This article explores the use of representativeness as a guide to examining at English A‐level through an analysis of two training days on two different modules. Representativeness is a cognitive heuristic which guides decision‐making essentially by asking ‘how much does this example look as if it belongs to this class of things?’ A number of representative characteristics emerged during the training meetings including length, ‘adult’ writing and quality of written communication. The relation between representativeness and the mark scheme is also explored.