ABC Education · 11+ Practice
Week 31 · English Practice Paper
Reading: 0 marks · Writing: 40 marks · Suggested time: 45 minutes.
Reading Passage
This extract is from a novel where a girl has just arrived, after a long journey, at a house she has never visited before. She is exploring the garden for the first time.
The Orchard Wall
The orchard had not been touched in years. Rows of apple and pear trees leaned at odd angles, their branches heavy with blossom and tangled with ivy that had climbed unchecked since anyone last thought to cut it back. Beneath them the grass grew knee-high, threaded through with clover and the papery husks of last year's seed heads. Beyond the trees, where the ground dipped toward a low stone wall, Nadia could just make out the glint of a pond, its surface dark and perfectly still beneath a curtain of overhanging willow.
She set down her bag at the gate and walked in slowly, one hand trailing along the rough bark of the nearest tree. The air here smelled different from the lane outside — sweeter, damper, faintly of crushed grass and something green and growing. A woodpigeon called somewhere out of sight, and further off, half-swallowed by the trees, something rustled and went still.
She unlaced her boots and pulled them off, then peeled away her socks, curling her toes into the cool, damp grass beneath. She shrugged off her coat and let it fall across the gate, rolled her sleeves to the elbow, and stood there a moment, looking at the tangled green and the dark water beyond it, wondering what else the orchard might be hiding.
Section A: Reading
Section B: Writing
Choose ONE of the following:
- Choose ONE of the two tasks below. There are 40 marks available for this task.
- 20 marks are for the content of your writing, which should demonstrate your understanding of the passage.
- 20 marks are for the written accuracy and techniques in your writing, including your spelling, punctuation and grammar.
- Continue to follow the style, tone and genre of the passage, and use a variety of the passage's ideas — character, setting and action.
Option 1: Continue the story from this point, with a focus on the beauty and stillness of the orchard.
- Describe more of the orchard setting.
- Explore Nadia's feelings as she explores.
- Describe what Nadia does next.
- You don't need to write the entire story, just the next section.
Option 2: Despite the apparent peace of the orchard, the passage suggests hints of neglect and possible danger beneath its beauty. Write a description of the orchard that develops these unsettling aspects.
- Describe more of the orchard setting.
- Explore Nadia's feelings as she explores.
- Describe what Nadia does next.