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2.3 Summary and synthesis

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Question 46

Text 1: Before the gates open, by Nia Carver

An original contemporary online feature.

For four evenings, volunteers prepared the school hall and recreation ground for Bellcroft's summer fête. We unfolded trestle tables, sorted donated books and crockery, washed display boards and marked out spaces for each stall. A rail of costumes for the children's fancy-dress competition filled the small room beside the stage.

People chose jobs from a list pinned by the entrance. The youth club tied bunting between the trees and painted signboards, while members of the gardening group arranged plants for sale. Whenever one team finished, it joined another. By Friday evening, even the most tedious jobs were accompanied by jokes and arguments about which cake would sell first.

Then a pipe began leaking above the side room. We carried the costumes onto the stage, placed buckets under the leak and used every mop and towel we could find to dry the floor. The delay kept us there until nearly midnight.

The next morning, everyone looked tired, but the queue at the gate lifted us. Volunteers who had complained about aching backs were soon discussing different stalls for next year. The fête felt like something we had made together rather than an event we had simply attended.

Text 2: Preparing the hospital bazaar, by Edith Vaughan

An original diary written in a nineteenth-century voice; a period simulation, not an archival document.

Text 2 is from the diary of a sixteen-year-old girl helping to prepare a fundraising bazaar in a Welsh town in the 1890s.

June 4th. The hospital bazaar is to be held at the institute on Saturday. Mr Lloyd and his sons brought trestles from the chapel, while Mother and the other ladies covered them with white cloths. I washed jars for the sweet stall and copied price labels until my fingers were stiff.

June 6th. We hung paper chains across the hall and placed notices at the entrance. The committee prescribed a duty for everyone. I asked to help arrange the flower stall but was told that my neat handwriting was of greater use, so I spent another afternoon making signs.

June 7th. A shower blew through an unfastened upper window and soaked several notices. We dried them beside the kitchen range and wrote again those whose ink had run. I was certain all this labour would be wasted if no one came.

June 8th. The hall was crowded before noon. My feet ached after hours behind the sweet stall, and I was glad when the doors finally closed. Still, the committee announced that a handsome sum had been raised for the hospital, and I felt quietly proud that my tiresome signs had helped.

Using information from both texts, explain how the preparations for the community events were similar and how the experience differed for the people involved.

You should make it clear which text you are referring to.

[4]
Markscheme

2.3 Summary and synthesis Questions

  1. GCSE
  2. /English Language
  3. /2.3 Summary and synthesis

123 exam-style questions on Eduqas GCSE English Language 2.3 Summary and synthesis, covering 2.3.3 Synthesising from more than one text. Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.

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