Written Exercise Tips for Assessment Centres
A written exercise is marked on whether the reader could act on your document. Everything else, including how much you wrote, is secondary.
A written exercise gives you a brief, a pack of information and a document to produce: a report to a client, a memo to a committee, a policy brief for a minister, an options appraisal for a board. Sometimes it follows a case study you have already analysed, sometimes it is the whole exercise. Word limits are common and enforced.
The assessor reading it is marking against a rubric, often four or five criteria such as structure, use of evidence, risk handling, professional tone and accuracy. They are usually reading a dozen of these in an afternoon. That is why a document with its recommendation in the first line consistently outscores one that builds carefully to a conclusion on page two, even when the analysis underneath is the same.
The other half of the exercise is time management. Candidates who start writing immediately produce documents that wander and then run out of time before the risks section, which is where the judgement marks live. A rough split of twenty percent planning, sixty percent writing and twenty percent checking is better than anything you will improvise on the day.
Written Exercise scenarios you can practise
Each one is timed, set in a named sector and scored against an expert key, with AI feedback on the written answers. Sign up to play the free sample in full.
Written Exercise: Recommendation Report
Read a short business brief and data, then write a clear, structured recommendation. Your writing is reviewed against a marking rubric with AI feedback.
Corporate & Business · 35 minutes
Written Exercise: Policy Brief
Read a short policy brief and data, then write a balanced brief that sets out the options objectively and makes a clear recommendation. Your writing is reviewed against a marking rubric with AI feedback.
Public Sector · 35 minutes
Written Exercise: Market Entry
Read a short business brief and a data pack, then write a clear, structured recommendation on whether and how to enter a new market. Your writing is reviewed against a marking rubric with AI feedback.
Corporate & Business · 35 minutes
Written Exercise: Architecture Options Appraisal
Review an information pack comparing two routes off an ageing order platform - a full replatform or an incremental migration - answer judgement questions on the data, then write a recommendation report to the architecture board. Your writing is reviewed against a marking rubric with AI feedback.
Engineering · 35 minutes
Written Exercise: Credit Committee Memo
Review the financials, sector notes and lending criteria for two loan applicants competing for the same £8m facility, answer judgement questions on the credit, then write the recommendation memo the credit committee will read. Your writing is reviewed against a marking rubric with AI feedback.
Finance & Banking · 35 minutes
What the rubric usually covers
A clear recommendation
The reader should know what you are proposing before they know why. Assessors mark whether a decision-maker could act on the document, and a conclusion buried at the end fails that test.
Evidence from the pack
Cite the figures, dates and policy lines you were given. Unsupported assertion scores poorly however confidently it is written, and the pack always contains more usable evidence than candidates use.
Structure and signposting
Headings, short paragraphs, one idea each. The document should be navigable at a glance, because it will be read at speed.
Risk and counter-argument
Naming the strongest objection and how you would handle it is frequently its own criterion. Candidates who only argue one side leave those marks unclaimed.
Audience and tone
A memo to your director, a brief for a minister and a letter to a customer are three different registers. Writing all three the same way is a visible error.
Accuracy
Numbers that contradict the pack, a misquoted deadline or a misspelled client name all cost marks, and all are fixable in a final read-through.
A structure and a time split
- 1
Plan for the first fifth of the time
Read the brief twice, mark the three or four facts that decide the answer, and write a skeleton of headings. It feels like wasting the clock and it is the reason strong documents finish on time.
- 2
Decide your recommendation before writing
Commit to the answer, then build the document to support it. Writing your way to a conclusion produces two pages of thinking out loud.
- 3
Open with recommendation and rationale
One line on what you propose, then two or three reasons with the evidence attached. A reader should be able to stop after the first paragraph and still know your position.
- 4
Give each reason its own short section
A heading, two to four sentences, the figure from the pack that supports it. This is what makes the document easy to mark, which is the same thing as easy to credit.
- 5
Add risks and next steps
Two or three risks with a mitigation each, then who does what by when. This section is short, quick to write and disproportionately valuable.
- 6
Respect the word limit
Where a limit is given, being over it is sometimes an automatic penalty and always a signal you cannot edit. Write to about ninety percent of the limit.
- 7
Reread for accuracy, not elegance
In the last few minutes check names, numbers and dates against the pack. Assessors notice a figure that contradicts their own materials immediately.
Mistakes that cost marks
Summarising the pack back
A document that restates the brief without reaching a position scores badly. Assessors already know the material; they are marking what you do with it.
Burying the conclusion
Building suspense is for essays, not for business writing. Lead with the answer.
Writing to the word limit rather than to the point
Padding is obvious, and the rubric has no criterion for length. Finishing early and checking is the better trade.
Ignoring a stated constraint
A recommendation that exceeds the budget or breaches the policy in the pack loses the judgement mark regardless of how well argued it is.
One undifferentiated block of text
No headings and long paragraphs make a strong argument hard to find. Structure is a scored criterion, not decoration.
No risks section
Presenting a recommendation as risk-free reads as naive and skips a criterion you were going to be marked on.
Practise it against the clock
Timed e-tray, in-tray, written, presentation, group and role-play scenarios, scored against an expert key with AI feedback on every written answer.
Frequently asked questions
How long should the document be?
As long as the brief allows and no longer. Where no limit is given, one to two pages of structured text is normal for a 45 minute exercise. Assessors mark clarity and completeness, not volume.
Should I use headings and bullet points?
Yes for headings, and sparingly for bullets. Bullets are good for options, risks and next steps, and poor for reasoning, because a list of fragments does not demonstrate an argument.
What if I disagree with the obvious recommendation?
Any defensible position argued from the evidence can score full marks. What is penalised is a position that contradicts the pack or ignores a stated constraint.
Is spelling and grammar marked?
Accuracy is usually part of the rubric, and in client-facing roles it carries real weight. A handful of typos will not sink a strong document, but sloppiness throughout signals a lack of care.
Can I hand-write it?
Most exercises are now typed, and some in-person centres still use paper. If it is hand-written, legibility matters and planning matters more, because you cannot restructure once you have started.
How is written work marked in practice?
Against a rubric of criteria with weightings. CogniPrep written exercises work the same way: your response is marked by AI against the exercise rubric and returns a score, strengths and specific improvements for each criterion.
The rest of the assessment day
Assessment days rarely run one exercise in isolation. Most pair the exercises with an interview and an aptitude test, and many run a situational judgement test as part of the earlier sift. Our employer guides set out what specific companies run at each stage.