Writing is one of the four papers in the NSW Selective High School Placement Test, sat in Year 6, and it counts for 25% of the result — the same as Reading, Mathematical Reasoning and Thinking Skills. It is also the only paper that is not multiple choice, and the one families most often leave until last.

That is a mistake, and it is worth understanding why before looking at anything else.

The Opportunity Class test in Year 4 has no Writing paper. If your child sat OC, they have never done this under test conditions.

What your child actually does

One writing task.
30 minutes, including planning.
Typed on the computer. Your child can plan on paper or on screen, but the response itself is typed.
No more than two pages — the department says your child will not have to write more than that.

The department’s published information does not say what form the task will take. Preparing for one text type only — just persuasive, or just narrative — is a gamble.

What the markers look for

The department describes the marking in these terms:

The creativity of the ideas.
Writing effectively for a purpose and an audience — knowing who the piece is for and what it is trying to do.
Using language for effect.
Text structure, grammar, punctuation, style and vocabulary.

And one rule that catches strong writers out: if the response is not about the topic, it receives lower marks, even if it is well written. A polished story prepared in advance and bent to fit the prompt is exactly what that rule is aimed at.

What the department does not publish

There is no public marking rubric and no set of sample responses showing what a high-scoring answer looks like. The three official practice tests each include a writing prompt, but only the prompt.

This matters when you are choosing help. Anyone who claims to know the exact marking scale is describing their own rubric, not the department’s. That is not necessarily bad — a good English teacher’s judgement is valuable — but it is not insider knowledge.

Why it cannot be crammed

The other three papers reward familiarity: once a child has seen the question types, practice converts quickly into marks. Writing does not work like that.

What the markers are describing — ideas worth reading, a clear sense of audience, controlled structure, precise vocabulary — builds slowly, through a lot of writing and a lot of reading. A few intensive weeks in April improve a child’s confidence far more than they improve the writing.

So the useful question, for a family in Year 5 or early in Year 6, is not “how do we prepare for Writing in April” but “how much does my child write between now and then”.

The typing problem nobody mentions

Thirty minutes is short when a child types slowly.

A child who handwrites fluently but types with two fingers is doing two hard things at once on test day: composing and hunting for keys. Their ideas get cut to fit their typing speed. This is the one part of Writing preparation that does respond to steady, mechanical practice — and it is easy to fix months out, and very hard to fix in the last fortnight.

If your child does most of their writing by hand, move some of it to a keyboard well before the test.

A realistic way to prepare

From now:

Write often, and short. A paragraph a few times a week beats an essay once a month. Vary the form: a letter, an argument, a description, a scene, a diary entry.
Read the kind of writing you want back. Children write in the shapes they have read. Include non-fiction, opinion pieces and poetry, not only novels.
Talk about audience. Before writing, ask who it is for and what it should make them think or feel. That is half of what the markers describe.

From early next year:

Work to 30 minutes. A few minutes planning, most of the time writing, a couple of minutes to reread. Children who skip planning tend to drift off the topic — which the department says costs marks.
Use the three official prompts as rehearsals under real conditions: typed, timed, and on a prompt your child has not seen.
Get feedback from a person. Writing needs a reader who can say what worked and what did not. A teacher, a tutor, or a parent willing to read carefully all count.

In the last weeks:

Do not memorise a story. Off-topic writing loses marks however good it is.
Practise responding to unfamiliar prompts rather than polishing old pieces.

Where Cognora fits — and does not

Cognora does not mark writing. Writing needs a human reader, and we would rather say so than pretend an algorithm substitutes for a teacher. The app covers the other three papers — Reading, Mathematical Reasoning and Thinking Skills — which together make up the other 75%.

For the timeline of the whole test, see Selective test dates 2027. For what the Thinking Skills paper asks, see Thinking Skills practice questions.

Test format and marking descriptions on this page were checked against NSW Department of Education published information on 24 September 2026. The department may change the test format — always confirm current details on education.nsw.gov.au before acting on them.

The Selective Writing test: what is marked, and how to prepare