What Both of Them Say

Grade 8 · Reading · Page 1 of 3

Name Date
DIRECTIONS: Two texts about one event, written thirteen years apart. List every fact they agree on.
The subject: A flood in the town of Ashwell, forty years ago
A — the county history, published 1998
The flood of 1985 reached the market cross and stood there for two days. Sixty houses were evacuated. The mill was destroyed and never rebuilt. The water came, as it had in 1947, from the failure of the upstream sluice rather than from the rainfall itself.
B — a newspaper feature, 2011
Older residents still remember the water reaching the market cross and staying for two days. Sixty families left their homes. The mill went and was never replaced. Local historians agree the cause was the upstream sluice giving way, not the rain.
  1. List every fact that appears in both texts. There are at least five.
  2. Does anything appear in one and not the other? If so, what?
  3. On the evidence in front of you, how confident are you that the sluice caused the flood? Say why.

One Thing You Could Not See

Grade 8 · Reading · Page 2 of 3

Here is something neither text says.
The county history of 1998 cites, as its only source for the flood, Marsden's notebook — the notes of a man who lived on the mill lane and wrote up the week afterwards.
The newspaper feature of 2011 cites, as its only source, the county history of 1998.
  1. Redo question 3. How confident are you now, and what changed?
  2. Two accounts agreeing usually counts for a lot. Explain, in one sentence, exactly when it counts for nothing.
  3. Neither text is dishonest. The newspaper cited its source properly. So who, if anybody, did something wrong here?

What Would Actually Help

Grade 8 · Reading · Page 3 of 3

  1. Name one document that, if it existed, would turn this into real corroboration.
  2. A third article appears in 2020 repeating the same five facts and citing the 2011 feature. How much does it add?
  3. Write the question you should ask of any two sources that agree with each other.