Extract A
It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.
It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain! I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see beauty even when it’s not pretty, every day, and if you can source your own life from its presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes!”
It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.
It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.
It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.
Extract B
Danny Leavitt, a gangly eight-year-old with a severe peanut allergy, was the one who discovered the body. It was early, maybe 7:30 a.m., and he’d been riding his black Schwinn bike around town to search for snails after the big storm they’d had the night before. The boardwalks were wet and slippery and covered with leaves and small branches, blown off by the strong winds.
It hadn’t been a tropical storm, but it’d been close—an intense microburst that had hit the island unexpectedly, sending deck furniture flying and doing some light damage to several roofs around the village. Danny’s house, which was right on the beach, was fine, the power intact, but his mom yelled after him to be careful as he left, warning of potential downed wires.
He’d ridden for about ten minutes, going from the ocean down to the bay on the walk that he lived on, Surf. Then he decided to ride over to Neptune Walk, where the playground was, to see what shape it was in. He turned on Harbor from Surf, passed Atlantic, Marine, and Broadway, and then turned left on Neptune. Something shiny caught his eye in front of the Cahulls’, a friendly couple with one little kid, Archie. He stopped and got off his Schwinn to see a bike, nearly hidden in the woody, shrubby area that lined the boardwalks, about a three-foot-drop down. The town had lifted all the walks after flooding from Hurricane Sandy, and Danny’s dad, along with many other people in Salcombe, thought they’d gone overboard. “Someone could break their neck,” he remembered his dad muttering.
Danny figured the bike had been blown away by the wind, so he grabbed its wheel and dragged it up onto the boardwalk, no easy feat—it was a grown-up’s bike, and Danny was small for his age. It was then he saw that the bike had been covering something else: a person, facedown in the reeds. The body was angled strangely and not moving at all. Danny felt his throat close, almost as if he’d eaten a peanut. He hadn’t, had he? He ran to the Cahulls’ house and banged on the door loudly, shivering and scared. Marina came quickly in her pajamas and glasses, holding Archie, a concerned look on her face. Marina was very pregnant.
“Danny Leavitt? Are you okay?”
Danny could barely get the words out.
“There’s someone out there on the ground, I think they fell off the boardwalk on their bike. They’re not moving.”
Extract C
The scariest part was the take- off…
As the engine roared to life and the passengers practically dived into their seats, a familiar feeling of uneasiness washed over me. Ah, the take-off. A time where the pilot babbles on in his monotonousvoice about safety precautions (which would probably be highly useful in the events of a crash) but I'm too busy fearing a crash to even listen.
They say overthinking highly exaggerates the circumstances of an event and causes majority of the fear. But after tirelessly researching plane crashes and air sickness weeks in advance, it's safe to say I am not overthinking right?
In the midst of my internal dilemma, I noticed the wings of the plane, as sharp as a knife, cutting through the fluffy clouds around me. Ah, what a sight.
Wait a minute! Clouds?
Due to my undying fear of the take- off, I missed the take- off!
In this moment I realized that fear is in the mind, rather than the actual events. I was no longer scared of the take-off!
Extract D
After several hours of dusting and sorting out my tiny bedroom, I finally reached the part that involved cleaning under my double single bed. I was shocked when I knelt down and observed how many different kinds of old shoes I had piled under my comfortable bed. All these years I was blaming my younger sister Sophia for stealing my shoes when I had them stored myself under my bed. Sadly all these different shoes but none of them had a pair.
I reached out my tired hand and caught sight of a box. A box that was full of grey dust covering it entirely. As I wiped down the rectangular box I realised it was the one which contained all the photos of my beautiful mother and me in Europe. As I opened out the box, tears started racing down my face. I found the key ring which had an airplane silvery charm attached. I recalled that day my beautiful mother gave it to me after having an unpleasant day. That day I lost my luggage bag at Sydney Departure airport. She gifted it to me and said, “Let your dreams fly high towards the sky just like this airplane”. On the back of the airplane charm, the words engraved, “TAKE ME FAR AWAY!”
Airplanes were my favourite, especially the take off. I loved viewing things from an eagle’s perspective. Being between the fluffy white clouds in an airplane was amazing, because it gives me the feeling of being full of power. I wanted to explore newer foreign places. I admired staring out of the airplane windows because everything seemed so small and harmless.
After thinking so hard, I decided that I would finally book my trip to Germany and follow the dreams my mother had always encouraged.
Read the four extracts below on the topic of 'discovery’.
Choose the option (A, B, C or D) which you think best answers the question.
Which extract...