At the café and the warehouse
Text A: an original contemporary practice extract.
On my first morning helping at the community café, Rosa asked me to carry six mugs from the counter to a table. When she saw me gripping the tray tightly at one edge, she did not take it from me. Instead, she replaced the mugs with empty ones and suggested that I spread them out before lifting the tray with both hands.
My first practice journey ended with two mugs sliding together. Rosa asked me what had made the tray tilt, then waited while I changed my grip. The next attempt was steady, so she returned the filled mugs. I carried them to the customers myself. By lunchtime, I no longer needed her to watch me.
Text B: an original contemporary practice extract.
At the charity warehouse, I was asked to move donated goods on a trolley. Dev noticed that I had piled several heavy boxes on top of smaller ones. Rather than rearranging them for me, he brought over some empty boxes and asked me to test which order made the trolley easier to control.
The first stack leaned as soon as I pushed it. Dev pointed to the space beneath the largest box but left me to rebuild the load. My second arrangement stayed in place, and I used the same method with the real donations. Later that afternoon, I loaded another trolley without asking for help.
Both texts describe helpers preparing inexperienced people to carry out a practical task.
What similarities are there in the help given in these extracts? You may consider how the helpers make the task manageable and how they respond to mistakes. Use evidence from both texts to support your answer.
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.