In Component 1 you read an unseen non-fiction text alongside the anthology text. Then you compare how the two writers present a subject or attitude. These tasks train the reading-and-comparing skill: find shared ground quickly, then pin down differences in viewpoint and method.
Every passage below is our own writing. Plan a comparison grid before you write, and check the 4EA1 specification for the length the section expects.
1Read our own two short texts below, written for practice. Text A: 'The sea did exactly what I had been promised it would. It was grey, it was cold, and it arrived at my ankles with the enthusiasm of a tax form.
My cousins ran shrieking into it as though it were a birthday party. I stood at the edge, socks in hand, and negotiated.' Text B: 'There is a particular hour, just after the tide turns, when the whole bay seems to hold its breath. I have swum in it every morning for eleven years, in every weather, and it has never once been the same sea twice.
People ask whether I am not afraid of the cold. I am more afraid of the mornings I might miss.' Compare how the two writers present their feelings about the sea. Use short quotations from both texts and comment on language and tone.
Show plan, model opening & checklist
Plan: Find the shared subject (the cold sea) and then the contrast in feeling: reluctant comedy in A, quiet devotion in B. Build comparative paragraphs, each covering both texts, using connectives such as 'whereas' and 'by contrast'. Point to method (A's ironic 'like a tax form', B's reverent 'holds its breath') not only what each writer feels.
Model opening: Both writers treat the cold sea as something to be reckoned with, but where the first hides behind comic understatement, the second writes with the steady devotion of long habit.
Checklist:
- Each paragraph deals with both texts, not one and then the other
- You use comparative connectives (whereas, similarly, by contrast)
- You quote briefly from both A and B
- You compare methods and tone, not only feelings
- Your overall point of comparison is clear from the start
2Read our own unseen text below, written for practice. 'By seven the market is already hours awake. The fish men are hosing down the concrete, the flower sellers are arguing prices in three languages at once, and somewhere a radio is quietly losing a football match.
I come most Saturdays and buy almost nothing. I come to be reminded that the city is not the grey machine the working week makes it seem.' Now choose one non-fiction text from your Edexcel anthology in which a writer presents a place they value. Compare how our writer above and your chosen anthology writer present a place that matters to them.
Use short quotations from both.
Show plan, model opening & checklist
Plan: Read the unseen text for its viewpoint (affection for a lively, human place) and its methods, especially the list of sounds and the honest 'buy almost nothing'. Then match it against your anthology writer. Are the places valued for similar reasons?
Are the methods (sensory detail, humour, direct address) alike or different? Structure the answer around points of comparison, covering both texts each time.
Model opening: Both writers value their chosen place less for what it offers than for what it reminds them of, though our market writer reaches that idea through noise and crowds while the anthology writer arrives there by another route.
Checklist:
Tried these practice tasks? A teacher can mark your child's attempt and explain the next step in a paid one-hour trial.
- You compare the unseen text with a genuine anthology text about a valued place
- Each comparative point covers both texts
- You quote briefly and accurately from both
- You compare viewpoint and method
- You avoid summarising one text before starting the other
3Read our own two short texts below, written for practice. Text A: 'On my first morning I arrived forty minutes early, sweated through a shirt I had ironed twice, and introduced myself to a cleaner in the firm belief that she was the manager. She was kind about it.
The actual manager arrived at nine, found me in the wrong room, and generously pretended not to have noticed.' Text B: 'I had wanted the job for two years, and when it finally came I felt none of the panic everyone had warned me about. I walked in, learned names, wrote a list of everything I did not yet understand, and went home certain (for the first time in a long while) that I was exactly where I was meant to be.' Compare how the two writers present their feelings on a first day at work.
Show plan, model opening & checklist
Plan: Identify the contrast: anxious, self-mocking A against calm, assured B. Note the shared ground too: both are honest and both look back on the day. Compare methods: A's comic accumulation of mishaps against B's steady, listing sentences that sound in control. Keep both texts in view within each paragraph and reach a clear judgement about the difference in tone.
Model opening: Where the first writer turns a nervous first day into a string of comic disasters, the second presents the same milestone as calm proof of belonging, and the difference lies as much in their sentences as in their nerves.
Checklist:
- You bring out both the contrast and any similarity
- Each paragraph integrates both texts
- You link tone to specific methods (humour, listing, sentence shape)
- Quotations from both texts are short
- You end with a clear comparative point
4Here are the opening lines of two of our own texts, written for practice. Text A opens: 'The city at night is not dangerous; it is simply honest about being indifferent.' Text B opens: 'After dark my town becomes a different, kinder place; everyone who is out is out for a reason, and mostly the reason is each other.' Do not write a full essay. Instead: (a) draw a comparison grid with three points of comparison, noting for each what Text A suggests and what Text B suggests; (b) choose the strongest point and write one fully comparative paragraph that uses both texts and at least two comparative connectives.
Show plan, model opening & checklist
Plan: Treat this as the planning stage examiners reward. In the grid, phrase each point as an idea both texts touch (safety, company, mood after dark). Then note each writer's angle.
When you write the paragraph, open with the shared idea. Weave in both texts with 'whereas' or 'in contrast', and finish on why the difference matters.
Model opening: Both writers reimagine their home after dark, but where Text A finds a cool 'indifference', Text B insists on warmth, claiming that everyone out at night is out 'for a reason'.
Checklist:
- Your grid has three genuine points of comparison
- Each point notes both writers' angles side by side
- Your paragraph opens with a shared idea, not one text alone
- You use at least two comparative connectives
- Both texts appear inside the single paragraph
See the method and an annotated model on the unseen reading & comparison page for Pearson Edexcel 4EA1, or the technique in our unseen reading & comparison skills guide.