The clock that kept its own time
Text: an original contemporary feature-style practice extract.
The clock above the market hall was four minutes slow. People checked it against their phones, shook their heads and carried on. When the council finally paid for a repair, the restorer expected to find a simple fault. Instead, she found a brass wheel worn almost smooth on one side.
She could replace it. The clock would then keep time properly, but the old wheel would disappear into a box of parts. Or she could make a new wheel and leave the worn one on display. “That tells you what happened,” she said, turning it beneath the workshop lamp. “The clock didn’t suddenly become wrong. It was used.”
The new wheel went into the mechanism. For the first week, the hands agreed with the time on every phone. At the reopening, the restorer placed the old brass wheel in a glass case beside the entrance. A label explained that it had lost its shape through years of turning. The clock no longer measured the day inaccurately; the worn metal showed what a town had asked it to do. Sometimes repair is not a choice between keeping everything and throwing everything away. It is deciding what belongs in the working machine, and what deserves to be seen.
Analyse how the writer uses language and structure to interest and engage the reader.
In your answer, consider:
Support your views with detailed reference to the extract.
834 exam-style questions on Edexcel GCSE English Language 2.3 Content: non-fiction study and transactional text types, covering 2.3.9 Write an article, 2.3.10 Write a letter, 2.3.11 Write a review, 2.3.12 Write a text for a speech, and 2.3.13 Write a section for a guide, textbook, leaflet or booklet. Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.