A Story on a Picnic That Went Wrong: Model Answer and Marking Notes
Quick answer: An original 180-word exam story about a school picnic that went wrong outside Mumbai, with notes on how a comic exam story earns content, organisation and expression marks.
A picnic-that-went-wrong story is a comedy of small disasters, and it earns marks when the disasters come in order, each one worse than the last, and the ending turns the bad day into a good memory without saying so. Keep the mishaps harmless: rain, ants, a flat tyre, a wrong turn. Three is the right number; five is a list. The model below is about 180 words and follows a Class 8 from Mumbai to a lake they never reach.
This is one of the few exam titles where humour is expected, and humour is easier to mark down than up. Deadpan works better than jokes. Report the disasters plainly and let the reader do the laughing.
The task
Typical wording: 'Write a story in 150 to 200 words with the title The Picnic That Went Wrong.' Outlines often run: 'school picnic ... bus trouble ... rain ... food spoiled ... an unexpected ending.' Plan the three disasters and the rescue before you write.
Model answer
The Lake We Never Saw. Class 8B left Mumbai at seven in the morning for Tansa Lake, with forty packed lunches, two teachers and a bus that made a noise nobody wanted to discuss. Nisha had brought a new camera. She intended to take a hundred photographs of the lake.
The bus stopped for good on a road between two paddy fields at half past nine. While the driver looked under the bonnet and shook his head, the sky did what Mumbai skies do in July. Forty children stood under one tarpaulin and watched the rain fill their sandals.
When it cleared, someone opened the food. The ants had opened it first. Mrs D'Souza said a word she would later deny saying.
A farmer whose house stood at the edge of the field came out to see what the shouting was. By noon forty children were sitting on his veranda eating rice and dal his wife had cooked in a pot the size of a wheel, and Nisha had taken a hundred photographs, none of them of a lake. The class still calls it the best picnic they ever had.
Why it earns marks
Against the three heads:
- Content: three disasters in rising order (bus, rain, ants), a rescue that follows from the setting (the farmer whose field they are stranded in), and an ending that turns the day without any character saying it was wonderful.
- Content: the camera set up in paragraph one returns in the last, its promised hundred photographs delivered in a way nobody planned.
- Organisation: title, four paragraphs, clock times (seven, half past nine, noon) carry the sequence.
- Expression: simple past held; humour delivered through understatement ('a word she would later deny saying') rather than exclamation; concrete nouns (tarpaulin, sandals, a pot the size of a wheel).
Three other ways to take the same topic
Each keeps the disasters harmless and the ending warm.
- A family picnic in the Lake District in England is invaded by sheep, and the grandfather who complained about coming turns out to know exactly how to move them.
- A birthday picnic in Bengaluru arrives at the park to find a wedding has booked the same lawn, and the two groups end up sharing food.
- Two friends in Nairobi plan a picnic in the Arboretum, forget the food entirely, and spend the afternoon trading their frisbee for samosas from other picnickers.
What writers can take from this
- Three disasters, each worse than the last.
- Keep every mishap harmless: weather, animals, food, transport.
- Deadpan beats jokes; report plainly and let the reader laugh.
- Set up an object (camera, kite, cake) and let it return changed.
- The rescue should come from the setting, not from luck.
- Never write 'it turned out to be the best day ever'; show it instead.
Try it yourself
Write a 180-word picnic story in which the three things that go wrong are all caused by the same small mistake made in the first paragraph, and the reader spots the mistake before the characters do.
Questions
How long should a picnic story be for the exam?
As stated on the paper: 100 to 120 words for CBSE Class 9, 150 to 200 for most school exams, 300 to 350 for ICSE. Cut the ants to reach 120; two disasters still make a story.
Can I write a funny story in a school exam?
Yes, and this title invites it. Keep the humour in the events and the understatement, not in jokes or exclamation, and make sure the story still has a shape: setup, disasters, turn, ending.
Does a picnic story need a moral?
Not unless asked. If required, one light line suits it: 'The best plans are the ones that fail well.' A heavy moral about preparation would spoil the tone.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working writers. Updated September 2026.
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