In our house, the door at the end of the hallway was part of the wall. Mum hung her calendar on it. Dad leaned the ironing board against it. Nobody ever asked what was behind it, until the morning Nana arrived with a paint scraper and a smile I had never seen before.
The seed was smaller than a full stop, and that is exactly how it liked to travel. It had ridden in the fur of a wallaby, in the tread of a walking boot and, for one dizzy afternoon, in the cuff of a farmer's trousers. Now it was stuck to a postcard bound for Iceland, and it had no idea how cold that was going to be.
Not the maths test. Definitely not the maths test. If I could keep one thing from today, it would be the moment Mr Tran's guitar string snapped in the middle of assembly, the whole hall went silent, and he kept singing anyway. By the second chorus, the entire school was singing with him. I want to keep that chorus.
Nobody at the bus stop said anything about the birdcage, which was how I knew everyone was thinking about it. It was gold, a bit rusty around the hinges, and completely empty. The new kid held it on her lap the whole way to school, as if it were the most precious thing she owned.
情境式题目设下一个读者想解开的谜。陷阱是第一段提到笼子，然后写一篇事先准备好的“first day at a new school”故事。生硬套上的联系，阅卷老师会打很低的分。笼子以及它为什么是空的，应该一直重要到结尾。
更难的题目
这四道更难：有的给出彼此对不上的事实，有的只有寥寥几个词，孩子得自己搭出让这些词有分量的情境。
题目为英文原题
讲解示例 5
The Missing Creek
The Missing Creek
‘The old map on the classroom wall shows a creek running right through the school oval. There is no creek there now.’
Use the situation below as the starting point for a piece of writing in any form you choose, and make it central to it.
A class investigation into where the creek went
An older neighbour remembers the creek from childhood
The creek, still flowing in a pipe, tells its story
A proposal to bring the creek back to the oval
25
Uses the gap between the map and today: what happened to the creek, who remembers it, or what it would mean to bring it back.
A clear shape that moves through time or builds to a discovery, with each paragraph earning its place.
Real-world ideas (history, nature, change) woven into a story, report or reflection, not dumped as facts.
Every Friday, Year 6 played cricket on top of a creek. We didn't know that, of course. Not until Priya stood on a chair to fix the curling corner of the old map by the door, and noticed a thin blue line wriggling straight through the spot where our oval is now.
Grandpa says 'not yet' the way other people say 'good morning'. Not yet, when I ask to use the big chisel. Not yet, when I want to sand the table leg. Not yet, not yet, not yet, until the day I stop asking and he hands me the chisel himself.
Use the words below as the starting point for a piece of writing in any form you choose, and make them central to it.
A stuck town clock and the girl who fixes it
A friendship everyone thinks is over
Something mended differently, and better, than before
Why some things are better left unfixed
25
Something broken (an object, a friendship, a place, a habit) and the question of whether it can be fixed are central.
An idea with some depth: it gets fixed in a surprising way, or the fixing changes what 'fixed' means.
Language that shows the effort and the feeling, with a clear beginning, turning point and ending.
构思：镇上的钟多年来停在4点10分
开头：游客、照片、“meet you at ten past four”
中间：Ruby和看管员爬上钟楼
问题：一个齿轮磨平了；哪儿都找不到备件
转折：Grandad的工具箱里有个刚好合适的旧零件
结尾：钟又走了起来，但小镇留住了这个笑话
The town clock had said ten past four for eleven years. Tourists took photos of it. Locals turned it into a joke: 'Meet you at ten past four.' Then Ruby Kowalski, aged eleven and three-quarters, followed the council caretaker up the tower stairs with her grandfather's toolbox and a library book about gears.
Use the words below as the starting point for a piece of writing in any form you choose, and make them central to it.
Halfway across the country, between an old home and new
Halfway up a climb, deciding whether to keep going
Living halfway between two languages or two houses
A piece in two halves that meet in the middle
25
Turns one word into a clear, specific situation: halfway up a hill, halfway through a book, halfway between two homes or two languages.
An idea with depth, where being halfway means something: a choice, a feeling of being in between, a moment to turn back or keep going.
Careful organisation, perhaps built around the halfway point itself, so the form and the idea work together.
构思：从Adelaide搬到Perth，途中的中点
形式：分两半，“behind us”和“in front of us”
开头：过了西澳边界一小时，Dad把车停到路边
身后：旧学校、Jun、我长大的那条街
前方：新学校、大海、一个我还没见过的房间
结尾：我跨过一条看不见的中线
An hour past the WA border, Dad pulls over so we can stand at the edge of the road in the middle of nothing. 'About thirteen hundred and fifty kilometres behind us,' he says, 'and about the same to go.' Behind us are Adelaide, my old school and my best friend Jun. In front of us is Perth, and I haven't decided yet whether I am going to like it.
