5 questions on this paper's topics

Source AThe slower route

Source A is a travel column written in 2026 by someone who walks the long way from a station to a village.

1. 1The route planner described the walk as inefficient. A straight road connected the station to the village; my path made several unexplained detours.
2. 2I had chosen it because my phone was nearly flat, which is not the noble reason I later gave my friends.
3. 3For the first mile I treated the landscape as an obstacle course. Gates delayed me, mud detained me, and every hill seemed personally opposed.
4. 4I kept looking for the village, as though the journey were a mistake that arrival would correct. The lane refused to hurry.
5. 5Beside a footbridge, a woman was untangling a dog from its own lead. The dog greeted me with unearned enthusiasm.
6. 6She asked whether I knew the way. I admitted that I did not, then discovered that she had meant the dog.
7. 7We stood laughing while it performed another complicated circuit around her knees. For the first time that morning, I forgot to check the time.
8. 8Beyond the bridge, the path ran beside a wall. On the other side, someone was practising a tune on a trumpet.
9. 9The same small passage stumbled, stopped and began again. Without seeing the player, I became absurdly invested in those few notes.
10. 10I waited for the tune to escape its difficulty. When it finally did, I moved on, oddly pleased with a success that was not mine.
11. 11The village appeared gradually: first a roof, then smoke, then the smell of bread escaping through a propped-open shop door.
12. 12On the main road it would have arrived all at once, a name on a sign quickly overtaken. Here it assembled itself at walking speed.
13. 13I bought a loaf and sat on a bench whose memorial plaque recorded a woman who had loved this view.
14. 14At first I could see nothing remarkable in it. There were some roofs, a parked van and a tree that needed no witness.
15. 15Then a curtain moved, a bird occupied the van’s mirror, and the afternoon became specific. I stopped looking for a grander view.
16. 16This is not an argument against maps. Anyone who has watched me choose a turning will understand why I still need one.
17. 17Nor do I recommend arriving late when someone is waiting. My leisurely experiment depended on having an afternoon I could spend carelessly.
18. 18But the efficient route had offered me a destination and quietly removed everything else. Its neatness was also a form of editing.
19. 19I reached the village later than planned, with muddy shoes and bread crumbs in my coat. These were not disadvantages I wished to reverse.
20. 20When my phone recovered, it congratulated me on reaching my destination. I let it keep its modest understanding of what had happened.

Written for this course. The people and events are invented for practice.

Source AAt the repair table

Source A is an account written in 2026 by a first-time visitor to a repair café, where volunteers help people mend their own belongings.

1. 1I arrived at the repair café with a lamp and no confidence. The sign said that visitors would do the repairs themselves, with help.
2. 2Inside, six tables stood beneath the old hall windows. I had booked a place, but nobody asked for a membership card.
3. 3At my table, Jo handed me a screwdriver. “You lead,” she said. My stomach tied itself in a knot.
4. 4The cable had come loose inside the plug. Jo pointed to the problem, then waited while I tried the screw.
5. 5I dropped it. Two children helped search the floor, and nobody laughed. When I finally tightened it, Jo checked my work.
6. 6The lamp lit. We cheered as though I had restored the sun. I had expected a quick service, not an afternoon of learning.
7. 7I paid nothing for the help. Before leaving, I wrote my name beside next month’s session and offered to make tea.
8. 8At home I put the lamp on my desk. Its ordinary light now seemed to belong, in a small way, to everyone at that table.

Written for this course. The people and events are invented for practice.

Source BNarrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave

Source B is from the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845). Douglass was born into slavery in Maryland and escaped in 1838. Here he recalls how he learned to read as a boy in Baltimore.

1. 1The plan which I adopted, and the one by which I was most successful, was that of making friends of all the little white boys whom I met in the street.
2. 2As many of these as I could, I converted into teachers.
3. 3With their kindly aid, obtained at different times and in different places, I finally succeeded in learning to read.
4. 4When I was sent of errands, I always took my book with me, and by going one part of my errand quickly, I found time to get a lesson before my return.
5. 5I used also to carry bread with me, enough of which was always in the house, and to which I was always welcome; for I was much better off in this regard than many of the poor white children in our neighborhood.
6. 6This bread I used to bestow upon the hungry little urchins, who, in return, would give me that more valuable bread of knowledge.
7. 7I am strongly tempted to give the names of two or three of those little boys, as a testimonial of the gratitude and affection I bear them; but prudence forbids;—not that it would injure me, but it might embarrass them; for it is almost an unpardonable offence to teach slaves to read in this Christian country.
8. 8It is enough to say of the dear little fellows, that they lived on Philpot Street, very near Durgin and Bailey’s ship-yard.

Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845). Public domain; transcribed from Project Gutenberg eBook #23. Verbatim non-fiction extract; only whitespace, editorial line numbering and marked omissions differ from the linked text.

The uncollected parcel

Original practice fiction, written in 2026.

1. 1At half past six, Mara reached the village shop. The window was dark, but a strip of yellow light lay under the side door.
2. 2She carried an empty basket. Her mother had asked for bread; the baker had already sold his last loaf.
3. 3Beside the door stood a parcel wrapped in brown paper. Rain had softened one corner, leaving the string slack.
4. 4Mara read the label twice. It bore her father’s name, although he had left the village before she could remember.
5. 5She raised her hand to knock, then lowered it. A voice inside was saying that some things were better left where they were.
6. 6When the latch clicked, Mara stepped back into the road. She held the basket against her chest as if it contained something breakable.
7. 7The shopkeeper appeared with a lamp. Behind him the shelves gleamed, and a new loaf rested on the counter.
8. 8“I was expecting you,” he said. He looked at the basket, then at the parcel. Mara wished he had looked at neither.

Original fiction written for this course.

Source AWhen the clock stops

Source A is an account written in 2026 by a warehouse worker on the day the target clock above the packing benches breaks.

1. 1The warehouse clock went blank at eleven. For a moment we all looked up from the packing benches, like actors whose prompter had lost the page.
2. 2Usually the display tells us how many parcels we should have sealed by that minute. Its red numbers do not shout, but I have heard them in my head on the bus home.
3. 3While a supervisor fetched a replacement, Sima showed me a better way to fold the awkward boxes. I had been getting them wrong for weeks, too busy meeting the target to ask why.
4. 4Our pace slowed. The parcels did not vanish, and the customers still needed them. I cannot turn a broken clock into an argument that deadlines are imaginary.
5. 5But by lunchtime fewer boxes had split at the corners. We were speaking to one another instead of silently racing one another. The work felt less like a test we were each taking alone.
6. 6The new display was brighter. Under it, Sima put a handwritten sign: “Ask if you need help.” I hope someone counts the seconds that saves.

Written for this course. The people and events are invented for practice.

Source BThe Stones of Venice, Volume II

Source B is from The Stones of Venice, Volume II (1853), by the art critic John Ruskin. The division of labour means splitting a job into separate tasks done by different people. The spelling labor follows the edition transcribed.

1. 1We have much studied and much perfected, of late, the great civilized invention of the division of labor; only we give it a false name.
2. 2It is not, truly speaking, the labor that is divided; but the men:—Divided into mere segments of men—broken into small fragments and crumbs of life; so that all the little piece of intelligence that is left in a man is not enough to make a pin, or a nail, but exhausts itself in making the point of a pin, or the head of a nail.
3. 3Now it is a good and desirable thing, truly, to make many pins in a day; but if we could only see with what crystal sand their points were polished,—sand of human soul, much to be magnified before it can be discerned for what it is,—we should think there might be some loss in it also.
4. 4And the great cry that rises from all our manufacturing cities, louder than their furnace blast, is all in very deed for this,—that we manufacture everything there except men; we blanch cotton, and strengthen steel, and refine sugar, and shape pottery; but to brighten, to strengthen, to refine, or to form a single living spirit, never enters into our estimate of advantages.
5. 5And all the evil to which that cry is urging our myriads can be met only in one way: not by teaching nor preaching, for to teach them is but to show them their misery, and to preach to them, if we do nothing more than preach, is to mock at it.
6. 6It can be met only by a right understanding, on the part of all classes, of what kinds of labor are good for men, raising them, and making them happy; by a determined sacrifice of such convenience, or beauty, or cheapness as is to be got only by the degradation of the workman; and by equally determined demand for the products and results of healthy and ennobling labor.

John Ruskin, The Stones of Venice, Volume II (1853). Public domain; transcribed from Project Gutenberg eBook #30755. Verbatim non-fiction extract; only whitespace, editorial line numbering and marked omissions differ from the linked text.

Platform lights

Original contemporary fiction; Dev and his younger sister Leena wait for a relative at a small railway station.

1. 1Dev had chosen the middle bench because from there he could see both the footbridge and the station entrance.
2. 2He told Leena it was the warmest seat. She tested the metal with her palm and said nothing.
3. 3The platform lights stood in a patient row, each holding its pale circle above the rain. Beyond them, everything blurred.
4. 4Water threaded the station name, dividing its familiar letters into uncertain fragments. Dev read it twice without meaning to.
5. 5Leena balanced her suitcase upright between her shoes. Its bright strap looked absurdly cheerful beside the dark hem of her coat.
6. 6Every few minutes the loudspeaker cleared its throat. Each time Dev straightened, but the announcement concerned some other journey.
7. 7He had rehearsed a greeting on the bus. Here, with the empty track in front of him, it sounded unbearably formal.
8. 8Leena asked whether their uncle would recognise them. Dev said that people did not change very much in six years.
9. 9She looked at his new shoes, then at the photograph on his phone, but kindly declined to argue.
10. 10A train entered without stopping. For several seconds the platform was all reflected windows, so many brief and inaccessible rooms.
11. 11In one of them a boy held a paper crown over a sleeping woman. Then the train was gone.
12. 12Leena laughed at the crown. Dev laughed too, surprised to discover that his mouth could still make that shape.
13. 13Afterwards the platform seemed emptier. He put the phone away and took it out again, checking the same unanswered message.
14. 14The station clock moved forward with a small mechanical jump. Leena’s suitcase tilted, and he steadied it before it fell.
15. 15On the footbridge a figure paused beneath a broken lamp. Dev rose so quickly that the bench struck his knees.
16. 16The figure lifted a hand. He lifted his. Then another passenger emerged behind them and received the wave.
17. 17Dev sat down carefully. Leena drew the suitcase closer and began telling him a story about a dog from school.
18. 18He knew the story already. This time he listened to every detail, allowing her to reach the ending without interruption.
19. 19As she spoke, she moved her cold hand into his sleeve. He closed his fingers around it beneath the cuff.
20. 20The loudspeaker crackled again. Neither of them looked up immediately; for another moment, the dog was still escaping through the gate.

Original fiction written for this course.