Identify the writer viewpoint from language choices.
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Practise it now
Highlight only the sentences that show this is true. Then show the examiner.
This exercise practises identify writer viewpoint alongside its own main skill, Inference & Evidence.
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A worked example
One question of the kind this skill is tested with, worked all the way through: the reasoning, and what the wrong answers are there to catch.
Reading an opinion out of word choices
Read the passage, then decide what the writer thinks of the changes.
The council calls it a "modernisation". What it means is that the last bench on the green has been carted away, the lime trees have been cut back to stumps, and the space where the market stood is now nine parking bays. Progress, apparently, arrives on a lorry.
The writer disapproves of the changes
The writer approves of the changes
The writer has no opinion either way
The writer is unsure whether the changes will work
Answer: The writer disapproves of the changes
How you get there
The writer never says "I disagree", so the viewpoint has to be read out of the words chosen. "Modernisation" sits inside quotation marks, which holds the council's own word at arm's length. "Carted away" and "cut back to stumps" are harsher than "removed" and "pruned" would have been. The last line says the opposite of what it means. Three choices leaning the same way is a viewpoint.
Why the other answers tempt
"The writer has no opinion either way" tempts because the passage is mostly plain facts: a bench, some trees, nine parking bays. Facts can still be picked and worded to argue, so ask which facts were chosen and what they were called.
If they are stuck, say this
Underline every word the writer could have said more neutrally, then ask which way all of them lean together. One loaded word may be an accident; four in a row is not.
Highlight only the sentences that show this is true. Then show the examiner.
This engine’s own main skill is Inference & Evidence. It practises identify writer viewpoint alongside it.
Evidence is not "the bit that mentions it" - it is the bit that could not be true unless the statement were true. Maya turning at the fork without checking the signpost, and warning the others about a loose step she has never been shown, both need her to have been here before. The other sentences fit the scene beautifully, but a first-time visitor could have produced every one of them.
What to say if they get stuck
A sentence is only evidence if the statement would fall apart without it.
Some sentences are about the lighthouse, or about the weather. Being on the same topic is not the same as being proof.
Look for things Maya does that she could only do if she already knew the path.
How identify writer viewpoint differs from the skills beside it
The same exercise practises several skills, and telling them apart is often the difficulty rather than the exercise itself. On this page the skill is: identify the writer viewpoint from language choices, and it stops where excludes purpose unless viewpoint evidence is required.
Questions parents ask about identify writer viewpoint
Answered from what the skill map records about this skill, not from a template. Every answer here is on the page, and the same questions are the page's FAQ structured data.
Identify the writer viewpoint from language choices. It is one of 41 named English skills in the 11+, in the reading strand, and this page carries 1 interactive exercise that practises it.
"The writer has no opinion either way" tempts because the passage is mostly plain facts: a bench, some trees, nine parking bays. Facts can still be picked and worded to argue, so ask which facts were chosen and what they were called. The wrong answers on this skill are built out of that, not out of random numbers, so it is worth naming out loud before your child meets it under time pressure.
Point at the next move rather than explaining the whole rule. Underline every word the writer could have said more neutrally, then ask which way all of them lean together. One loaded word may be an accident; four in a row is not.
The skill map draws the line here: Excludes purpose unless viewpoint evidence is required. A question past that line is testing a different named English skill, which is worth knowing before you spend a week practising the wrong one.
The reading strand holds 11 skills that are tested together, and the pages next to identify writer viewpoint are infer a character state, infer implicit meaning and interpret a word in context. Each has its own exercise and its own link, and none of them needs an account.
Use Comprehension X-Ray, embedded on this page. It is the exercise the skill map attaches to identify writer viewpoint, it runs in the browser with no account to make, nothing is scored, and nothing a child does here is recorded or sent anywhere. It also has its own link, so you can send it to a child without sending them anywhere else first.
Comprehension, vocabulary, grammar and punctuation are four different problems
A free diagnostic separates them, so practice goes where the gap actually is rather than on whichever one is easiest to set.
