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Road to HKDSE 2017

Writing notes (Short Stories)

A. 歷屆題目

題目 考核重點

1 HKDSE English Sample Paper Q6 1. Write a letter to

Learning English through Short Stories your friend

Next week, your teacher is going to ask your class to read some
2. Write a story in the
short stories about the future. In order to prepare you beforehand,
letter
she has set you the following task:
3. Describe the
Imagine that you leave Hong Kong in 2008 to study overseas. You
changes in Hong
return to the city in 2015.

Write a letter to Peter, a friend you made while you were overseas, Kong and how you

and describe the changes in Hong Kong and how you feel about feel about them

them.

Write your letter. Sign your name ‘Chris Wong’.

2 HKDSE English 2012 Q7 1. Write a creative

Learning English through Short Stories short story about

Your creative writing teacher has given your class the following task how you found out

and she would like you to use it to write a short story. The stories the truth

will be displayed in school during Creativity in Learning Week.

You were walking by the Peninsula Hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui when

you spotted your brother driving an expensive sports car. The last

time you spoke to him, he was looking for a job.

Write a story about how you found out the truth.

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題目 考核重點

3 HKDSE English 2013 Q3 (Diary entry) 1. Write a diary entry

Learning English through Drama about a situation

You are reading Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare for drama

when you betrayed

class. In the play, Brutus betrayed his best friend, Julius Caesar, for
your best friend.

the good of the country. Your homework is to write a diary entry

about a situation when you betrayed your best friend.

4 HKDSE English 2013 Q9 1. Write a detective

Learning English through Short Stories story about the

You are entering the ‘Detective Story Competition’ and have been
damage of a

given the following situation:

valuable

Vandals Hit Museum

masterpiece
Several valuable masterpieces were found damaged yesterday in

the Hong Kong Museum of Art.

Write the story.

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5 HKDSE English 2014 Q9 1. Write a short story

Learning English through Short Stories describing the

You are taking a creative writing workshop and you have to submit
events that led up

the following assignment:

to your roommate’s

Imagine you are a university student living in a student hall. Your

sudden departure.

roommate has suddenly decided to leave. Write a short story

describing the events that led up to your roommate’s sudden

departure.

6 HKDSE English 2016 Q6 1. Write a short story

Learning English through Short Stories to describe the

One of the planned activities for the Creative Writing Week at your
sweetness of

school is a short story writing competition. The theme for this year’s
revenge.

competition is “Revenge is Sweet”

Write your story.

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7 HKDSE English 2018 Q9 1. Write a story to

Learning English through Short Stories describe a bird

Imagine you are a pet bird in a cage. One day your owner left your
which left the bird
bird cage open.
Write a story from the bird’s point of view.
cage
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範文一

Here is the title and beginning of a short story:

My Dangerous Home
I used to think that my home was the safest place in the world, but what happened last
Wednesday provided that I was totally wrong!
To enter a short-story competition, you have to write the rest of the story, ending with this
sentence:
Now I understand how important home safety is!
Write the story.

標題 My Dangerous Home

起 I used to think that my home was the safest place in the world, but what

(背景) happened last Wednesday provided that I was totally wrong!

I was not a methodical person, so my home was always in a mess. Last

Wednesday, when I got home from school, I didn’t see my mother. I called her and

she told me that she and Dad would return home after dinner. This meant that I

could play computer games for a few hours. Hurray!

承 I was very excited and dashed into my room to change clothes. Unfortunately, I

(發展) tripped over something and fell. My head hit the floor severely and I fainted. I

remained unconscious until I felt extremely hot and saw that everything around me

was burning.

FIRE!!!

“Help!” I screamed hysterically. “There’s a fire!”

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轉 As the fire burned more and more fiercely, I lost my head. I must escape at once

(高潮) or I would die. But the door was already on fire! There was no way to escape!

Nothing was in my mind now except one word – “DEATH”.

However, I suddenly thought of the windows. Windows could be emergency

exits! I tried to open them. No such luck. They were sealed shut by the paint. My

hope of escape had gone. I felt that my breathing had become immensely difficult.

The only thing I could do now was pray.

Then, a vague shape appeared outside the window. I believed that I must be in

heaven now as I could see an angel – an angel that could fly high in the sky.

合 “Hold on!” he shouted after he had broken the window. “You are saved now!”

(結局) At this moment, I realized that he was a firefighter! He had come to my rescue!

“Thanks a lot!” I said feebly. “I thought you were an angel and you really are!”

After investigation, the fire department decided that the cause of the fire was a

damaged wire. We were not aware that it had been damaged by wear and tear.

Now, I understand how important home safety is!

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範文二

標題 Horrible experience in a department store

起 My friends and I felt that our lives were too boring, so we decided to do

(背景) something interesting or exciting. The naughtiest one among us suggested hiding

inside a large department store and staying there overnight on Halloween. We

accepted his suggestion because we thought that we could surely have a lot of fun

there. After making sure that the doors were locked and there was no one around,

we came out of our hiding place, only to find that there were ghosts in the store.
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承 In the fashion department, someone behind me tapped me on my shoulder and

(發展) said with rage, “How dare you intrude into our place!”

“Don’t make fun of me! I know it’s you, Peter,” I said in a mocking tone.

“It’s not me. It’s the dummy behind you!” Peter screamed hysterically.

“What? Are you insane?”

I turned around and saw a few dummies. They looked very angry. We were, of

course, scared to death. Yet, Jimmy was so smart that he pulled out the dummy’s

head. Then, we ran away as quickly as we could to another department.

轉 We arrived at the toy department and believed that we were safe there.

(高潮) Nevertheless, we soon knew that it was not true when we saw that the toys could

move by themselves and tried to attack us. We were bombed by fighters, bombed

by tanks, crashed by cars, and struck by superheroes. They chased us until we

reached the art department.

The art department was also horrible. People in the pictures were alive. The

scariest one of them was a warrior. He left the picture and attempted to spear us.

He kept chasing us. Because he was riding a horse, it was very difficult for us to get

rid of him. Fortunately, we could dash into the lift because he caught us.

Finally, we took the lift to the second floor and went to the book department.

God! Even the books would not let us go. It was as if some people were dashing

them against us, but we could not see anyone. Hundreds of thousands of books

were coming towards us from all sides, so we could not move at all. All we could do

was lying on the floor. “Help!” Please let us go!” We yelled out in terror.

合 Luckily, calm was restored a few minutes later, but we could not leave the

(結局) department store until the next morning when it opened. Encountering the ghosts

in it was a severe punishment for our misbehavior. Now, none of us dares to go to

this haunted department store again.

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HKDSE English 2013 Q9

Learning English through Short Stories

You are entering the ‘Detective Story Competition’ and have been given the following situation:

Vandals Hit Museum

Several valuable masterpieces were found damaged yesterday in

the Hong Kong Museum of Art.

Write the story.

標題 Lifting the veil of vandalism

起 It was 10 in the morning when David arrived at the office, which was

(背景) unusually late for a man who always despised late-comers. Yet, David was my

teacher and my boss in the detective field, so I had no right to complain

about him.

承 “Are you okay? You look tired,” I asked him. In darken circles, his bloodshot

(發展) eyes suddenly shone with a tinge of excitement. He waved the newspapers

in his hands frantically. “We’ve got another case, Chris,” he said as he showed

me the newspapers. In big font size, the headline read, “Vandals Hit

Museum.” It seemed that several artworks were damaged last night in the

Hong Kong Museum of Art. David told me the police had already requested

our assistance, so we had better go quickly.

承 We arrived at the scene at noon. The museum was closed for the day due to
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the incident, and the warning “Do Not Cross” were all over the place.

(發展) Inspector Wong of the Police Department accompanied us and gave us a

briefing on the case. What made the case a difficult one was the fact that

there was no evidence left behind apart from the vandalized artworks

themselves – no CCTV footage as they had been disabled by the criminal.

“That would require much technical knowledge, wouldn’t it?” David said to

himself in deep thought.

“Checked for fingerprints yet?” I asked the inspector, who was shaking his

head. “There aren’t any. The guy was very meticulous.”

Examining the damaged pieces carefully, we discovered that there were five

of them to be exact: a painting of Venice, a sculpture of an autumn leaf, a

photograph depicting the war in Iran, a painting of a scene from Dante’s book

and a local replica of the world-renowned Mona Lisa by da Vinci. Most of

them had been scratched by a sharp object, possibly a knife. However, our

examination yielded neither new evidence nor any hypothesis on the case.
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轉 “I … I need to take a rest,” David mumbled, as he stumbled to a nearby bench

(高潮) and sat down. It did not surprise me, since David had been diagnosed with
leg degeneration and osteoporosis. “Better let my old teacher rest,” I
thought. David had more than once complained about his deteriorating
physique and hinted at the idea of retiring. “Take your time, I’ll take over,” I
told him before walking away to carry out further investigation.
It was not long after I left that a click echoed through the walls of the
museum. I turned around to see my teacher picking up a small object and
hastily putting it back into his pocket. And the object was a knife.
“No I thought,” it can’t be. A famous detective committing vandalism? That
had to be a joke. I tried to put my suspicion to the back of my head, but I
suddenly remembered David’s engineering degree from the University of
Hong Kong. That would be enough for one to be able to disable a whole
network of CCTVs.
But that is still inefficient to come to such a conclusion, I reassured myself.
My thoughts ran back to the names of the damaged artworks to seek further
evidence. “Autumn Leaf”, “Venice”, “Iran”, “Dante”, “Da Vinci”… Putting the
first letters together would make “avid”, which made no sense and left a “D”
unused.
合 And then the veil was lifted – “DAVID”.
(結局)
I looked back in horror at my teacher to find him smiling. “You have passed
my test, my student,” he said slowly, allowing the words to settle. I stared in
disbelief as he put up his hands and limped towards the Inspector.

Content 7/7 7/7

Language 6/7 7/7

Organization 7/7 7/7

Total 20/21 21/21

41/42 (5**)

HKDSE English 2014 Q9

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Learning English through Short Stories

You are taking a creative writing workshop and you have to submit the following assignment:
Imagine you are a university student living in a student hall. Your roommate has
suddenly decided to leave. Write a short story describing the events that led up to
your roommate’s sudden departure.

標題 The Sudden Departure

起 Having finished eight hours of lecture in a row, I walked exhaustedly from the

(背景) campus back to my hall, hoping I could reach my cosy bed as soon as possible to

take a good nap before dinner. As I entered my room, something strange

immediately grabbed my attention.

The bed on the left, which was David’s, was empty – I have never seen it being

so clean and tidy. Nobody else was in the room.

At first, I thought he finally decided to tidy up his messy bed. But no, that was

not true – there was not even the bed sheet on his bed. Looking around the room

again, I saw the doors of his wardrobe, which was empty, opened wide.

My eyes turned to his desk. Again, there was absolutely nothing, but a piece of

note. Coming to the desk and taking the note, I was flabbergasted by the words

written on it.

承 “Hey, Chris, I am leaving. Sorry for that. Best, David.” I had no idea what was

(發展) going on but my instinct had told me that something bad had happened. Soon after

reading the note, I picked up my smartphone and tried to call David. Following that

was a familiar female voice saying, “The number you called cannot be reached at

the moment. Please dial again later.” It seemed that David had even switched off

his cellphone.
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承 I was first in disbelief. Then a chill went through my spine. David was the most

(發展) cheerful and talkative person in the world I have ever seen. Every time when he

encountered any problems, he would seek my advice. Having never seen him

behave like that before, I am apprehensive about him. There must be some

reasons for his sudden departure without a proper explanation.

I left my room and went straight to the common room. A number of my

roommates were there having a discussion. As soon as I entered the room, all eyes

were immediately on me, curiously and wonderingly.

“Do you guys know why David left?” I asked.

“Oh, I thought you know why,” one of them replied. We were just talking about

his sudden departure.

“I don’t know either,” I said confusingly, “He just left me a note saying he’s

leaving and he’s sorry about that. I have no idea what’s going on.”

轉 They looked at each other, shaking their heads bemusedly. Suddenly, Jason, the

(高潮) noisiest paparazzo at out hall, rushed into the common room and yelled. “Breaking

news! I heard that David was kicked out of the university because of poor

academic results!”

“Oh my god, is that true?” one of them asked in an astonished tone.

“Yep,” Jason replied, “People said that he had been performing poorly in his

studies, getting a GPA of 0.97 in the previous two semesters and being kicked out

of the university.”

All of a sudden, everything made sense to me. I had never heard David talking

about his studies. Maybe his poor academic performance compelled him to leave

the hall. Perhaps he was too embarrassed about it and therefore told me nothing.

However reasonable the explanation was, I decided to ask David as he is one of

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my best friends in the hall.

轉 A few days had passed and there still wasn’t any news from David, whether from
(高潮) others or on Facebook. As I wanted to leave him a message on Whatsapp, comforting
him or whatever, I saw him online. I immediately texted him, “Where are you man?”
However, soon after left him my message, he went offline again.
Extremely disappointed, I knew that he could be reached at least. I was eager to find
out why he had left the hall so suddenly. This time, I called him, but dialing 133 before
entering his number such that my number would not appear on David’s phone.
“Hello?” The call finally got through and it was David’s voice.
“Hey man it’s Chris. Where are you going?” I asked desperately.
There was a five-second silence and then a sigh put the awkwardness to an end. “I
am leaving the university.”
“So is it true that you have been kicked out of the university?” I asked.
Silence came again, but this time, to my surprise, it was broken by a gale of laughter.
“What?” David replied, laughing, “Who in the world told you that?”
“Erm…” I didn’t know how I should not respond to that, “So, that’s not true?”
合 “Well,” David said, giggling, “I received an offer from the University of Oxford, but it
(結局) came quite late so I had to leave in just a few days to deal with the clumsy
administrative stuff.”
“Really?!” I said in astonishment, but I was still confused. “Why didn’t you tell me
before you left the hall?”
“That’s because I wanted to inform you when everything is settled and personally I
want to keep it low-profile. You know, the offer was not confirmed until the very end.”
Everything became so crystal clear then. “I see, congratulations, man!” All the best in
Oxford. Do keep in touch.” I told David.
“Thanks man!” David said in his signature cheerful tone, “But I would have to
apologize to you again.”
“You silly man. Don’t mention that. I understand.” I said. This kid seemed to feel
guilty for departing from the hall suddenly without any explanation.
David uttered, “I am actually in the UK now and the overseas calling charges are
terrifyingly expensive,” he explained.
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