A shortcut borrowed from somebody else

Text A: an original contemporary practice extract.

My colleague showed me the keyboard shortcuts she used to prepare the weekly bulletin. Watching her, I thought the mouse had become an unnecessary detour. I wrote the combinations on a card and tried to use all of them during my next session. Each time I stopped to read the card, I lost the sentence I had been editing.

I learned two frequent combinations first and used the mouse for the rest. Over several weeks, those two became helpful rather than interruptions. My colleague’s speed was real, but it included familiarity that could not be copied onto the card. Her demonstration gave me something to learn, not proof that using every shortcut immediately was the quickest way to finish my own work.

Text B: an original contemporary practice extract.

A friend sent me the narrow streets he used to cycle to the station. His route avoided two busy junctions and looked shorter on the map. On my first attempt, I stopped repeatedly to check which turning came next. He knew the shop fronts and small entrances by sight; I saw several streets that seemed to have the same corner.

I practised the unfamiliar section on an afternoon without a train to catch. For the following week, I used my usual route when time was tight and the new one when I could check it calmly. The shorter line on the map had not been wrong. It had omitted the time I needed to learn how to follow it. A useful shortcut could become mine, but borrowing its directions did not also borrow my friend’s experience.

Both texts describe the experiences of using the shortcuts.

What similarities do the experiences of using the shortcuts share in these extracts? Use evidence from both texts to support your answer.