By Jon Petruch · Official details checked 21 October 2026
The selective writing test is one set topic, written in 30 minutes and typed on a computer, and it counts for a quarter of the NSW Selective High School Placement Test. It's also the section families worry about most, because the topic and the form change every year. This guide covers what the official sample tasks look like, how the writing is marked, and why your child doesn't need to master eight text types to do well.
What is the selective writing test?
The writing test is the fourth section of the selective test: one topic, 30 minutes, an open response typed on the computer. It's worth 25% of the result, the same as Reading, Mathematical Reasoning and Thinking Skills.
It comes last, after a 10-minute break and more than two hours of multiple-choice work. Children can plan on paper or on screen before they type, and no dictionary is allowed. The OC test in Year 4 has no writing section at all, so for most children this is their first timed writing test.
What kinds of writing topics come up?
Each task gives a topic and names the form to write in, such as an advice sheet, a report or a diary entry. The department's three sample papers show how much the form can change from one year to the next:
| Sample task | Form asked for | What it asks | Closer to essay or creative? |
|---|---|---|---|
| New to the area | Advice sheet | Help three new students get on well at your school and make them enthusiastic about it | Essay |
| Chaos on the beach | Newspaper report | Report on a shipping container of party goods washed up on a beach | Essay |
| In the future | Diary entry | Write as someone your age in 2099, starting from a given sentence | Creative |
The last column is our reading of the tasks, not the department's. The department also notes that its PDF papers come from the older paper-based test; the real test is now typed, but the style of task is the same.
Does my child need to master every text type?
No. In Jon's experience, most text forms are variations on two core skills, essay writing and creative writing, so a child who can do both well can adapt to whatever form the task names.
From Jon: Many families think their child needs to be good at eight different types of writing. In my experience you only need real proficiency in two, essay and creative writing, because the rest are variations of those two. With the right training, it's much easier to prepare for and write two kinds of text well than to spread practice across eight.
Look at the sample tasks with that in mind. The advice sheet and the newspaper report both need a clear purpose, organised points and a sense of audience, which is essay thinking in a different layout. The diary entry needs a voice, a scene and vivid detail, which is creative writing in first person. On test day, the form changes the layout and the tone; the underlying skill is one of the two.
Why does selective writing feel different from school writing?
Many parents find the selective writing test seems at odds with what their child has been taught at school. In Jon's experience, that's less about the test and more about children meeting several different approaches to writing over six years of primary school, while the test rewards one consistent method at a high-school standard.
From Jon: Lots of parents find these selective school exams are at odds with what their child has been taught. In reality, many schools teach writing in a haphazard way: teachers change over the six years, so children don't get one system but multiple approaches to multiple writing tasks. The selective exam asks students to write at a high school level, with high school level ideas, to be competitive.
That's why we don't teach a separate "exam trick". We teach one cumulative structure that works with what your child learns at school, not against it, so the same method carries through high school and beyond.
How is the selective writing test marked?
The department says the writing test is marked on the creativity of the student's ideas, writing effectively for a purpose and audience, and the use of language for effect. Structure, grammar, punctuation, style and vocabulary also contribute to the mark, and each response is marked by two examiners, according to the department's outcomes page.
You may see detailed marking schemes on other sites, with sets of criteria and point values. The department's public pages don't publish a rubric like that, so we only describe the criteria it does publish. The sample papers sum up the aim: show how well you can select, develop and organise ideas and communicate them effectively.
What loses marks in the writing test?
The biggest single risk is not addressing the topic: the department says off-topic writing is marked lower, regardless of how fluent or creative it is. That includes writing a story when the task asks for an advice sheet, or ignoring the audience the task names.
One way this happens is a memorised piece. Children who memorise a story and bend it to fit any prompt are taking exactly the risk the department warns about. The sample papers also tell students to think about how organisation and layout can help their message, so a report that looks like a story can lose marks even if the writing is good.
How should my child use the 30 minutes?
Your child should spend the first few minutes deciding the form, the audience and the main points, then write, then leave time to check. A short plan stops the most expensive mistake, which is drifting off topic halfway through.
Planning is only fast under pressure if your child already has a structure to plan into. That's the point of the cumulative method we teach: each piece builds on the same structure, so by test day your child isn't inventing an approach from scratch, just generating strong ideas to fill it.
Typing speed matters too. Children who plan well on paper but type slowly can run out of time, so practise typed responses, not just handwritten ones. Our guide to generating story ideas for timed writing helps with the planning step.
What does a good selective writing response look like?
A strong response answers the exact task in the form asked, keeps the named audience in mind, and has ideas worth reading rather than safe, generic ones. It's organised so the reader can follow it, and the language is chosen for effect, not just correct.
Parents often ask for model answers. We'd rather show you how to judge your own child's writing against the department's criteria: our guide on how to mark your child's timed writing walks through that.
How can my child practise for the writing test?
Start with the department's three sample tasks and its free online practice tests, which include the typed writing task. Then practise essay-style and creative pieces to a 30-minute timer, and get honest feedback on each one.
Feedback is the hard part, because writing can't be marked by a computer the way multiple choice can. Our NSW Selective practice tests include human-marked writing, built on the same cumulative structure described above. No preparation product can guarantee a place, and we don't claim ours will. What we can do is show your child exactly what to work on next.