NAPLAN writing practice, marked criterion by criterion
Writing is the one NAPLAN test that is not scored by counting right answers, and it is the one most practice sites skip. Students type a response to a narrative or persuasive prompt, and it is scored against ten separate criteria covering everything from spelling to the ideas themselves.
That is what makes writing practice worth doing properly. A piece handed back with a single number tells a student nothing about which of the ten things to change. A piece handed back criterion by criterion tells them exactly which two or three would move the score most.
How is NAPLAN writing marked?
Every script is scored against the same ten criteria, whatever state you are in. This is the framework NAPLAN Expert marks against, and the marks each criterion carries.
| Criterion | Marks | What is being assessed |
|---|---|---|
| Audience | 0 to 6 | How far the writing orients, holds and affects the reader it is written for. |
| Text structure | 0 to 4 | How the orientation, complication and resolution are organised into a story that works. |
| Ideas | 0 to 5 | How ideas are chosen, related to one another and elaborated for the task. |
| Character and setting / Persuasive devices | 0 to 4 | How character is portrayed and developed, and how a sense of place, time and atmosphere is built. |
| Vocabulary | 0 to 5 | The range and precision of word choice, and how well it suits the task. |
| Cohesion | 0 to 4 | How the threads of the piece are held together across its whole length, through referring words, substitution, word association and connectives. |
| Paragraphing | 0 to 2 / 0 to 3 | How the writing is segmented into paragraphs that help a reader move through the story. |
| Sentence structure | 0 to 6 | Whether sentences are grammatically correct, structurally sound and meaningful. |
| Punctuation | 0 to 5 | Whether punctuation is correct and appropriate, and how far it helps a reader read the text. |
| Spelling | 0 to 6 | The accuracy of spelling, judged together with the difficulty of the words the writer attempted. |
| Total | 47 / 48 | 47 marks for a narrative prompt, 48 for a persuasive one. |
Two things follow from that table. Spelling, punctuation and sentence structure together carry a large share of the total, so technical accuracy alone moves the score. And the top marks in Audience and Ideas are where strong writers separate from competent ones, which is the part no formula reaches.
The criteria split into two kinds of skill, and they improve in different ways. The technical ones can be drilled. The authorial ones only move through feedback on writing the student has actually produced, which is why a practice piece without a criterion-by-criterion mark is a piece that mostly measured how fast they type.
What will the prompt be in 2027?
Nobody outside the program knows, and that is the point of practising both genres. Prompts are either narrative or persuasive, the genre rotates, and it is not announced in advance.
Years 3 and 5 receive a different prompt from Years 7 and 9. A student who has only ever practised stories can walk into a persuasive year, so practice tasks alternate between the two.
How writing practice works here
Your child writes to a real-style prompt under the same time conditions as the real test, typed on screen, or on paper for Year 3, which is the only year that still writes by hand.
The piece comes back scored on each of the ten criteria, with the feedback naming the changes that would lift the score most rather than a list of everything that could be better.
Writing tasks are part of the paid plan rather than the free diagnostic. The free diagnostic covers all four test areas and reports a result for each, which is where to start if you do not yet know whether writing is the area to spend on.
Start with the free diagnostic and see where writing sits against the other three areas.
Get startedTest structure, marking and reporting facts on this page come from ACARA's public NAPLAN documentation, checked against nap.edu.au in August 2026.
NAPLAN Expert is an independent preparation service and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to ACARA or the National Assessment Program. All practice material is original.
See where writing sits against the other three
The free diagnostic covers all four test areas and reports a result for each. It takes no credit card.