The noisy street
Source A: an original contemporary non-fiction-style account.
“Road repairs began outside our flat at eight on Monday. The notice said they would last four days and gave a number for questions. I work from home, so I moved my first meeting to a room at the library. At lunchtime I spoke to the supervisor, who explained which parts of the work would be loudest. She arranged for the daily schedule to be posted beside the pedestrian crossing.
Noise is easier to resent when it has no explanation and no apparent end. The drilling still broke every sentence in half, but knowing the quieter periods let me plan around it. I wanted a repaired road and an undisturbed morning, two wishes that could not both be granted. That did not make every inconvenience necessary. Clear notices, reasonable hours and a person willing to answer questions changed the work from an invasion into a disruption we could negotiate. Consideration cannot silence a drill, but it can stop people feeling that nobody has heard them.”
Source B: an original nineteenth-century-style letter or account, written for practice; this is not an archival document.
“The paving of our street has filled the morning with a percussion which no musician would claim. I welcome the removal of the ruts, having several times retrieved my hat after a carriage encountered them. Yet residents were given no notice of the work and no account of its expected duration. A shopkeeper learned only by asking a labourer that access to his door would be interrupted.
Public improvement should not require private uncertainty as an additional contribution. Tell us when the passage will be closed and how deliveries may arrive. We cannot reasonably demand a soundless hammer; we can reasonably demand an intelligible arrangement. The workman's labour is necessary, but so is the care which prevents that labour from appearing contemptuous of everyone nearby.”
Refer to both sources. Infer the differences in the information and arrangements surrounding the roadworks. Write a summary supported by details from both sources.
160 exam-style questions on AQA GCSE English Language 6.2 Content, covering 6.2.1 Reading sources: non-fiction and literary non-fiction, 6.2.2 Time periods of the sources, 6.2.3 Choice of genre, and 6.2.4 Section B writing task. Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.