Question

Read the excerpts from a biography and a memoir about fictional news anchor Melanie Waters. First, identify a way in which both accounts are similar. Then, explain how the two accounts differ in their use of imagery and figurative language.

Passage

Biography:
October 4, 1976, was a crisp autumn day in New York City, but more would change that day than the leaves on the trees in Central Park. On that evening, Melanie Waters broke new ground for women in journalism, becoming the first female to cohost the nightly news on a major network. When she took her spot on the ABC Evening News next to longtime host Marcus Radner, she also broke a different barrier — she was now the highest-paid journalist of either gender, earning a million dollars a year. Waters would only stay on the ABC Evening News for a year and a half, as Radner never accepted the arrangement and made his unhappiness clear. By that point, however, Waters had broken through a brick wall that had kept females out of the newsroom since the beginning of television.
Memoir:
I sat at the desk and glanced over at Marcus, and the contempt radiated from him like he was a nuclear reactor, pulsing with dangerous energy. I never knew if it was my gender or my paycheck that annoyed him most, but I really didn't have time to care. I turned and looked straight forward at the teleprompter, waiting for the red light that meant my face — a woman's face, for the first time in the history of television — would be anchoring the nightly news. It hit me in that moment in a way that it hadn't before: I was the captain of the Mayflower. I was leading a trail of covered wagons to the Pacific. I was an astronaut hurtling toward the moon. The red light blinked on. I smiled. Calm came over me like a warm breeze. And I spoke: Good evening, I'm Melanie Waters. And this is the ABC Evening News.

Answer 1

Read the excerpts from a biography and a memoir about fictional news anchor Melanie Waters. First, identify a way in which both accounts are similar. Then, explain how the two accounts differ in their use of imagery and figurative language.

Passage

Biography:

October 4, 1976, was a crisp autumn day in New York City, but more would change that day than the leaves on the trees in Central Park. On that evening, M