Three original fictional… | Year 8 English · T1 W1–2 · Materials

All names, offers, quotes and figures are invented for teaching. None describes a real business, school, student or transport system. Keep the source label when sharing a sentence: the point is to notice what information can and cannot support.

Text A — Repair-club flyer and explainer

Fictional source: a draft flyer by the imaginary Fix-It Club, with a small-print explainer written by the same club. The club is not a real provider.

Flyer headline: “Join Plan A and save on every repair!”
Plan A: $18 joining cost, then $7 for each repair.
Plan B: no joining cost, then $10 for each repair.
Small print: Prices are model values in Australian dollars. Let n be a non-negative whole number of repairs. Total model costs are A(n)=18+7n and B(n)=10n. No tax, travel, parts, quality, waiting time or eligibility details have been supplied. A real offer would need current conditions checked.

Teacher note: Plan A does not save at every repair count. At n=0, A costs $18 versus B $0. At n=6, both cost $60. At integer n>6, Plan A has lower model total. “Save on every repair” may mean the marginal charge is $7 versus $10, but readers could reasonably take it to mean the total is always lower. That ambiguity is the analytical opening.

Text B — A post about an invented travel poll

Fictional source: a draft post by the imaginary School Travel Group.

“Everyone cycles to school now! We asked 20 students standing beside the bicycle racks on a dry Tuesday. Sixteen said bicycle, one said walk/roll, one bus and two other. That proves 80% of all students cycle. The school should remove the bus-stop shelter.”

Other information in the same fictional exercise: the imagined population is 100 students with known model categories: 40 walk/roll, 30 bus, 20 bicycle and 10 other. Two separate seeded pseudorandom simulations select 20 of the fictional 100 without replacement: Sample A has 8 walk/roll, 7 bus, 3 bicycle, 2 other; Sample B has 10 walk/roll, 5 bus, 4 bicycle, 1 other. The exact seeds and method are supplied. These are not genuine surveys. The rack sample is a constructed convenience result at a location where cyclists are likely to be overrepresented.

Teacher note: the rack claim computes 16/20=80% correctly for that sample, but the selection makes population inference unsound. The known fictional population proportion for bicycle is 20/100=20%. The recommendation about the shelter is unsupported by these data and could affect students who use the bus. Avoid judging any family's transport choice.

Text C — A source ledger, not an answer sheet

Claim	Supplied source	Can the source establish it?
“At 6 repairs both model plans cost $60.”	Text A formulas	Yes, by substitution, under stated model.
“Plan A is best for everyone.”	Text A flyer	No; needs usage, full conditions, priorities.
“16 of 20 people by the racks said bicycle.”	Text B post	This is what the fictional post reports; the underlying responses are not independently verified.
“80% of all students cycle.”	Rack convenience sample	No. Sample selection does not justify that inference.
“Sample A and B gave different bicycle proportions.”	Fictional model table	Yes, 15% and 20%, showing variation in these two constructed samples.

Mini glossary for a teacher to adapt: substantiation means evidence that supports a specific claim; nominalisation turns a process into a noun (for example “we decided” → “the decision”), sometimes hiding who acted; population is the full group a question concerns; sample is a subset; convenience sample is chosen for ease, not by a fair chance mechanism. Invite everyday/home-language explanations, then teach the precise English term. No translation here has been verified.