The ability to write concise and accurate scientific reports is highly valued in university level science. From reflection on marking student final year reports, it was apparent that many students have had insufficient practice at writing complete "scientific paper" style reports by that time, although some do it very well. This is a previously identified problem for undergraduates writing reports, even though there are detailed guidelines, as the format and style expected at university is quite different to that used at school. First-year students usually lack sufficient knowledge of biochemical methods to read journal articles well, so a different approach is required. The use of exemplars for communicating the style and level of work required is common practice, is observed to be favored by students, and would seem to be an obvious choice. However, as the subject of practical report are the same every year, teachers are reluctant to share previous student work or provide "model answers" as they do not want to tempt students to plagiarize them. This article discusses a resource that modeled a practical report on a topic different to that of the practicals. This approach has been used to address this problem of scientific report writing in related fields. (Contains 1 table.)