What’s narrative writing?

It is a type of creative piece that is characterised by a storyline. There is often a character and the reader follows the character’s story.

A very good narrative piece is memorable. How is a piece memorable? Think about the movies or books that are memorable to you.

• Interesting storyline
• Capacity to make someone ‘feel’ an emotion.

How to ACE Written Expression

What’s expected of you (the basics):

• Vocabulary
• Grammar- tenses and spelling
• Sentence structure

But that’s not going to help you ACE the test. What’s going to help you ACE the test?

• Interesting storyline related to the prompt
• Expert organisation and ordering
• Creation of ‘feeling’

To differentiate students, thoughtfulness is key.

The Exam Piece, Not the Masterpiece

Strategy is your friend here. After doing this course, you should go into your exam knowing every step you’re going to take from:

• What to do first
• How much to write
• What paragraphs you’ll be writing

Students often follow this 3-step process:

• Plan
• Write
• Review

The only thing you have to do in an exam is come up with a storyline for the prompt quickly – and we’ll show you how to do that too.

But you have to know the 3 rules that examiners will use to judge your writing:

1. Relationship to the prompt. Why?
2. Ordering and storyline. It doesn’t mean that you try to include everything. It’s about a clear main event.
3. Tone creation. Don’t go overboard though. What they’re looking for is balance and being selective.

The course will go through each of these in detail so that you can do it (and save time!)

The time limit

Many people panic about the time limit. It is restrictive whether you have 20, 30 or 40 minutes. But doing your essay in that time period doesn’t mean you’ll get a high score.

It’s quality that matters. For example, we had a student who didn’t finish her essay (but it was high quality) and she got an offer!

Writing a high-quality piece is hard. But once you master that, doing it within the time limit just means doing things quickly and cutting out ‘time wasting’ practices. Little decisions in planning and the process to take can really help you with your time limit.

So, now that you’re preparing, focus on producing a high-quality piece without a time limit. Some of the questions do request a time limit, and you should try without a time limit and then with a time limit.

Common mistakes

Here are common mistakes that cost students high scores in exams and likely reasons why they happen:

• Using ‘big’ words incorrectly for the context (or spelled incorrectly).
• Including too many events
• Telling the story
• Illogical stories
• Using over-flowery language
• Writing too little
• Writing too much
• Not writing a piece that addresses the prompt
• No storyline
• Too many characters

In this course, we’ll go through the process of writing from planning all the way to editing so that you’re not going to be making these mistakes because the process eliminates them!

Resources to support you

Special resources are available to you to help you with your writing improvement. They are:

• Prompt library – many of these are past exam prompts.
• Sample essays – see essays that score 8 and above (competitive). Students who have written essays that consistently score 6 – high 7 have also been offered scholarships / selective school spots. Students who have previously scored 4, can quickly go up to 7 by implementing the feedback.

You can access these at any time while you have course access.

Practice time!

Now, it's your turn to practice.

The questions in this checkpoint are provided to give you an introduction. Don't worry too much as you'll continue to build your skills throughout the course.

To do your practice questions, click on the below to download your question paper. You can print it out or work from the electronic version. We do recommend that you write your answers by hand in a notebook or on paper.

NW-CP1-Questions.pdf

Once you have completed your questions, review the suggested solutions. You can download (and print if you wish) the PDF suggested solutions and/or watch the suggested solutions video (all below).

Once you're done with reviewing the practice question suggested solutions, move on to the next checkpoint.

NW-CP1-Answers.pdf

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