Comparing Two Texts — Answers
Answer sheet with model answers and success criteria for the Year 10 text analysis & essays worksheet.
Year 10 · English · Text Analysis & Essays
Comparing Two Texts — Answers
Part A — Reading both texts
Read both texts carefully, then circle the best answer.
Text A (prose extract): The removalists came on a Tuesday. By lunchtime the house had been emptied of everything except the marks we'd left on it: the pencil lines on the laundry door where Dad measured us each birthday, the pale rectangle on the lounge-room wall where the mirror had hung for sixteen years. I stood in my bedroom and listened to how loud it had become. A room without furniture holds on to every sound. Mum called from the driveway. I touched the doorframe once, the way you'd touch a horse's neck before leaving it, and went.
Text B (poem): Packing
Take the kettle. Leave the curtains. / Take the photographs, the good knife, / the dog's lead though the dog is gone. / Leave the view: it was never ours, / only lent, like the light that came / each afternoon to lie across the floor. / Lock the door. Post the key. / Begin, again, to be from somewhere else.
(Both texts are original and were written for this worksheet.)
- Astarting a new job
- Bleaving a home and deciding what is left behind
- Ca family argument
- Da holiday at the coast
Answer: leaving a home and deciding what is left behind
Text A describes moving day; Text B is a list of instructions for packing up a home. Both focus on what is kept, what is left and what cannot be taken.
- Aa simile
- Bpersonification that emphasises emptiness
- Chyperbole for comic effect
- Da rhetorical question
Answer: personification that emphasises emptiness
The room is given the human act of holding on; the echo of the empty room becomes an image of clinging to what is gone.
- Ajoyful and excited
- Bbrisk and controlled, holding emotion in check
- Cangry and accusing
- Ddreamy and unfocused
Answer: brisk and controlled, holding emotion in check
Commands sound practical and unemotional, which makes the moments where feeling breaks through ('though the dog is gone') more powerful.
- AText A
- BText B
- CBoth equally
- DNeither
Answer: Text A
Text A names Dad, Mum and the birthday pencil lines. Text B uses commands with no named speaker, which makes it feel more universal.
- Ahas forgotten the dog
- Bis holding on to the memory of something lost
- Cplans to buy a new dog
- Ddislikes the dog
Answer: is holding on to the memory of something lost
Keeping an object that no longer has a use shows attachment to the past; it is a quiet image of grief.
- AText A is a poem and Text B is prose
- BText A narrates one continuous moment while Text B is built from short, list-like commands
- CText A is in the present tense and Text B is in the past
- DText A has no imagery
Answer: Text A narrates one continuous moment while Text B is built from short, list-like commands
Form shapes meaning: the flowing narrative of A suits reflection, while the clipped commands of B suit someone trying to stay busy and composed.
Part B — Compare and explain
Answer in full sentences and quote from the texts.
Answer: Text A: 'the pencil lines on the laundry door' (or the 'pale rectangle' where the mirror hung). Text B: 'the dog's lead though the dog is gone' (or 'the photographs').
Answer: Text A suggests the family owned the house but can only take the 'marks we'd left on it', implying that what is truly theirs is memory. Text B goes further: the view 'was never ours, / only lent', suggesting that home itself is temporary and borrowed.
Answer: It makes the house a living creature the narrator has a bond with, and the farewell gesture is tender and respectful. It suggests love and reluctance without the narrator ever stating an emotion.
Answer: Literally, the speaker will now say they are 'from' a new place. 'Again' implies this has happened before, so moving is a repeated loss. 'Somewhere else' also suggests never quite belonging anywhere; home is always elsewhere.
Answer: Text A ends with a single plain verb, 'and went', after a long sentence, so the leaving is abrupt and understated. Text B ends with a reflective line about identity ('to be from somewhere else'), looking forward rather than back. A closes a moment; B opens a question.
Answer: Model: Text B, because its restraint makes the emotion sharper: the matter-of-fact 'the dog's lead though the dog is gone' lands harder than open sadness would. (Either text is acceptable with evidence and reasoning.)
Part C — Comparative language
Good comparison moves between texts within a sentence. Complete the tasks below.
Answer: Similarity: similarly, likewise, both, in the same way, equally. Difference: whereas, in contrast, however, on the other hand, unlike, conversely.
Answer: whereas
'Whereas' (or 'while') joins two contrasting clauses inside one sentence. 'However' would need a semicolon or full stop before it.
Answer: Both
'Both' signals a shared technique and sets up a sentence that treats the texts together.
Part D — Comparative writing
Model answer: Both texts suggest that what is lost in leaving a home is not the building but the evidence of a life lived in it, though they express this in very different forms. Text A locates memory in physical traces, 'the pencil lines on the laundry door' and 'the pale rectangle' where a mirror hung, so that the emptied house becomes a record the family cannot take with them. Similarly, Text B fixes grief in a single object, 'the dog's lead though the dog is gone', where the useless item is kept precisely because it holds a memory. Whereas Text A's flowing first-person narrative allows the narrator to linger, pausing to touch the doorframe 'the way you'd touch a horse's neck', Text B's clipped imperatives, 'Take the kettle. Leave the curtains', hold emotion at arm's length, as if the speaker can only cope by staying busy. The texts also differ in how final the loss is: Text A ends with the abrupt 'and went', closing the door on one home, while Text B's 'Begin, again, to be from somewhere else' implies that leaving is a pattern and belonging is always provisional. Together, the texts position the reader to understand home as something made of memory and habit, which is why it cannot simply be packed.
Success criteria:
- Topic sentence identifies a shared idea and signals difference
- At least two quotations from each text
- Moves between texts within the paragraph using connectives (similarly, whereas, while, in contrast)
- Comments on form or structure, not only on content
- Explains effect on the reader, not just technique
- Concluding sentence synthesises both texts
Marking tips
- Give credit for correct method even when the final answer slips — the working shows where the thinking went right.
- For open-ended tasks, use the success criteria as a checklist rather than looking for one "right" answer.
- Celebrate what went well first, then pick one thing to work on next.