TEXT D
Mr Duffy raised his eyes from the paper and gazed out of his window on the cheerless evening landscape. The river lay quiet beside the empty distillery and from time to time a light appeared in some house on Lucan Road. What an end! Th e whole narrative of her death revolted him and it revolted him to think that he had ever spoken to her of what he held sacred. The cautious words of a reporter won over to conceal the details of a commonplace vulgar death attacked his stom ach. Not merely had she degraded herself, she had degraded him. His soul’s comp a nion! He thought of the hobbling wretches whom he had seen carrying cans and bot tles to be filled by the barman. Just God, what an end! Evidently she had been u nfit to live, without any strength of purpose, an easy prey to habits, one of th e wrecks on which civilization has been reared. But that she could have sunk so low! Was it possible he had deceived himself so utterly about her? He remembered her outburst of that night and interpreted it in a harsher sense than he had ev er done. He had no difficulty now in approving of the course he had taken.
As the light failed and his memory began to wander he thought her hand tou ched his. The shock which had first attacked his stomach was now attacking his n erves. He put on his overcoat and hat quickly and went out. The cold air met him on the threshold; it crept into the sleeves of his coat. When he came to the pu blic house at Chapel Bridge he went in and ordered a hot punch.
The proprietor served him obsequiously but did not venture to talk. There were five or six working-men in the shop discussing the value of a gentleman’s e state in County Kildare. They drank at intervals from their huge pint tumblers, and smoked, spitting often on the floor and sometimes dragging the sawdust over their heavy boots. Mr Duffy sat on his stool and gazed at them, without seeing o r hearing them. After a while they went out and he called for another punch. He sat a long time over it. The shop was very quiet. The proprietor sprawled on the counter reading the newspaper and yawning. Now and again a tram was heard swish ing along the lonely road outside.
As he sat there, living over his life with her and evoking alternately the two images on which he now conceived her, he realized that she was dead, that s he had ceased to exist, that she had become a memory. He began to feel ill at ea se. He asked himself what else could he have done. He could not have lived with her openly. He had done what seemed to him best. How was he to blame? Now that s he was gone he understood how lonely her life must have been, sitting night afte r night alone in that room. His life would be lonely too until he, too, died, ce ased to exist, became a memory-if anyone remembered him.
27. Mr Duffy’s immediate reaction to the report of the woman’s death wa s that of ___.
A. disgust B. guilt C. grief D. compassion
28. It can be inferred from the passage that the reporter wrote about the woman’s death in a ___ manner.
A. detailed B. provocative C. discreet D. sens ational
29. We can infer from the last paragraph that Mr Duffy was in a(n) ___ mood.
A. angry B. fretful C. irritable D. remorseful
30. According to the passage , which of the following statements is NOT t rue?
A. Mr Duffy once confided in the woman.
B. Mr Duffy felt an intense sense of shame.
C. The woman wanted to end the relationship.
D. They became estranged probably after a quarrel.
SECTION B SKIMMING AND SCANNING ( 10 min)
In this section there are seven passages followed by ten multiple -choice q uestions. Skim or scan them as required and then mark your answers on the Colour ed Answer Sheet.
TEXT E
First read the following question.
31. In the passage Bill Gates mainly discusses ___.
A. a person’s opportunity of a lifetime
B. the success of the computer industry
C. the importance of education
D. high school education in the US
Now go through TEXT E quickly and answer question 31.
Hundreds of students send me e-mail each year asking for advice about educa tion. They want to know what to study, or whether it’s OK to drop out of colleg e since that’s what I did.
My basic advice is simple and heartfelt." Get the best education you can. Take advantage of high school and college. Learn how to learn."
It’s true that I dropped out of college to start Microsoft, but I was at H a rvard for three years before dropping out-and I’d love to have the time to go b a ck. As I’ve said before, nobody should drop out of college unless they believe they face the opportunity of a lifetime. And even then they should reconsider.
The computer industry has lots of people who didn’t finish college, but I ’m not aware of any success stories that began with somebody dropping out of high school. I actually don’t know any high school dropouts, let alone any successfu l ones.
In my company’s early years we had a bright part-time programmer who threa tened to drop out of high school to work full-time. We told him no.
Quite a few of our people didn’t finish college, but we discourage droppin g out.
College isn’t the only place where information exist. You can learn in a l i brary. But somebody handing you a book doesn’t automatically foster learning. Y o u want to learn with other people, ask questions, try out ideas and have a way t o test your ability. It usually takes more than just a book.
Education should be broad, although it’s fine to have deep interests, too.
In high school there were periods when I was highly focused on writing soft ware, but for most of my high school years I had wide-ranging academic interests . My parents encouraged this, and I’m grateful that they did.
One parent wrote me that her 15-year old son "lost himself in the hole of t he computer. "He got an A in Web site design, but other grades were sinking, sh e said.
This boy is making a mistake. High school and college offer you the best ch ance to learn broadly-math, history, various sciences-and to do projects with ot her kids that teach you firsthand about group dynamics. It’s fine to take a dee p interest in computers, dance, language or any other discipline, but not if it j eopardizes breadth.
In college it’s appropriate to think about specialization. Getting real e x pertise in an area of interest can lead to success. Graduate school is one way t o get specialized knowledge. Choosing a specialty isn’t something high school s t udents should worry about. They should worry about getting a strong academic sta rt.
There’s not a perfect correlation between attitudes in high school and su c cess in later life, of course. But it’s a real mistake not to take the opportun i ty to learn a huge range of subjects, to learn to work with people in high schoo l, and to get the grades that will help you get into a good college.