Read Source C. Examine how the writer presents his views on cycling in cities.

This question tests analysis of language and its effect (R4), for 9 marks. 'Examine how the writer presents his views' means the marks are in the construction of the argument, not in whether you agree with it.

1 to 3 marks: identification

Noting that the writer supports cycling and uses an example from Amsterdam, without analysing the effect.

4 to 6 marks: explaining how the views are conveyed

1. He establishes authority and weariness together: twenty-two years of cycling and an argument he has watched go round so often that he can predict its shape before anybody speaks. This positions the objections as familiar rather than new, which weakens them before they are stated. [1]
2. He disposes of the weak objections at speed, conceding that some cyclists do run red lights and correcting the road tax claim with a date, since it has not existed since 1937. Dealing with these quickly is what earns him the right to reach the sentence he actually wants to take apart. [1]

7 to 9 marks: evaluation

The evaluative move is to see why Amsterdam is the right example rather than an obvious one. He opens by conceding his opponent's premise entirely: no city is built for bicycles, Amsterdam included. Having agreed, he can then supply the 1971 figures, three thousand road deaths a year and four hundred of them children, and conclude that what changed was not the shape of the streets but a decision about who the streets were for. The concession is what makes the example unanswerable.

His second technique is to reverse the cost argument. Against the claim that we cannot afford to change, he lists what is already being paid: air that measurably shortens lives, children driven everywhere and then diagnosed as inactive, and space surrendered to parked metal that sits unused for twenty-three hours a day. The reader is not asked to spend, only to notice existing spending.

The close is the sharpest choice in the piece. He explicitly declines to ask anyone to love cycling, which narrows his demand to a single question about who we decided the streets were for. A request for sympathy can be refused; a question about a past decision has to be answered.