This book is aimed at pupils in Year 9 at secondary schools in England and Wales. At the end of Year 9, when pupils are on average aged fourteen, they sit the National Tests for the end of Key Stage 3 before embarking on the GCSE syllabus in Year 10. There are now some schools who enter more able pupils for these tests at the end of Year 8, so the book may be of interest for them as well.

As with the other two books, this one comprises a set of six test papers, the first four of which contain three reading passages followed by comprehension questions and also a writing assignment that is linked to the topic of the reading texts. The topics of the test papers are London, Pigeons, Food, Farms, Shakespeare's Macbeth and Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. These last two are included because pupils study a Shakespeare play in Year 9 and are questioned on it in the National Test. The problem, however, is that the syllabus has recently changed; whereas the majority of pupils used to study Macbeth, most of them are now studying Much Ado About Nothing. The Shakespeare component of this book is therefore now sadly out of date, and the two test papers presented at the end of the book have no real relevance for pupils preparing for the Key Stage 3 tests. If you buy this book for your child, you should be aware that only the first four test papers will be of use.

So, are these four test papers worth their salt? There is certainly a good variety, with twelve texts in all, ranging from non-fiction to fiction and poetry and including passages by some of our greatest writers such as Dickens, Orwell and Wordsworth. As well as Wordsworth's 'Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802', we have contemporary Roger McGough's delightful poem 'Pie in the Sky' in the Test Paper on Food. Here we also find an excerpt from 'David Copperfield' where David as a young man finds a waiter in an inn taking advantage of him and eating his dinner for him. The Test Paper on London has a text on the history of London as well as a modern description; the Paper on food has an unusual item in the form of a recipe for green pea pottage from The Medieval Cookbook. There is an interesting extract on organic farming in the fourth Test Paper, alongside a passage from 'Animal Farm' by George Orwell, whom pupils may remember from the extract from 'Down and Out in Paris and London' in the Year 8 book. Plenty of exposure here, then, to different types of writing.

The questions on these texts attempt

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