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 looking out to sea, filled with excitement. We're going out there, into a world of adventure, an almost mythical place of no fixed physical location. […] By day three, we're navigating the archipelago of Franz Josef Land, with a variety of Arctic birds 35 flying around the ship — an interesting welcome for us to their hostile, frozen homeland. Soon we're at 80 degrees north and the surface of the ocean is beginning to solidify. For much of the day, the sky is as white as the sea ice, making it almost impossible to work out where the horizon starts and ends. By 11.30pm, the mist has lifted and the visibility has improved substantially. While many people 40 have gone to bed, I'm on deck. We're in prime polar bear territory. These creatures are true water bears — dependent on the sea and the ice for their survival. Their primary food source is ring seals, which they hunt on the sea ice. At midnight, an announcement goes out around the ship — a male bear has been spotted near the remnants of a seal kill. What's more, the scent has begun to entice other bears. Soon a larger adult male walks into the scene, followed shortly by a female and her two 45 cubs. None of the bears seem bothered by the presence of our huge ship, which has now come to a complete halt. As more people arrive on deck, the animals take it in turns to move towards us, each sniffing the air, and noting the fresh human meat frustratingly just beyond reach. The mother and her cubs come to within 50 metres of the ship. It's sobering to think these bundles of fluff would have 50 us for supper if given half the chance. For the next hour and a half, the bears are the stars of the show. It's an evening I know I'll never forget — a real-life polar drama playing out before us. Good vibrations […] After breakfast, I'm outside again. For an hour, we watch a male polar bear sit patiently by a small hole, waiting for a ring seal to come up for its last breath. We're again graced with the presence of 55 a mother with her cubs, and later on we join a huge basking walrus. […] We head back across the open ocean, towards Murmansk. As I stare out to the vast horizon, I think back to the end of my day at the North Pole. At the furthest point on our walk, we'd been given the chance to sit silently for 10 minutes. I'd separated myself from the group, turning away from the distant ship and lying down flat in the snow. It was a chance to contemplate, think and listen to the 60 silence of the Arctic. It was my perfect, personal polar moment. I wasn't staring into a bleak, barren landscape; instead, it was vibrant and very much alive, as I watched snowdrifts dance to the music of the whistling wind — looking out into a beautiful, white forever.

4 Write a guided analysis of one of the following texts. 2. The following advertisement, titled “Block Out the Chaos: World Leaders” (2018), promotes JBL’s noise-cancelling headphones. - Comment on how the advertisement appeals to multiple audiences.

2 Write a guided analysis of one of the following texts. 1. The following webpage features narrative photography from photojournalist Dina Goldstein. ___________________ Snowy (2008)

3 Not all of these girls are technically Princesses. Rather, this surreal and allegorical world brings together all the most enduring female characters from our collective childhood consciousness, whether they have their origins in Grimm, Disney or the folk tales of Hans Christian Andersen. Together, they represent a feminine archetype that, while born in the minds of long dead European men, is today rooted deeper than ever in the hearts o f little girls around the world: the fairy tale princess, her beauty, her virtue. Her total reliance on the arrival of a Prince Charming to drive her life story toward its destiny of love, wealth and everlasting happiness. Ok, we know that’s not really ho w life works. In the real world, we grow up and quickly learn that adulthood is full of hard work and compromise. We will not live in a castle. In fact, in today’s housing market, we will be lucky to buy a condo by the age of 35. Our spouses (for those of us able to find one) may cheat on us, disappoint us, embarrass us and possibly leave us. Those that don’t will certainly bore us. Our candy-coloured childhood dreams have long evaporated and now belong to another time and place as unreal and distant as the moon. RAPUNZEL (2008) The girl with the golden tresses who was once confined to an ivory tower is now trapped in a different sort of isolating circumstance, the personal battle with Cancer. Rapunzel is afraid of what her incapacity would do to Edward. She hides this from him and initially from her friends. As she attends chemotherapy sessions, her hair begins to fall out, and while Edward doesn’t notice this (because he is blind) her friends do. Her friends want to help their suffering friend, some are steadfast and stand by her side. Some shy away