Grammar schools / Sutton boys' Stage 2 English (written) / Mock 1
Sutton Boys' Second Stage Examination · Second Stage
Sutton Boys' Second Stage English Mock Paper 1
Preparation for the Sutton Boys' Second Stage Examination, sat for admission to Wilson's School, Sutton Grammar School and Wallington County Grammar School. 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
- 50 minutes
- Total marks
- 30
- Questions
- 1
- Level
- Familiarisation
- You have 50 minutes. There is one task on this paper and it is worth 30 marks.
- Read the stimulus material and then the task itself twice before you begin. Everything you have to do is written down for you.
- Spend the first five to ten minutes planning, and plan on the paper rather than in your head. Planning is never marked as writing and crossing it out costs you nothing.
- Write in continuous prose on the lined pages. Use headings only if the form you have been asked for normally has them.
- Keep the last five minutes to read your work back for spelling, punctuation and sense. Your handwriting should stay readable when you are writing at speed.
- This is a practice paper written for Revision Library. Wilson's, Sutton Grammar and Wallington County Grammar release no specimen papers, so the task type here follows consistent independent accounts of the real examination rather than any published material.
English
Read the stimulus material below, then answer the task that follows it. Write your answer on the lined pages.
- 130 marks
Stimulus: a bridge for badgers
A new bridge opened last month near Ilminster in Somerset, and not one car will ever cross it. The bridge is forty metres wide and covered in soil, grass, hedgerow and young hazel, and it carries wild animals over a dual carriageway that has split the same stretch of countryside since 1975.
Cameras fixed to posts along the crossing recorded badgers using it within nine days of the fencing coming down. Deer followed in the third week. The county council says the road has killed an average of ninety animals a year, and hopes the crossing will bring that number close to zero.
Task: write a news report for the Ilminster Gazette, a free weekly paper delivered to people who live in the town, telling them about the new bridge and what it is for.
Planning: decide the order your facts will come in before you write a word, because a news report is not told in the order things happened. Your report must cover what the bridge is and where it stands, why it was built and the problem it solves, and what has happened since it opened.
Your examiner is looking at how closely you have followed these instructions, how well the piece has been planned, the quality of your writing and the range of vocabulary you choose.
Spend about 40 minutes on this task.
Answers, mark scheme and worked explanations
- 130 marks
Following the task (8 marks)
- Written as a news report, with a headline and an opening sentence that puts the most important fact first.
- Pitched at readers of a local weekly paper, taking account of what those readers already know about their own town.
- All three planning points are covered: what the bridge is, why it was built, and what has happened since.
- The stimulus is used as raw material and developed, rather than copied out or ignored.
Planning and structure (7 marks)
- The report follows a deliberate order of its own, not the order the stimulus happened to use.
- Paragraphs are short, each doing one job, and they follow on from one another clearly.
- The report closes on purpose, usually on what happens next, instead of simply stopping.
Quality of writing and vocabulary (9 marks)
- Sentences vary in length and shape, and the reporting voice stays steady and impersonal.
- Vocabulary is precise and belongs to the subject: verge, hedgerow, habitat, carriageway, monitored.
- Any quotation sounds like a real person speaking rather than the writer using different words for a moment.
Technical accuracy (6 marks)
- Spelling is secure, including the words carried across from the stimulus.
- Punctuation is accurate, particularly speech marks, capital letters on names and commas in longer sentences.
- Paragraphs are clearly signalled and the handwriting stays readable at speed.
A news report is neither a story nor an essay. It gives the most important fact first and the detail behind it afterwards, in short paragraphs that a busy person can take in while standing up. Begin with a headline of about eight words, then an opening sentence that answers what has happened, where, and why it matters. If a reader stopped after that one sentence, they should still know the news.
Use the stimulus rather than repeating it. The two paragraphs you have been given are your raw material, not your report. A strong response reorders them: badgers crossing within nine days is far more interesting than the width of the bridge, so it belongs near the top. You are also allowed to add what a report would naturally carry and the stimulus does not, such as a quotation from a named council officer, a sentence from someone who lives beside the road, or the month it opened. Invented detail of that kind is fine as long as it fits the facts you were given. Inventing a different set of facts is not.
Three mistakes cost most of the marks on a task like this. The first is retelling the stimulus in the same order in slightly different words, which shows the examiner nothing. The second is sliding into the first person and writing about your own trip to see the bridge; a newspaper report keeps the reporter out of it. The third is forgetting who reads the Ilminster Gazette. Those readers know exactly where the dual carriageway is, so a paragraph explaining the geography of Somerset to them wastes lines you will need later.
Vocabulary earns real marks here, and in a report that means precision rather than decoration. Crossing, verge, hedgerow, habitat, carriageway, collision, monitored: these are the words the subject actually uses. One well-chosen exact word is worth three ordinary ones propped up with adjectives.
Timing: read the stimulus and the task twice, then take five to eight minutes planning your headline, your first sentence and the order of your paragraphs. Write for about thirty minutes, aiming for four or five paragraphs and one or two quotations. Keep the last five minutes to check full stops, capital letters and any sentence that has run away from you.
Sutton Boys' Second Stage Examination, Second Stage, English (written). Written by Revision Library on 2026-08-28, independent check pending.
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