Largely accurate, with a few slips, most often in tense consistency.
- 2-3: Repeated errors in sentence demarcation or persistent tense drift.
- 0-1: Frequent errors that obstruct the reader.
Reviewing is the writing triplet that candidates practise least, and it is the one this paper genuinely tests. A review is not a description with an opinion tacked on the end. It is a judgement, made early, and then justified. Decide before you start writing what you actually think of the lido, because everything else has to serve that.
The word that earns marks here is evidence. Anyone can write that the changing rooms were disappointing. A strong candidate writes that three of the eight cubicles had no doors and the queue for the rest reached the diving board by half past eleven, and then says what that means for a family arriving at noon. Two or three precise, invented but believable details will do more for you than a page of adjectives.
Be fair on purpose. You are asked for one thing that worked and one that did not, and the examiner is watching to see whether you can hold both without contradicting yourself. The neat way to do it is to make the criticism specific and the praise specific, and then let the recommendation resolve them: go now if you want to swim, wait until July if you want to spend the afternoon there.
Two mistakes cost marks here more than any others. The first is telling the story of your day from waking up onwards, which turns a review into a recount and buries the verdict. The second is being sarcastic. A sharp review can be funny, but readers of a local page will not trust a writer who sneers at a pool that a town has spent eleven years trying to reopen.
Spend five minutes planning: write your verdict in one sentence at the top of your plan, then note two pieces of evidence for it and two readers you will address at the end. Write for about thirty-three minutes in five or six paragraphs. Use the last five to check that your verdict appears in the first paragraph as well as the last, and to hunt for tense slips between what happened and what the place is like.
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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