@ Sometimes Reading Part 2 is an extract from a book. Where this is the case, you need to form a picture in your mind of the situation as quickly as you can, Read through this text in no more than two minutes and think of a suitable ttl. © Foltow the exam instructions ‘You are going to read an extract from a novel. For Questions according to the text, 1-6, choose the answer (A, B, © oF D) which you think fits Here and there groups sat and drank in narrow passages between the marker stalls. Ringling pushed his way through fone of these, and Houston saw that behind lay a line of tall houses built of rough stone, several storeys high. People Were leaning out of the glassless windows in the warm evening, and behind them oil lamps shone in the crude rooms. From one end to the other, this side of the street seemed to be lined with flickering stone chambers, and Houston saw that these must be the cheap doss-houses that 10 the boy had mentioned, AA stream of people was being turned away from the frst doorway, and they bad to carry the baggage up and down the exhausting, noisy street for over an hour before they could find somewhere to stay. The room they were given, 15 with two other men and a woman, was on the fifth floor, and, they struggled, weighed down by their baggage, up a narrow, ‘unnel-lke staircase which smelt horribly of hot oil from the lamps lining the walls, ‘The landings ran off into a confusing series of narrow 20 corridors, brilliant and choking with the smoking oj and in each was a series of tiny stone rooms. The young Tibetan who had led the way showed them into one, and left, and Houston looked at his three new companions. They were little, graceful people who had talked and laughed all the 2 way up through the building, and they were still ar it as they came into the room. ‘There were five straw mattresses on the stone floor, and a big lemher bucket in the corner; this seemed to be the only furniture. A heavy cover was fastened over the window and 30 the tiny room stank even worse than the corridor. One of the ‘men removed the cover and hung out ofthe window, singing, while the other, with the woman, began preparing a meal on the floor with # small burner unpacked from the baggage. Why did Ringling and Houston take that room? ‘A They had already booked it. B They thought it was the most comfortable one. © twas the only one that was vacant. D__Itwas in the first building they came to. How many people were going to stay in the room? What dooe nine 25 ste ooking at their new companions talking and laughing the way the building Houston lay back on the filthy mattress and closed bis eves 3s and mouth while Ringling unpacked their own kit. He had, never in his life come across such an ovespoweringly evil stench, and his head was swimming with the noise and the bright light. The noise in the street seemed if anything to be louder now that they were above it, and the people in the 4 room were shouting to make themselves heard. Ringling was shouting as loudly as any of them, quite happy and quite unaffected by the confusion, Houston again closed his eyes and tied to shut out the room and the yellow smoking plare, and succeeded for some ‘5 minutes, till the boy shook him and he sat up and sav that the woman had prepared a large bowl of some soup-lke substance and all were sitting round eating. “Eat now; the boy said loudly in Tibetan, grinning at him “Eat. Good to eat. ‘sa Houston looked at the bow! and saw something swimming in it, and in a careless moment breathed through his nose, and he was struggling this feet, about to be sick. He didn't |know where to go, and the boy was quickly beside him, and the hung, trembling, over the bucket, and saw that it had not ss been empty even to begin with, and spewed, and leaned of the greasy rim some time longer, with his Knees trembling and eyes watering. He turned, smiling apologetically to the people round the ‘bow, and they smiled back at him, in no way disturbed and ‘oll enjoying their meal ‘They went out after that, for he couldn't bear to stay in the same room with the food and bucket; but out in the street found himself suddenly hungry, and they ate. ‘4 The people in the room were shouting because ‘A they were trying to speak to people in the street B_itwas difficult for them to hear each other. © thoy liked the sound of their own voices. D__ Ringling was starting to get angry. 5 Why was Houston sick? ‘A He had tasted the food. He had smelt the food, © He knew what it was made of D_ The others were sick, too, 6 What is the main information in this extract? ‘A. The conditions in which some people lived. Why Ringling and Houston were in a place like that © How badly some iends of thes were living. D__ Solutions to the problem of bad living conditions.