Source A: The city below the stairs

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

I had expected the city to begin above ground. For weeks, I had looked at photographs of its towers, trying to imagine which one I would see first from the station. Instead, I followed a sign downstairs, then another sign along a passage, and entered a city which appeared to have been built beneath the first one’s feet.

The ceiling was low, the floor shone and people moved with a certainty which made standing still feel like a form of obstruction. My training course began the next morning. I had a hotel address, a small suitcase and a printed route showing two coloured lines crossing at a circle. On the paper, changing trains occupied less space than my thumb. In the station, it required choosing between three passages which all seemed to lead towards the same colour.

I stood beside a wall and studied the arrows. An arrow could point left while the stairs beneath it went down. A platform number could refer to a place I could see across the tracks but could not approach from where I was standing. At home, directions usually involved a road, a gate or a building which remained in one visible piece. Here, I needed to understand levels. The city had made an ordinary word like over there much less useful.

A woman carrying a bicycle helmet asked which station I wanted. I showed her the route. She explained the passage, then pointed out that I was reading the sign for the line travelling the other way. She did not look astonished by my mistake. This seemed generous. She said that the interchange confused people who used it every week, which made the place feel slightly less like an examination designed specifically for me.

I reached the right platform and watched the opposite train leave. For the first time, I could connect a movement with the map rather than treat the map as a promise somebody had failed to keep. The woman was already walking away, one hand lifted without waiting for thanks. Around her, people continued their journeys, neither welcoming committee nor threatening crowd.

Outside my hotel, I finally saw the towers. They were impressive, but they no longer seemed like the city’s whole introduction. Beneath them lay the passage I had chosen incorrectly, the sign I could now explain and an ordinary conversation which had helped join one part of the place to another. The next morning I allowed extra time. Discovery had not made me an expert. It had given me a route I could try again.

Source B: From Beyond the Sky and the Earth: A Journey into Bhutan — Jamie Zeppa

Read Source B in the official Pearson anthology (printed pages 16–18).

Compare how the writers present their ideas and perspectives about feelings of uncertainty and discovery in an unfamiliar place.

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