Text 1: The long way round to school, by Leah Morgan
An original contemporary blog.
My school is eleven miles from our village, so my alarm rings at 6.35 every morning. I leave home at 7.05 and walk for five minutes to the minibus stop. The minibus collects six of us and usually reaches school by eight. It is warm and dry, and most mornings we talk or listen to music on the way.
Yesterday, heavy rain flooded the lane beside the river. Our driver stopped before the water and took a longer route through two other villages. At first I was worried because I had a science test in the first lesson, but the others began joking about our unexpected tour of the countryside. The driver contacted the school to explain the delay.
We arrived at 8.20. A member of staff was waiting at the gate and told us not to rush because our teachers already knew what had happened. I was relieved, although spending more than an hour getting to school had made the day feel long before lessons had even begun.
Text 2: Three miles before lessons, by Thomas Hale
An original diary entry written in an early twentieth-century voice; a period simulation, not an archival document.
In this diary entry from 1906, a boy describes his journey to school after a night of heavy rain.
I set out at seven with my brother Will. The school is three miles away and the walk generally takes us nearly an hour. Two children from the next cottage joined us, and we tested one another on our spellings as we went.
The rain had turned the field path to thick mud. Worse still, the stones by which we usually crossed the stream were hidden beneath the rushing water. We dared not try them, so we went round by the wooden bridge. This added a quarter of an hour to our journey.
We reached school at ten minutes past eight, with mud on our boots and wet socks. I was tired and cold, but pleased that we had arrived before the register was called. The caretaker allowed us to stand near the stove until we were warm enough to begin our lessons.
What similarities and differences can you find between the journeys to school in Text 1 and Text 2? Explain briefly, using details from each text.
You could consider:
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.