Source A: The shore disappeared first

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

The shore disappeared first, although I did not notice it happen. I was labelling a water sample in the bottom of the boat, concentrating on a digit which the damp pencil would not make clearly. When I looked up, the headland was gone. So were the white cottages above the slipway. The sea remained close and grey on every side, but the familiar edge which made it a bay had been rubbed out.

My colleague had gone ahead in the other boat. We were working a short survey route which I had travelled many times. Before leaving, I had looked at the weather, checked the equipment and joked that we would be finished before lunch. Now the mist was thick enough to make the bow look slightly separate from where I sat. A gull called somewhere beyond it. I turned towards the sound before remembering that a gull was not a signpost.

I stopped collecting samples. There was a procedure for losing visibility, and the first difficulty was making myself follow it rather than perform the more satisfying action of going somewhere. I wanted the engine’s sound to mean progress. Instead, I needed to establish where I was and make contact. My fingers shook as I handled the radio. I was annoyed with them, as though they belonged to an unreliable assistant who had chosen the worst moment to become nervous.

The first reply broke into pieces. I caught my colleague’s name, then a sound which might have been a number. I asked her to repeat it. Asking felt embarrassingly slow. Guessing would have felt quick right up to the moment it became another problem. This was the part of practice sessions I had never properly imagined: not understanding a voice which I needed to understand, and having to admit that more than once.

Water touched the side of the boat with a small, regular knock. Each time, I looked, although nothing new was there. I kept the sample bag between my feet so it would not slide. Its tidy rows of bottles belonged to a plan which had become irrelevant, yet I could not stop noticing their labels. I had been certain about those numbers because I had written them myself.

At last, we exchanged a clear message and confirmed that help was being arranged. I repeated the information back. The headland did not reappear. I was still waiting in the same grey circle, listening more carefully than I had ever listened to that bay. The next task was a simple one: remain with what I knew, and resist inventing the rest.

Source B: From 127 Hours: Between a Rock and a Hard Place — Aron Ralston

Read Source B in the official Pearson anthology (printed pages 10–11).

Compare how the writers present their ideas and perspectives about the struggle to remain in control when circumstances change unexpectedly.

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