Sample Question 7 and Extracts

Comparing Texts - Question and extracts

The extracts in your exam questions will be longer than the examples here. You will be asked questions about each text individually and you will also be asked to make a close comparison of the two pieces.

Read each text carefully before you begin to write your answers. Note any similarities or differences in the attitudes and ideas conveyed as well as the language and structure used.

When you write your answer, remember to link each point to a quotation.

Here are a series of sample responses. You might try to improve or expand on each one as part of your revision and preparation.

Question
Compare how the writers of Text 1 and Text 2 present their perspective and ideas about life as a writer.

Support your answer with a detailed reference to the texts. (14 marks)

Text 1
Here is an extract from the diaries of John Steinbeck.

Lincoln’s Birthday. My first day of work in my new room. It is a very pleasant room and I have a drafting table to work on which I have always wanted – also a comfortable chair given to me by Elaine [his wife]. In fact, I have never had it so good and so comfortable. I have known such things to happen – the perfect pointed pencil – the paper persuasive – the fantastic chair and good light and no writing. Surely a man is a most treacherous animal full of his treasured contradictions. He may not admit it but he loves his paradoxes.

Now that I have everything, we shall see whether I have anything. It is exactly that simple. Mark Twain used to write in bed – so did our greatest poet. But I wonder how often they wrote in bed – or whether they did it twice and the story took hold. Such things happen. Also, I would like to know what things they wrote in bed and what things they wrote sitting up. All of this has to do with comfort in writing and what its value is. I should think that a comfortable body would let the mind go freely to its gathering. But such is the human that he might react in an opposite way. Remember my father’s story about the man who did not dare be comfortable because he went to sleep. That might be true of me too. Now I am perfectly comfortable in the body. I think my house is in order. Elaine, my beloved, is taking care of all the outside details to allow me the amount of free untroubled time every day to do my work. I can’t think of anything else necessary to a writer except a story and the ability to tell it.

John Steinbeck

Text 2
Here is an extract from Stephen King's advice book and memoir, On Writing. He is talking about his writing desk.

The last thing I want to tell you in this part is about my desk. For years I dreamed of having the sort of massive oak slab that would dominate a room - no more child's desk in a trailer laundry-closet, no more cramped kneehole in a rented house. In 1981 I got the one I wanted and placed it in the middle of a spacious, skylighted study (it's a converted stable loft at the rear of the house). For six years I sat behind that desk either drunk or wrecked out of my mind, like a ship's captain in charge of a voyage to nowhere.

A year or two after I sobered up, I got rid of that monstrosity and put in a living-room suite where it had been, picking out the pieces and a nice Turkish rug with my wife's help. In the early nineties, before they moved on to their own lives, my kids sometimes came up in the evening to watch a basketball game or a movie and eat pizza. They usually left a boxful of crusts behind when they moved on, but I didn't care. They came, they seemed to enjoy being with me, and I know I enjoyed being with them. I got another desk - it's handmade, beautiful, and half the size of the T. Rex desk. I put it at the far west end of the office, in a corner under the eave. That eave is very like the one I slept under in Durham, but there are no rats in the walls and no senile grandmother downstairs yelling for someone to feed the horse. I'm sitting under it now, a fifty-three-year-old man with bad eyes, a gimp leg, and no hangover. I'm doing what I know how to do, and as well as I know how to do it. I came through all the stuff I told you about (and plenty more that I didn't), and now I'm going to tell you as much as I can about the job. As promised, it won't take long.

It starts with this: put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down there to write, remind yourself why it isn't in the middle of the room. Life isn't a support-system for art. It's the other way around.’


On Writing, Stephen King

Sample Answer and Comment Version 1

Comparing Texts - Sample answer - version one

Question
Compare how the writers of Text 1 and Text 2 present their perspective and ideas about life as a writer.

Support your answer with a detailed reference to the texts. (14 marks)

Steinbeck says that the life of a writer is easy because Mark Twain used to write in bed. But you might go to sleep like his father did, so then you won’t write anything. A writer needs to have someone to look after him, like his wife. Then he can tell his story. This is a diary sort of text and is about writing and the writer.

In contrast, Stephen King is not writing a diary. He is writing advice. He thinks you need a good desk to be a writer. You should put it in the corner of the room. You also need a big room, which is spacious. He likes it when his children come to his study and he doesn’t mind if they leave rubbish behind. He tells us that he used to have quite cramped places to work in and now he doesn’t have such bad conditions, but he likes his desk to face the wall and not be in the middle of the room.

Both texts are quite long and tell the reader about writing and what writers do as well. The reader finds these details interesting.

Feedback - basic
This answer is limited because:

it’s very short and has no quotations from the text to support it
it discusses one text and then the other - the texts should be compared together throughout the answer
it summarises bits of the texts, but doesn’t analyse the writers’ methods
However, it does:

use the phrases ‘in contrast’ and ‘both texts’ to show differences between the texts
pick out some examples from the texts
mention the reader’s response
begin to think about text type for comparing the two texts

Sample Answer and Comment Version 2

Comparing Texts - Sample answer - version two

Question
Compare how the writers of Text 1 and Text 2 present their perspective and ideas about life as a writer.

Support your answer with a detailed reference to the texts. (14 marks)

King and Steinbeck both contrast writing with the life that goes on around it. Both are using first-person narrative, although Steinbeck is writing a diary, just for himself, whereas King is writing a text which advises people about the ‘job’ of writing.

Both of the writers discuss the furniture needed to be a writer. For both of them, the desk seems to be central, although King has more of a focus on the ‘massive oak slab’ which dominated his view of the writing life in the same way that it dominates the room he places it into. For Steinbeck the chair and desk combination is also important. He also mentions another option - writing in bed like Mark Twain – but he is rather suspicious of the results of writing in bed.

Both writers mention their family as being important in their writing life. For Steinbeck it is his wife Elaine who is important because she takes care of all the details which provide him ‘free untroubled time’ to write. King, on the other hand, seems to like having his family around him and to have ‘life’ in the midst of his writing.

To conclude, both texts present the life of a writer as being part of a bigger story.

Feedback - improving
This answer is improving because:

it compares both texts throughout and moves from one writer to the other
it has a brief introduction and a concluding sentence
it uses embedded quotations
it focuses on the writers’ methods
It could improve by:

using more quotations to support all points
develop points about the effects of the methods used
commenting on the structures of the texts
using more varied connectives to link the texts
focus more explicitly on the writers’ attitudes

Sample Answer and Comment Version 3

Comparing Texts - Sample answer - version three

Question

Compare how the writers of Text 1 and Text 2 present their perspective and ideas about life as a writer.

Support your answer with a detailed reference to the texts. (14 marks)

Both texts are from a first-person perspective, but while Steinbeck’s text is in the form of a diary, King’s text combines memoir and advice, so also has a direct address to the ‘you’ of the reader.

The structure of Steinbeck’s text is more fragmented, the writer moves around his memories and thoughts, almost like the writing is following a stream of consciousness. This is reflected by the use of single-clause sentences and dashes to link ideas. In contrast King uses time connectives to structure his text: “For years...In 1981…A year or two after…” This underlines the purpose of the text, to show the changes in his approach to writing.

The desk is a common element in both texts, but in King’s it is much more important. He talks about the ‘massive oak slab’ he ‘dreamed of’ for years; the use of the hyperbolic adjective ‘massive’ reflects the physical dominance of the desk and its dominance in King’s idea of a writer’s life. This physical dominance is emphasised by the later metaphor of the ‘T.Rex desk’ – the image of the predatory dinosaur has connotations both of ridiculousness, but also of danger. In contrast, the extract from Steinbeck’s diary has a simple ‘drafting table’, and the chair seems to be more important – the ‘fantastic chair’. The use of the verb ‘drafting’ puts a focus on the physical act of writing.

Steinbeck notes the paradox of having everything you need to write (with the alliteration of the ‘perfect pointed pencil’) but ‘no writing’. A similar contrast arises in Text 2, when King mentions having the perfect desk, yet being on ‘a voyage to nowhere’. This journey metaphor emphasises the lack of focused writing at this point in his career.

The comfort which Steinbeck enjoys is down to the care of his wife, who takes care of the ‘outside details’. King does not want to be detached from life, instead on insisting that his desk must be ‘in the corner’, not ‘in the middle of the room’: he prefers to have his family around him.

He sums this up in the final metaphor of the extract from his memoir: that art is the ‘support-system’ for life, not the other way around. Steinbeck, however, seems to require his ‘beloved’ to be a support-system for his writing. The contrast may also be reflected in the tone of the two texts: Text 1 is quite elevated in its tone and vocabulary (‘a most treacherous animal full of his treasured contradictions’) but King writes in a deliberately down to earth way of the ‘job’ of writing.

Feedback - even better
This answer:

moves smoothly from one text to another throughout
considers the attitudes of the writers, the language and the structure
shows both the similarities and the differences of the text, and links them together
uses plenty of quotations, which are embedded into sentences
includes points about the text that are developed and linked to other points 

Taking Notes From Text Books - Some Tips

Note Taking From Text Books – Some Tips

1   Titles and subheadings       

2   Scan for keywords

3   Skim for important facts

4   Write down only the key information

5   Use concept maps

6   Use abbreviations and symbols for visual reminders and emphasis
7   Golden rules

1             Titles and Sub-headings

·        Make a note of the title of the book, periodical or article

·        Note down the name of the author, publisher, and date of publication,

·        Note down subheadings and page numbers

2            Scan for Keywords

·        Think of the important words that link to what you want to find out

·        Quickly scan the text for these words

·        Only read the parts of the text that contain your keywords

·        Make a note of words that are repeated – make sure you know what they mean

3            Skim for Important Facts

·        Once you have found the correct section, you do not have to read every single word

·        Skim over each sentence, taking in the important facts

·        Write down Only the Key Information

·        Decide what is most important and write that down

·        Only write down keywords and phrases; you do not need to write in full sentences.

4             Write Only the Key Information

What is the key information in the text here?

Life in ancient Egypt was centred largely on agriculture. The majority of the people were involved in farming, and the growing season lasted eight to nine months. Wheat, fruits and vegetables were the principal crops, although there was some pastoral farming of cattle, sheep or goats. Farmers in ancient Egypt worked to reach a level of subsistence so that they could feed themselves and pay their taxes. During the annual flooding of the Nile, which typically lasted from July until November, farming was impossible. But when the waters receded, a thick layer of fertile silt over the farmlands remained, to ensure rich soil for their crops and thick grasses for their grazing animals.

5             Use Concept Maps

With a concept map, you are creating a visual setup that helps to explain the relationships between concepts and the main topic.

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Would you use a concept map?

What do you like about this method of note-taking?
What are the cons of this method?

6            Use Abbreviations

Abbreviations are shortened words:

‘e.g.’ for ‘for example’, ‘info.’ instead of ‘information’.  If you shorten a word, put a full stop at the end of it to show it is an abbreviation.

Symbols: &, +, =, %, $,@.
As long as you understand them, you can make up your own symbols.

7             Some Golden Rules

• Write clearly and accurately
• Always leave a wide margin when writing
• write using plenty of space
• Structure your notes simply and clearly
• Use headings and subheadings
• Use coloured pens consistently
• Use bullet points - dotted, numbered or lettered
• Make a note of titles and authors of evidence sited

Note Taking Section 3 - answer

Answer to section 3

Life in ancient Egypt was centred largely on agriculture. The majority of the people were involved in farming, and the growing season lasted eight to nine months. Wheat, fruits and vegetables were the principal crops, although there was some pastoral farming of cattle, sheep or goats. Farmers in ancient Egypt worked to reach a level of subsistence so that they could feed themselves and pay their taxes. During the annual flooding of the Nile, which typically lasted from July until November, farming was impossible. But when the waters receded, a thick layer of fertile silt over the farmlands remained, to ensure rich soil for their crops and thick grasses for their grazing animals.

Mainly agriculture - growing season – eight to nine months – wheat fruits vegetables - some cattle sheep goats - feed themselves - pay taxes - annual flooding – Nile – July until November - farming  impossible – when waters receded – left layer fertile silt - crops - thick grasses for grazing animals