EduTest Year 10 Written Expression free practice questions with answers

Plan first, then write your response on the lined pages. Your plan is not marked. YOUR TASK Write a story in which a character returns to a place they swore never to see again. Type of writing: Narrative. Reader: your teacher. Planning space Use this box for a quick plan. It is not marked. TASK 1 OF 2 Narrative

A MODEL RESPONSE AND GUIDANCE FOR THAT TASK Step 1: Decode the task

• Type of writing: Narrative. The marker expects the conventions of this form.

• Reader: your teacher. Choose tone and vocabulary to suit them.

• Underline the verbs in the task. They tell you what the text must do: ‘Write a story’ means: create a character, a problem and a resolution. Step 2: Plan before you write

• Who is the character and why did they leave?

• The return: what is the same, what is different?

• A confrontation with the past (a person or object).

• What the character takes away. Step 3: An annotated model response (about 200 words) The road to Marrow Creek had not changed, and that was the first thing that hurt. (1) The same crooked gums leaned over the same cracked bitumen, and Kit's hands tightened on the steering wheel until his knuckles whitened. Twelve years ago, he had left in the middle of the night, a suitcase on the passenger seat and an argument still ringing in his ears. (2) He had told himself he would never come back. Now the funeral notice sat on the dashboard like an accusation. The farmhouse was smaller than he remembered. His father stood on the verandah, stooped and grey, one hand shading his eyes against the sun. (3) For a long moment, neither moved. Then his father said, in a voice rough with disuse, “You'll want tea.” It was not an apology, and it was not forgiveness, but it was a door left ajar. (4) Kit climbed the steps, and the old boards creaked beneath him as if they too had been waiting. Later, in his boyhood room, he found the model aeroplane he had built at ten, repaired and dusted.

(5) Some places, he realised, do not wait to punish you. They wait to welcome you. What the numbers show

(1) An opening that makes familiarity painful. The unchanged road is a surprise because we expect change.

(2) Backstory in two sentences. The suitcase and the argument explain the vow without a flashback.

(3) A physical meeting. The father's stooped body and rough voice show time and regret.

(4) Subtext in a small line. ‘You'll want tea’ carries unspoken feeling and keeps the scene realistic.

(5) An object that closes the story. The repaired model shows the father's care without a speech. TASK 1: NARRATIVE Worked solution