Primary 6 · English · Situational Writing
Situational Writing questions for Primary 6 English
10 questions to work through online, 3 of them written out the way the paper asks. Answer and you get the working straight away, then a score at the end. No sign-up, and you can retake it as often as you like.
- Covering every point
- Matching register to reader
- Choosing the right reader
- Turning notes into a sentence
- Tone in a complaint
- Selecting from a stimulus
- Format of an email
- Writing the purpose sentence
- Writing formally
- Writing the closing line
Answers and explanations for all 10 questions
Every answer with the reasoning behind it. Worth reading after you have tried the set — or on its own, if you are a parent marking it.
The task asks you to write to the librarian to (a) report a damaged book, (b) explain how it happened, and (c) ask what you should do next. Your draft does (a) and (b) fully but not (c). What happens to your marks?
Answer: You lose the marks for the point you left out, however good the rest is.
Every bullet in a situational writing task is a mark. Doing two of three well still leaves the third unanswered.
Which opening suits a letter to the editor of a newspaper about a broken pavement?
Answer: I am writing to draw attention to the condition of the pavement along Jalan Kayu.
The reader is a stranger with a public role, so the opening states the purpose plainly and names the place.
Your class wants the canteen to sell a wholemeal option. Who should the letter go to, and why?
Answer: The principal, since the school decides which stalls operate and what they sell.
Write to the person who can act. Only the school can change what its canteen offers.
The notes say: bus late 20 mins · driver said traffic accident on PIE · reached school 8.05. Which sentence reports this properly?
Answer: The bus arrived twenty minutes late because of an accident on the PIE, and we reached school at 8.05 a.m.
All three facts appear, joined into a sentence, with the reason linked to the delay by because.
Which sentence complains effectively to a shop manager about a faulty fan?
Answer: The fan stopped working after nine days, and I would like it replaced or refunded.
It gives the fact, the timescale and the outcome wanted, without attacking the reader — which is what makes a complaint easy to act on.
You must write a report on a Sports Day for the school newsletter. Which detail belongs least?
Answer: That you thought the P5 relay team should have won.
A report gives what happened. Your own view of who deserved to win is opinion, and it does not belong in a newsletter report.
Which of these does a formal email need that a letter does not?
Answer: A subject line
The subject line is the one element an email has and a letter does not, and PSLE mark schemes look for it.
Write one word for the blank. I am writing to ______ permission for our class to visit the community garden on 12 June.
Answer: request
The formal verb for asking is request, and it takes the thing asked for directly: request permission.
Rewrite the marked part in one formal word. We would like to [say thank you for] the equipment your company donated.
Answer: thank you for
Say thank you for becomes the plain verb: we would like to thank you for the equipment.
Write one word for the blank. I look ______ to hearing from you.
Answer: forward
I look forward to hearing from you is the standard closing line of a formal letter or email.