Two views of a mural programme
Tracking exactly where two writers agree, where they diverge, and what each would concede.
Paired texts
Text 1: A city mural programme should be judged by whether residents recognise the work as theirs. When a neighbourhood chooses the wall, the artist, and the subject, the finished piece is maintained, defended, and repaired by the people who live beside it. Murals commissioned without that process are painted over within a decade.
Text 2: In a survey of forty mural programmes, longevity correlated most strongly not with how the subject was chosen but with whether a maintenance budget was attached at commissioning. Programmes with community selection and no budget lasted about as long as programmes with neither. Where a budget existed, both kinds of programme lasted.
Answers in order, explanations withheld, and a report on where the chain broke.
- 25.1Cross-text connectionsStandard
How does Text 2 relate to the claim made in Text 1?
- AIt proposes a different explanation for the outcome Text 1 describes.
- BIt confirms Text 1 using a larger sample.
- CIt argues that murals should not be publicly funded.
- DIt restates Text 1 in more precise language.
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It proposes a different explanation for the outcome Text 1 describes.
Both texts are about why murals survive. Text 1 credits community ownership; Text 2 finds the budget, not the selection process, does the work. That is a competing explanation, not a confirmation or a restatement.
- 25.2Cross-text connectionsChallenge
Builds on: Question 1's reading that the two texts offer competing explanations rather than agreeing.
Which finding would the author of Text 1 most likely offer in response to Text 2?
- ANeighbourhoods that chose their own murals were more likely to raise maintenance money themselves.
- BMurals in forty cities were surveyed rather than in one.
- CSome murals are painted over for reasons unrelated to their condition.
- DMaintenance budgets are difficult for small programmes to obtain.
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Neighbourhoods that chose their own murals were more likely to raise maintenance money themselves.
This is the only choice that lets Text 1's mechanism survive Text 2's finding: community ownership would be producing the budget rather than competing with it. The others are true-sounding observations that leave Text 1's claim exactly where Text 2 left it.
- 25.3Words in contextStandard
Builds on: Question 1's identification of community ownership as Text 1's proposed mechanism — these three words are what that mechanism is supposed to produce.
In Text 1, the words "maintained, defended, and repaired" are used to describe
- Athe physical upkeep that Text 1 treats as evidence of ownership.
- Bthe arguments residents make in favour of public art.
- Cthe duties a city assigns to a paid maintenance crew.
- Dthe stages a mural passes through before it is painted over.
Show the answer and reasoningHide the reasoning
the physical upkeep that Text 1 treats as evidence of ownership.
All three words describe acts performed on the object, and Text 1 offers them as what follows from residents choosing the wall, artist and subject. Reading "defended" as argument rather than upkeep breaks the list, and nothing in Text 1 mentions a paid crew.
- 25.4Data interpretationChallenge
Builds on: The separation established in questions 1 and 2 between what each text claims — the wrong answer here is the one that imports Text 1 into a question about Text 2.
Setting Text 1 aside, which statement is supported by Text 2 alone?
- ACommunity selection without a maintenance budget did not extend a mural programme's life.
- BCommunity selection has no effect on mural longevity under any conditions.
- CMaintenance budgets guarantee that a mural will survive.
- DMost mural programmes in the survey had maintenance budgets.
Show the answer and reasoningHide the reasoning
Community selection without a maintenance budget did not extend a mural programme's life.
Text 2 says those programmes lasted about as long as programmes with neither, which is exactly this statement. It does not rule out an effect where a budget exists, does not promise survival, and gives no figure for how many programmes had budgets. The second choice is the tempting one precisely because it sounds like the conclusion of the whole pair rather than of Text 2 alone.