Parents preparing a child for the Selective Writing test often ask for a target word count, as if hitting a number would guarantee a mark. There isn't a strict word count that guarantees a high score. Markers aren't counting words and handing out marks for length on its own.
That doesn't make length irrelevant, though. It's a side effect of three things that actually decide the score: how the section is marked, what real students under timed conditions actually write, and how a student spends their thirty minutes.
How the writing section is actually marked
The writing test is marked out of 25, by two independent, trained markers, and their two scores are averaged. Writing sits alongside Reading, Mathematical Reasoning and Thinking Skills as one of four equally weighted components, each worth 25 per cent of the final score. It's a quarter of the result, marked against a genuinely broad rubric.
| Mark set | What it covers | Marks |
|---|---|---|
| Set A | Content, form, organisation and style | 15 of 25 |
| Set B | Sentences, punctuation and spelling | 10 of 25 |
Set A is the bulk of the mark, around 60 per cent of the writing score, and it's the set that needs room on the page to actually show up.
Why a short response struggles
To score well against that rubric, a response has to demonstrate developed ideas, logical organisation, varied sentence structures, appropriate vocabulary and accurate spelling and punctuation, all at once. That takes space. A fifty word response, even if every word is technically correct, doesn't give a marker enough to work with.
It helps to think of it as a checklist a marker runs through while reading:
- Did the student address the actual task?
- Did they follow the correct format?
- Are the ideas engaging and developed?
- Is the structure clear?
- Is the vocabulary precise?
- Are the sentences varied?
- Is the grammar mostly accurate?
Quality matters more than quantity, and that's true. But it's a little misleading taken too literally. Quality still needs enough space on the page to actually show up.
What real students actually write
The length that works also varies by text type, and this is something we've measured directly rather than estimated. Around 250 students completed weekly writing tasks under timed conditions during our Selective Horizon program, a free ten-week program we ran earlier this year.
| Text type | Average length |
|---|---|
| Newspaper article | About 367 words |
| About 403 words |
Newspaper article and email were two of several text types students wrote across the ten weeks. Averaged across all of them, the overall length sat in the mid-300s. These numbers are from the 2026 Selective Horizon cohort specifically, and are likely to shift as the program runs again in future years.
250 students is a small sample against the real cohort: 16,487 students sat the Selective High School Placement Test in 2024, according to the NSW Department of Education. Still, one pattern stood out: students who placed in roughly the top 10 per cent of the cohort wrote above that average, every single one of them, to varying degrees. None of the top performers produced short responses.
Worth knowing
The extra words aren't padding. A student who is genuinely working through their ideas tends to need more room to do it, so the length shows up as a by-product of that depth rather than something aimed for directly.
Where the thirty minutes actually goes
A lot of otherwise strong students lose time to the same pattern: an elaborate, carefully crafted opening paragraph that eats a disproportionate share of the thirty minutes, sometimes seven or eight minutes on one paragraph alone. What follows is usually a rushed middle and an ending tacked on in two sentences because time has run out. To a marker, that reads as a genuinely unbalanced response: a strong opening next to underdeveloped ideas and a conclusion that doesn't feel earned.
Planning
3 to 5 minutes, before writing a single word of the actual response.
Developing the body
20 to 22 minutes. This is where most of the marks actually sit.
Conclusion and a final check
3 to 5 minutes to land the ending properly and check spelling and punctuation.
There's no official rule behind that split. It's simply the allocation that tends to keep a response balanced, so the middle of the piece, where most of the marks actually sit, gets the time it needs.
Length follows depth, not the other way around
"Don't chase a word count. Chase a developed idea, a clear structure, and language that's varied and accurate. The length mostly takes care of itself."
Writing more should never come at the expense of clarity or accuracy. A long response full of spelling mistakes, run-on sentences, or ideas that drift from the prompt won't score well either. Length on its own has never been the goal.
If there's a number worth holding onto, it's this: a response in the range of a few hundred words, developed properly rather than padded, is generally what shows the range the rubric is asking for. Our own Selective Horizon numbers sat in the mid-300s overall, closer to 367 for a newspaper article and 403 for an email, and that's a more useful anchor than a fixed target ever would be.
See how your child's writing measures up against a real cohort.
Selective Horizon is our free 10-week program for Year 5 students preparing for the 2027 Selective High School Placement Test, with weekly writing tasks under timed conditions.
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Preparing with Bing's Academy
John attended Penrith Selective High School after sitting the Selective exam in Year 6, and has been preparing students for the Selective exam since 2014.
If you want an honest read on where your child's writing actually sits, that's something we help with at Bing's Academy, using the same marking criteria covered in this guide.
For a broader look at Selective exam preparation, see our Selective preparation guide.
John 'Bing' Huang
Founder, Bing's Academy