Question 1 of Paper 1

    a)You are a journalist at the Olympic 100 meters final which Usain Bolt describes in the extract. Write your report of the race for the sports section of your newspaper. Use 150–200 words.

    The Olympic 100 meter dash was a hit as usual. The one and only Usain Bolt came out in first place and stole the win and the applause of the millions watching. The crowd was on the edge of their seats when Usain Bolt caught up with the first place holder, Richard Thomson, after a stubble after the first 20 meters. It was not a good start for him. However, The Bolt picked up the pace and set his mind on winning. Right in front of everyone’s eyes, he had done it. He was first, head of the pack. However he looked confused and kept glancing behind him. But the confusion didn’t last much longer. His mood changed once he was 10 meter from the finishing line. He threw up his hands and pounded his crest as he crossed the tape declaring his victory. We later found out that Usain Bolt was actually looking for his teammate, Asafa. Usain was expecting to be behind or even near his teammate, but that wasn’t the case. This explains the period of confusion. That’s when Usain Bolt knew he had to win and knew he was gonna win the race. What an amazing race.



    b) Compare your newspaper report with the autobiographical extract, analyzing form, structure and language. 

    The first thing about the two papers is the perspective. Text A is the perspective of the news reporter and what they witness and text B is Usain Bolt’s perspective and what was going through his head. Since he is describing what is in his head, he is using first person. Text A used third person to describe the race, Usain Bolt, and the crowd, nothing on themselves. Secondly, the structure of the writing. In text B, Usain talks about what’s going on in his head and about what he thinks, then jumps to the race and his thought process at the starting line and during the race itself. His sharings were written in short sentences and straight to the point since he was talking rather than taking the time and writing something descriptive like text A, the news reporting. The news reporter has to be descriptive to share what the race was like if someone wasn’t able to watch it. Also to gain the attention of any reader so they keep reading. The more descriptive something is, the more detailed the pictures the reader can visualize. So the sentences in text A are longer and full of adjectives about the race or whatever they are describing. Language-wise, text B doesn’t use many big vocab words. It is normal for people to talk using words like ‘sad’ or ‘depressed’ instead of ‘melancholy’ or ‘sorrowful’. That’s what makes text A different. To add to the details of the subject they have to use words to describe how things felt or exaggerate them more for the reader’s sake. So instead of using ‘excited’ the news reporter is more likely to choose ‘ecstatic’ or ‘exhilarating’. The more descriptive the words, the more emotions arouse in the reader. The main difference in the two texts is also what makes them so different, the purpose. Both texts have the same intentions of sharing the experience of the race to the audience. However, text B could be aimed towards anyone who is interested in listening. Also it’s talking about himself; what he thought and what he experienced. However text A is meant to be a descriptive report to share what happened at the race, as an audience viewer, to share what the experience was like at the race. The reporters audience is aimed at people that want to read the paper and more of their future worlds. To get people to read, the writing has to be descriptive enough. The reason for being able to understand what the author was going for is through differences like structure, language, and audience.