Source A: The weight at the other end

An original contemporary non-fiction-style practice text, written for this question.

The photograph on the museum’s volunteer leaflet showed a smiling woman beside a heavy horse. She held a brush lightly, as if the two of them had paused in a conversation. I liked the ease of that picture. When I applied to help in the stable, I imagined that a few instructions would allow me to step into it.

At the yard, the horse stood beneath the open shelter with its head lowered. From the gate it had looked large in an agreeable, historical way. Beside it, large became a set of immediate facts: the width of a shoulder, the depth of breath, the distance from my hand to the top of the back. A fly settled near one eye. The skin twitched beneath it, a small movement travelling across more body than I seemed prepared to understand.

The supervisor stayed beside us and explained the session. I listened, nodded and tried to stand like the woman on the leaflet. The horse shifted its attention towards the door. I interpreted this as boredom with me and began speaking more brightly. The supervisor asked what I had noticed. I said the horse was not interested. She asked whether I had noticed the wheelbarrow moving behind us. I had not. The animal’s attention had a subject other than my success.

As we worked, I stopped trying to produce the right expression for an imaginary photograph. I watched the supervisor, asked questions and paid attention to the horse’s position. There was nothing dramatic to master. There were several small things to notice, and my wish to look confident had been taking up room needed for them. The brush made a dry, steady sound through the coat. Dust lifted in the light and settled on my sleeve.

Then the horse exhaled close to my hair. I flinched so sharply that the supervisor laughed, kindly. I laughed too, after a pause. The breath was warm and smelled of hay. I had expected closeness to become less surprising as the session continued, but familiarity was arriving in pieces. Knowing the animal’s name had not made the body at the other end of the brush any smaller.

When we finished, I put the equipment away and wrote down what I needed to ask next time. The horse remained by the shelter, watching a person cross the yard. I did not feel that we had made an agreement or that it had accepted me. I had begun to understand a task beside a creature whose life did not depend on making me feel competent. That was a less flattering beginning than the leaflet offered, and a more interesting reason to return.

Source B: From H is for Hawk — Helen Macdonald

Read Source B in the official Pearson anthology (printed pages 19–20).

Compare how the writers present their ideas and perspectives about how an animal encounter can challenge a person’s expectations.

Support your answer with detailed examples from both texts, including brief quotations.