EduTest Year 9 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 that begins or ends with the words: ‘And then the lights went out.’ Give your story a title. 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

• Decide whether the line opens or closes the story.

• Set up a place where light matters (a theatre, a lab, a ship).

• Build tension to the line.

• Plan what changes after it. Step 3: An annotated model response (about 150 words) The Last Night Shift (1) Dr Imani Okoye had been alone on the research ship for six days, and the hum of its machines had become the only voice she trusted. Tonight, the sample she had chased across three oceans was finally glowing under the microscope. (2) She leaned closer, holding her breath, as faint blue threads curled across the slide like smoke. Behind her, the ship shuddered once, a deep groan from the hull. The screen flickered. “No,” she whispered. “Not now.” And then the lights went out. (3) In the darkness, the blue threads seemed to glow brighter, a tiny galaxy floating in the black. Imani did not move. She understood in that moment that she had been looking at the wrong thing all along: the sample made its own light. (4) She smiled, and for the first time in six days she did not feel alone. What the numbers show

(1) A title and a setting that carry the mood. The ship, the six days and the humming machines show isolation.

(2) A goal that raises the stakes. The sample chased across three oceans gives the scene urgency.

(3) The given line used for effect. It sits alone as a one-line paragraph to hit like a switch.

(4) A discovery that turns the dark into the point. The loss of light reveals something, so the line is a turning point, not just a cliché. TASK 1: NARRATIVE Worked solution