Sending messages

Source A: a newly written contemporary non-fiction-style account.

“On Friday I turned off message notifications for one afternoon. I was working at home and expected an important call at five. Calls remained switched on. By lunchtime, three separate group chats had discussed the same weekend plan without deciding anything. I wrote the agreed meeting place on a piece of paper, put my phone in a drawer and returned to the report I had been trying to finish.

For the first few minutes, the silent phone was louder than it had ever been. I kept imagining a vibration, a small electronic tug at the edge of thought. Then the room settled. A sentence stayed in my mind long enough to become a paragraph; the paragraph led somewhere instead of dissolving beneath another alert. I had not gained any extra hours. I had merely stopped breaking the existing ones into pieces too small to use.

When I checked the phone later, there were useful messages among the chatter: a changed bus time, a friend asking for help. I do not wish to return to a world in which distance makes contact difficult. But availability should be a choice, not a permanent test of affection. I answered the friend, amended the bus time on my paper and left two arguments unread. Nothing terrible happened. The important call came at five.”

Source B: a newly written letter in a nineteenth-century voice. This is a period-voice simulation, not an archival document.

“My dear friend, your letter arrived yesterday after a delay of nearly a fortnight. Until then I had no means of knowing whether your silence signified illness, travel or merely the failure of the post. I had composed several explanations, each more alarming than the last, and was almost ashamed to discover that the truth was so ordinary: the letter had been directed to our former address.

I read your account twice beside the kitchen window. The paper carried a small stain near the fold, and I found myself wondering whether it had been made by the tea you mentioned. Such a mark is a trifling thing, yet it seemed to bring your room nearer to mine. Your voice was absent, but its turns and pauses remained in the sentences. I could return to them whenever I wished, without asking you to repeat yourself.

I hope for a quicker and more dependable service, certainly. Waiting is not made noble by being inconvenient. Still, I value the care with which a letter gathers thoughts before sending them on their journey. Write whenever you are able, and do not mistake a delayed answer for indifference. We must allow one another lives substantial enough to provide something worth writing about.”

Refer only to the first paragraph of Source A. Select exactly FOUR true statements. Write their four letters in the answer box.

A. All three chats reach different final decisions.

B. An important call is expected at five.

C. The narrator is working at home.

D. The narrator is expecting no calls.

E. Calls remain switched on.

F. The phone is put in a bag.

G. Notifications are turned off on Friday.

H. The report has already been finished at lunchtime.