ACSI 2023 CT & 2022 Prelims P1

2 Write a guided analysis of one of the following texts. 1. This magazine article is taken from National Geographic Travel Section. 1 Two bundles of fur roll around together on the sea ice, playfully tugging at each other's necks. Standing on the bow of the ship, I'm near enough to hear the small grunts and growls coming from these spirited siblings. Close behind, their mother watches her twin yearlings with what seems like a frustrated expression, 5 as if she wants them to stop playing and concentrate. It's the mother polar bear's job to find food for her family in some of the most inhospitable places on Earth — in this case, the Russian Arctic. "We've got an hour's journey before we reach the nuclear power plant," Vadim, our local guide, informs us when we meet him at the airport. Not the usual opening gambit you expect to hear as your summer holiday gets underway — but this is about as far as you can get from a 'standard' 10 summer holiday. It's July, and we're in Murmansk, Northwest Russia. On the flight from Helsinki earlier, we'd crossed over the Arctic Circle at 66.3 degrees North. From the window, I gazed down onto a vast wilderness, peppered with pine trees and innumerable ice-blue lakes. Between late April and October each year, the snow melts and frees this land from its icy grip.

3 - Examine how the narrative voice is used in this text to create the writer’s sense of wonder. 15 An hour after leaving the airport, our coach arrives at the Port of Murmansk. It's actually 18C today but even the warm tones of the bright sunshine can't cover up the Soviet bleakness of this place. The port is home to Russia's fleet of nuclear-powered icebreakers. It's here we'll join our ship, 50 Years of Victory — the most powerful icebreaker in the world today. During the long, dark winter months, when the sea ice advances to capture Russia's massive Arctic coastline, she keeps the 20 shipping lanes open for trade, leading flotillas of ships between the ports of the Northeast Passage. However, in the brief summer, when the ice has retreated, it becomes the only ship to take tourists to the geographic North Pole. […] The 50 Years of Victory typically makes five two-week expeditions during the mid-summer. I'm travelling with polar specialist Quark, which currently offers two or three trips a season, with just 25 over 100 guests per adventure. The ship's Russian crew remain on board, doubling up in cabins to allow space for polar tourists. At 8pm, when the tide allows, the huge mooring ropes are finally pulled in and we move from the dockside. For such a bulky ship, she sails gently and smoothly into the fjord, bathed in soft, low, Arctic sunlight. We pass many ships, including the Arktica, which, in 1977, became the first surface 30 ship to reach the North Pole. As the ship heads out of the mouth of the fjord, we steer due north and quickly leave the last vestiges of coastline behind. I stand on the ship's bow look