Source A: The promotion at the kitchen table

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

I waited until my father had finished repairing the kettle before telling him about the promotion. He had its base open on a tea towel, with three screws arranged beside a biscuit tin. The new title sounded important at work. At the kitchen table, I had to say it twice because he was looking for a washer.

He congratulated me, then asked what I would actually do. I began with the size of the team and the new responsibilities, borrowing phrases from the announcement email. He listened, fitted the washer and asked whether I would still make things. I worked in a workshop designing and producing sets for small theatres. The promotion would involve schedules, budgets and decisions about other people’s work. His question found the part of it I had been avoiding.

I said there would be less making. He nodded. I wanted him to say that this was what progress looked like, because then I could stop asking whether I wanted that version of progress. Instead, he asked if I was pleased. The kettle lay between us with its ordinary problem still visible. My announcement had been meant to arrive as a finished success. It was turning into a conversation about a choice.

For years, I had wanted him to understand that my work was serious. He had spent his life maintaining machinery and trusted a result which could be tested by switching it on. Theatre sets disappeared after a run. I had interpreted his questions about the next job as a failure to value the last one. Now I explained how a reliable schedule could keep a team employed and how a budget decision could change what they were able to build. I was not leaving practical work entirely; I was moving some of my responsibility further from the bench.

He put the kettle back together and said that keeping other people’s work possible sounded like work. The sentence was not elegant. I felt absurdly relieved by it. Then he added that I should not accept a title merely because it sounded better to people who did not know the job. I laughed, though the advice was less comfortable than the praise.

We made tea. I told him that I wanted to try the role and would ask to retain some workshop time. He said that sounded like something to discuss with the person offering it. I had come home expecting either approval or disappointment, two answers which would let me place the decision outside myself. He had given me recognition and returned the decision to the place where it belonged. The following morning, I read the announcement again, then opened a different document and wrote the questions I still needed to ask.

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 how a family member’s values shape the meaning of achievement.

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