Engaging with CSSE 11+ English: How to Write Continuously

Continuous Writing is often the most daunting part of the 11+ English Exam, requiring good time management, vast vocabulary, mastery of punctuation, and, most importantly, confidence.

Split over two answers, the continuous writing exam will ask two random questions in the form of a prompt or image, asking you to describe or explain them. For example, the most common questions involve describing your favourite food, a time you were scared, or, in newer papers, to describe a photo - one recent picture was of a group of young boys jumping into the sea off a jetty.

The most important thing to succeed in this part of the exam is to create an image in the reader’s (examiner’s) mind. If the question asks you to describe your favourite food, the most successful answers are the ones that you can almost smell, or taste. This is what the question is designed to test.

When I was young and set to do my 11+ exam, my grandmother joked about putting me in the middle of Belfair’s Woods and not letting me out until I could describe it accurately. While that was a bit more intense preparation than I was willing to take on, the point she helped me realise was really effective - to be able to reproduce the woods in my writing was to be able to describe it well. To capture the sounds of the leaves and branches knocking together, rustling, crunching underfoot; to put the smell of damp soil, decaying leaves, the turning of the season into a bottle, and pour it out on my page once I had entered the exam.

Methods for Describing: SOAPM and the Five Senses

All of that sounds great I’m sure, but to actually do it, especially under the pressure of an exam is really difficult. There is the time to consider, the distractions of other students, and the pressure of that alone can then make all the preparation you have done fly out of your head.

Because of this, I like the simple acronym SOAPM. Soap, and M. It is easy to remember because it is silly, and I think that takes the pressure off a little bit too.

SOAPM stands for:

Simile

Onomatopoeia

Alliteration

Personification

Metaphor

In my experience, to be able to hit at least 3 of 5 of these consistently in written answers is a fantastic start to being able to capture the feeling that we are trying to recreate in the answer we write.

For reference:

Simile: describing one thing as being ‘like’ or ‘as’ another.

Onomatopoeia: words that sound like the thing they refer to (‘bang’, ‘crash’, ‘sizzle’).

Alliteration: successive words starting with the same letter.

Personification: giving a non-living thing human-like characteristics.

Metaphor: describing one thing as being another thing for emphasis.

The five senses are sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing.

There is a lot to unpack there, but they all come together to make really vivid, lifelike descriptions when used well, which is just what we want when writing for the 11+.

If we take the question of describing one’s favourite food, the opportunities for using these writing techniques are endless! My favourite meal is a light, just creamy enough spaghetti carbonara, topped with garlic, pepper, parsley, and generous heaps of parmesan cheese.

When describing this meal, I might want to focus on the fragrant buttery garlic that sizzles and fries in the pan until beautifully golden brown. The long strands of spaghetti that cascade like sunlight into the bowl, or maybe the cracked black pepper, bouncing and dancing as I shake them onto the dish…Hungry yet?

We can start simply by describing the smells and tastes of the dish or move quickly into more advanced techniques like personification and creating the image we want to achieve. As mentioned, I like SOAPM because it is silly, but also because the best answers are the ones that have fun and take liberties with their description (also relieving a bit more of that ever-dreaded exam pressure). To describe well is to have mastery of the techniques that have been mentioned, but that does not mean that has to be strict, serious, and without passion. In fact, bringing that excitement into the exam is what brings writing alive, and so the image comes to life in the examiner’s mind.

Take the time daily to recount your day, the things you saw and whatever activities you did. Then, describe one thing, and really focus on it. What were the colours of the environment, the sounds, or the smells?

If, each time we take the time to write, we focus on the five senses, the things that we can see and feel, and channel describing those through SOAPM, it is invaluable practice for when the exam comes.