It can be difficult to know how to prepare for the creative writing element of an English exam; after all, you don’t know what you’re going to be asked to write about.

A useful preparation activity is to write a series of short descriptions that you might be able to use in a piece of writing.  For example:

• sunny weather
• stormy weather
• an old person
• a young person
• an animal
• the beach
• a town centre
• a room

If you produce a paragraph describing each of the above, you at least have some ready-made ideas to use in the exam.  Of course, it is important to remember to answer the question and to adapt any pre-prepared descriptions to fit the task, but at least you’ve armed yourself with a bank of writing ideas to draw upon.

When you’re writing your descriptions, remember to use language features such as metaphor, simile, personification, onomatopoeia and alliteration.

Hopefully, this will help to alleviate some of the stress associated with exams.