A day without work
Source A: an original contemporary non-fiction-style account.
On the first morning of my holiday, I made a list. It contained a walk, a museum, three household jobs and a book I intended to finish. By lunch I was behind schedule and faintly resentful of the day for passing at its usual speed. I had taken leave from work and appointed myself to supervise the replacement programme.
The next morning I left the list in a drawer. I still did things, but one activity did not have to justify itself by fitting neatly before another. I spent an hour in a café and came home without visiting the museum. This was not a new philosophy available to everybody at any time; paid leave and an unclaimed morning are real advantages. But where I had that freedom, I wanted to stop converting it automatically into another measure of output. Rest did not need to become a project before I was allowed to use it.
Source B: an original letter in a nineteenth-century voice. This is a period-voice simulation, not an archival document.
Dear Sister, the workshop is to close for a day next week, and I have begun planning how to spend it. You advise me to leave everything undecided, but an unplanned holiday in our household is quickly recruited by unfinished duties. If we mean to take the children to the river, we must prepare food, arrange the journey and agree to leave before somebody finds another cupboard requiring attention.
I do not wish to march the family through pleasure according to a timetable. Once there, we may sit or walk as we please. The plan is intended to protect the day, not fill every minute of it. Those with leisure in generous quantities may afford to let it wander in search of a purpose. With one day, I would rather secure the means of getting beyond our usual walls. Preparation can be a servant of freedom, provided it remembers to stop giving orders when its work is done.
Refer to the whole of both sources. Compare the writers’ perspectives on planning leisure time and how they convey those perspectives. Support your comparison with evidence 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.