Grammar schools / NWSSEE English (continuous writing) / Mock 9
Nonsuch and Wallington Second Stage Entrance Examination · Second Stage
NWSSEE English Mock Paper 9
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
- Hard
- 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
"Your View: members are invited to send us their thoughts before the trustees meet in October. The best contributions are published on this page."
A charity that looks after miles of coastline has announced that dogs will be banned from Sandwell Bay all year round, because the birds that nest on the ground in the dunes have almost vanished. People have walked dogs on that beach for a hundred years. The bird count itself is not disputed by anybody.
Write a contribution to the charity's Your View page to persuade its members, most of whom already support the ban, that there is a better answer, and to advise the trustees what to do instead.
Planning: your contribution must begin with this sentence, exactly as it is written here.
"I want the birds back as much as the trustees do, and that is exactly why I think they have got this wrong."
Any answer that has been composed in advance and reproduced here, and that does not address the form or the task you have been given, will be awarded 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 contribution to a website page: a short, public piece of writing addressed to fellow members, with an opening that earns attention and an ending that a reader would remember. A private letter to the trustees, or a formal essay, fails this gate.
- It begins with the given sentence, word for word.
- It is written to members who already support the ban and must be persuaded away from it. An answer that assumes the reader already agrees fails the task.
- It persuades and it advises. There must be something the trustees could actually do instead of the total ban.
- A pre-prepared piece attached to this scenario, which does not address the form or the task set, is awarded no marks overall.
Content and audience (10 marks)
- 9-10: The evidence about the birds is fully conceded and never argued with, so the disagreement is about the remedy rather than about the facts. The case is built for a reader who begins by disagreeing: their strongest objection is anticipated and answered. The alternative is specific, proportionate and evidently better for the birds than an unenforceable rule. Nobody is blamed, and the writer's own interest is admitted rather than concealed.
- 6-8: A courteous, well reasoned case with a workable alternative. The opposing view is acknowledged but not fully answered, or the alternative is left slightly vague.
- 3-5: The ban is opposed on the grounds that it is unfair to dog owners, with the birds treated as an inconvenience. The audience is addressed as though it already agreed.
- 0-2: Complaint rather than argument, or no alternative offered at all.
Structure and style (8 marks)
- 7-8: Shaped for a public page: a striking start, one idea to a paragraph, an argument that visibly builds rather than circles, and a close that asks the trustees for something particular. Persuasive devices are used with restraint, and the tone stays reasonable at the points where it would be easiest to become heated.
- 5-6: Clear paragraphs and a sensible order, though the strongest point may be buried in the middle.
- 3-4: Points repeat, or the piece is so long-winded that a reader on a website would leave before the alternative appears.
- 0-2: Disordered, or dominated by exclamations and rhetorical questions.
Technical accuracy (7 marks)
- 6-7: Accurate sentence demarcation, including in the short emphatic sentences this form invites. Commas in complex sentences, apostrophes and any quotation are correct. Spelling is secure in words such as trustees, nesting, coastline and enforceable.
- 4-5: Mostly accurate, with occasional slips under the pressure of a strong argument.
- 2-3: Repeated comma splices, or a register that slides into speech without control.
- 0-1: Errors frequent enough that a public page would not print it.
This is the hardest kind of persuasive writing, because your reader starts out disagreeing with you and believes they are on the side of the birds. If you write as though anyone who supports the ban is a fool, you will lose them in the first paragraph. The sentence you are given is designed to prevent that: it puts you on the same side as your reader before you disagree with them. Honour it in the rest of the piece.
The single most important decision you make here is to leave the evidence alone. The bird count is not disputed, so do not dispute it. Every sentence spent doubting the science weakens you. Your argument is about the remedy, not the facts: a rule that nobody enforces on a beach a hundred people cross every morning may protect fewer birds than a smaller measure that people actually keep to.
That is where your advice comes in, and it needs to be concrete. Fencing and marking the dune paths where the nests are, while leaving the wet sand open. Dogs on leads in spring and summer, when the nests are there, and free in winter, when they are not. Wardens and clear signs paid for by the money that would have gone on enforcing a total ban. Choose one, explain how it helps the birds specifically, and show why it would be obeyed.
Anticipate the objection. Your reader will say that half measures have been tried and the birds still went. Answer it before they can say it, perhaps by pointing out that a measure nobody explained is not the same as a measure nobody would accept. Answering the strongest objection out loud is the clearest signal to an examiner that you understand your audience.
Three things lose marks reliably on this task. Attacking the trustees, which turns members against you. Writing about how much your dog loves the beach, which is your interest and not an argument. And running out of space before the alternative arrives, so that the piece is all objection and no advice. Put your alternative in the middle of the page, not at the bottom of it.
Plan for five minutes: your concession, your one alternative, the objection you will answer, and the specific thing you want the trustees to do. Write for about thirty-three minutes in five or six tight paragraphs. Spend the last five minutes checking that you never once argued with the bird count, and that your final sentence asks for something real.
Nonsuch and Wallington Second Stage Entrance Examination, Second Stage, English (continuous writing). Written by Revision Library on 2026-08-28, independent check pending.
The rest of the set
Free 11+ mock papers, no login
Original papers with full mark schemes and worked explanations, printable as PDFs.