Sid Saini

I started working with selective test families after seeing how little support was available for the writing component specifically. Most tutoring centres focus on multiple choice — thinking skills and maths — but writing accounts for roughly 25% of the total score and is the one area where a prepared student can pull significantly ahead of an equally capable but unprepared one.

Over 843 one-on-one parent consultations, I kept seeing the same patterns: students who were strong across the board but losing marks on writing because nobody had told them what markers actually look for. Not the broad advice — "be creative," "use good vocabulary" — but the specific things that separate a Band 4 from a Band 6 response in a 30-minute timed test.

I built Selective Writing Test to solve that problem at scale. The platform gives students access to exam-standard prompts across all seven official genres, instant AI feedback based on the same marking criteria used in the NSW Selective test, and detailed band estimates that show exactly where marks are being lost. For Elite subscribers, our expert reviewers provide the kind of line-by-line feedback that was previously only available through expensive one-on-one sessions.

Everything on this site — the guides, the marking rubrics, the practice prompts — is built on what I have learned from reviewing thousands of student essays and talking to hundreds of families. If something is on this site, it is because I have seen it make a real difference to a real student's score.