Source A: The goat at the barrier

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

I had practised the introduction beside an empty barrier. Welcome, a short explanation of the enclosure, then the goat’s name, spoken with the confident warmth of someone introducing a colleague. On my training day, the goat had come straight to the front. The supervisor said that this did not mean it always would. I wrote that warning down and prepared a talk which quietly assumed the opposite.

The first group gathered at eleven. There were children, parents and a man who asked whether the animal was friendly before I had said anything. I began well. My voice reached the back of the group, and I remembered the point I had nearly forgotten in rehearsal. Then I said the name and turned towards the shelter.

The goat looked up. It had a piece of hay hanging from one side of its mouth. For several seconds, it watched us without moving. I repeated the name, adding a brightness which suggested that the first invitation might have been insufficiently cheerful. The goat resumed chewing. Behind me, a child asked whether that meant no.

I could feel the talk becoming a test of my authority. The barrier was meant to separate visitors from the enclosure, but it now seemed to separate my promises from the animal’s plans. I had not promised an appearance explicitly. I had arranged every sentence around one. The group waited. The goat scratched its neck against a post with an absorption which made our waiting seem both comic and entirely beside the point.

I changed the talk. I asked the group to watch what the animal was actually doing rather than the place where I had expected it to stand. We noticed the turning ears, the pause in chewing and the careful placement of its feet when it moved around the post. I did not call the behaviour stubborn. That word would have made my preferred timetable the animal’s obligation.

Eventually, it walked towards the barrier. By then I was answering a question about its food. The movement interrupted me rather than completing the cue I had prepared. Close up, the eye was more unsettling than the soft coat had suggested. The goat inspected the ground beside the barrier, then looked past us towards another sound. The group had become one part of its morning, not the purpose of it.

Afterwards, I rewrote the introduction. I kept the name and removed the invisible appointment. Next time, I would explain what visitors might observe without announcing, through tone and timing, that the animal had agreed to perform it. The supervisor read the new version and said it sounded less certain. I said that was the part I had improved.

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 the tension between observing an animal and wanting to control the encounter.

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