Source A: The suitcase my mother packed

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

My placement letter arrived on a Tuesday. Six months in another city, working with the conservation team whose projects I had studied all year. I read the first paragraph so often that the paper began to fold itself beneath my thumb. When my mother came home, I held it out before she had taken off her coat.

She smiled, read it and asked where I would live. I had expected a different first question, though I could not have said what it was. Perhaps she was supposed to ask whether I was pleased, so that I could give an answer large enough for the whole afternoon. Instead, we discussed a deposit, the start date and whether the room had heating included. Each sensible question seemed to make the opportunity smaller.

On the evening before I left, she stood beside the suitcase with a packet of spare buttons. I said that the city probably contained buttons. She said that knowing this did not put one inside my coat when I needed it. I heard an accusation that I would not cope. She heard a refusal to accept anything she could still usefully offer. For several minutes, we argued about an object too small to deserve the weight we were placing on it.

Then she asked me to fold a jumper while she checked the address. The ordinary task slowed the conversation. She said she had never lived away from the town and did not know what questions a person should ask about leaving it. Practical things were the part she could imagine. I told her that I needed to arrive without feeling that every possible mistake had already been predicted on my behalf. She nodded, though not as if the request was easy.

We left the buttons on the table. Later, I put them in a side pocket myself. In the morning, she drove me to the station and let me manage the ticket machine without standing behind my shoulder. I noticed the effort in that small distance. When the train was announced, she said she was proud, then asked me to send a message when I reached the room. This time the two sentences did not seem to cancel each other.

During the first week, I got lost, missed a delivery and discovered that the heating question had been important. I told her some of this on the telephone. She listened without saying that she had warned me. The placement was still mine to attempt, and the mistakes were not a reason to return the letter. In the suitcase pocket, the buttons waited for a problem which had not yet happened.

Source B: From Chinese Cinderella — Adeline Yen Mah

Read Source B in the official Pearson anthology (printed pages 21–23).

Compare how the writers present their ideas and perspectives about mixed feelings about a new opportunity and a parent’s response to it.

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