Reading for meaning Banker

Read Text A, then answer the questions. Paragraph numbers are shown in square brackets.Text A: The fruit stall[1] Sana had begged her father for months to let her help at the family's fruit stall in the Sunday bazaar, and at last, the week after her fourteenth birthday, he agreed. They left home at five o'clock, while the street lamps were still on, and loaded the cart with crates of guavas, oranges and the first bananas of the season.[2] By seven the bazaar was crowded. Her father showed her how to arrange the oranges in a pyramid, with the brightest ones at the front, and how to sprinkle water on the guavas so that they shone. 'People buy with their eyes first,' he said.[3] Her first customer was an elderly man with a cloth bag who asked for a dozen bananas. Sana counted them twice, nervously, and gave him his change. He smiled and told her she had given him ten rupees too much. Her cheeks burned as he handed the note back.[4] By midday the crates were almost empty. Her father let her keep the coins from the last sale, and on the way home she bought a small notebook to record what they sold each week.

1. (a) Paragraph 1: At what time did Sana and her father leave home? [1]
2. (b) Paragraph 1: Give two kinds of fruit they loaded onto the cart. [1]
3. (c) Paragraph 2: Identify two things Sana's father taught her about displaying the fruit. [2]
4. (d) Paragraph 3: What mistake did Sana make with her first customer? [1]
5. (e) Paragraph 4: What did Sana buy on the way home, and why? [2]

Read Text A, then answer the questions. Paragraph numbers are shown in square brackets.Text A: Before the sun[1] The boat left the harbour at Gwadar while the sky was still black. Karim, who was fifteen and on his first fishing trip, sat on a coil of rope and watched the lights of the town shrink behind them. His uncle stood at the wheel, steering by the stars and a small compass that had belonged to Karim's grandfather.[2] After two hours the engine was cut. The men worked quickly, letting the long net slide over the side while gulls screamed above them. Karim's job was to keep the net from tangling, and twice he almost lost his footing on the wet deck.[3] When the sun rose, the sea turned from grey to silver. They hauled in the net, and it came up heavy and alive with mackerel and a few small tuna. One of the older men threw back a young turtle that had been caught by accident, and Karim watched it disappear into the waves.[4] By noon they were back in the harbour, where traders were already waiting on the jetty with ice boxes and scales.

1. (a) Paragraph 1: How old was Karim? [1]
2. (b) Paragraph 1: Give two things Karim's uncle used to steer the boat. [1]
3. (c) Paragraph 2: What was Karim's job on the boat? [1]
4. (d) Paragraph 3: Name two kinds of fish caught in the net. [1]
5. (e) Paragraph 3: What happened to the turtle? [1]
6. (f) Paragraph 4: Who was waiting for the boat when it returned? [1]

Read Text A, then answer the questions. Paragraph numbers are shown in square brackets.Text A: The wrong station[1] Mei had been in Tokyo for only three days when she took the train alone for the first time. Her aunt had written the name of the station on a card in Japanese and English and told her to count six stops.[2] The carriage was so crowded that Mei could not see the screen showing the station names. She counted carefully, but at the fourth stop a large group pushed out and she was carried through the doors with them. By the time she realised, the train had gone.[3] She stood on the platform holding the card. Her phone battery was dead, and she could not read the signs. Then she noticed a young station attendant in a blue uniform and white gloves. He looked at the card, smiled, and wrote the platform number and the time of the next train on the back of it.[4] Twenty minutes later, Mei walked out of the right station. Her aunt was waiting by the ticket gates, holding two cups of hot tea.

1. (a) Paragraph 1: How long had Mei been in Tokyo? [1]
2. (b) Paragraph 1: Give two things her aunt did to help her make the journey. [2]
3. (c) Paragraph 2: Why did Mei get off the train at the wrong stop? [1]
4. (d) Paragraph 3: Give two reasons why Mei could not find her way on her own. [2]
5. (e) Paragraph 3: What did the attendant write on the card? [1]

Read Text A, then answer the questions. Paragraph numbers are shown in square brackets.Text A: The solar oven[1] For the school science fair, Daniyal and his friend Rehan decided to build a solar oven. They lined a cardboard box with aluminium foil, painted the inside of a smaller box black and covered the top with a sheet of clear plastic. Rehan's sister lent them a thermometer from her chemistry set.[2] On the morning of the fair the sky was cloudless, and they set the oven up in the playground with two eggs inside. By ten o'clock the thermometer read sixty degrees. Students crowded round, and a judge wrote something in her notebook.[3] Then, just before eleven, a wind sprang up. A corner of the plastic sheet came loose, flapped noisily and finally tore away across the playground. The temperature dropped quickly. Daniyal chased the plastic past the canteen while Rehan held down the box with both hands.[4] When the judge returned, the eggs were still raw. But she asked them how they would improve the design, and Rehan explained that a glass lid held down by clips would stay in place and trap heat better. To their astonishment, they won second prize for 'the best explanation of a failure'.

1. (a) Paragraph 1: Identify two materials the boys used to build the oven. [1]
2. (b) Paragraph 2: What reading did the thermometer show at ten o'clock? [1]
3. (c) Paragraph 3: Explain what caused the temperature in the oven to drop. [2]
4. (d) Paragraph 3: What were Daniyal and Rehan each doing while the plastic blew away? [2]
5. (e) Paragraph 4: Give two improvements Rehan suggested. [2]

Read Text A, then answer the questions. Paragraph numbers are shown in square brackets.Text A: The night the water came[1] It had rained for four days without stopping when the announcement came from the mosque loudspeaker: the canal bank upstream had broken, and everyone in the village should move to the school on the hill before dark.[2] Nadia's father tied the family's two goats to the back of the cart. Her mother wrapped the documents – identity cards, the land papers and the children's school certificates – in plastic and put them in a tin box. Nadia's job was to carry her baby brother and keep her younger sister close.[3] As they climbed the muddy path, water was already flowing across the fields behind them. The cart wheel stuck twice, and the second time a neighbour, Ghulam Rasool, put his shoulder to it until it came free.[4] The school was crowded with families from three villages. Teachers had pushed the desks against the walls, and volunteers from the town were handing out bread and bottled water. Nadia found a corner by a window. From there, in the last light, she could see the roof of their house standing out of a brown lake.

1. (a) Paragraph 1: How did the villagers learn that they had to leave? [1]
2. (b) Paragraph 1: Why did the villagers need to leave? [1]
3. (c) Paragraph 2: Identify the three kinds of document Nadia's mother packed. [2]
4. (d) Paragraph 3: How did Ghulam Rasool help the family? [1]
5. (e) Paragraph 4: Give two ways in which people at the school were helping the families. [2]

Read Text A, then answer the questions. Paragraph numbers are shown in square brackets.Text A: Above the clouds[1] The group set off from the village of Passu at six in the morning: four students, their geography teacher Mr Baig and a local guide called Wazir, who had walked these paths since he was a boy. The plan was to reach the edge of the glacier by noon and be back before dark.[2] For the first hour the path was easy, winding between apricot orchards. Then it became a narrow ledge of loose stones above the river. Wazir made them walk in single file, each person placing their feet exactly where the person in front had stepped.[3] By eleven, Faraz, the tallest of the students, had a pounding headache and felt sick. Wazir sat him down, gave him water with a little salt and sugar, and told him to breathe slowly. 'The mountain is telling you to slow down,' he said. After twenty minutes Faraz felt well enough to continue, but more slowly, with Wazir carrying his rucksack.[4] They reached the glacier at one o'clock. Its surface was not white, as the students had expected, but grey and streaked with rock, and deep blue cracks ran across it. Mr Baig refused to let anyone step onto it.

1. (a) Paragraph 1: Who was in the group? Give the number of people. [1]
2. (b) Paragraph 1: Give two parts of the group's plan for the day. [2]
3. (c) Paragraph 2: What did Wazir tell the group to do on the narrow ledge? [2]
4. (d) Paragraph 3: Identify two ways in which Wazir helped Faraz. [2]
5. (e) Paragraph 4: How was the glacier different from what the students expected? [1]

Read Text A, then answer the questions. Paragraph numbers are shown in square brackets.Text A: Grandmother's machine[1] The sewing machine had stood under a cloth in the corner of Grandmother's room for as long as Hiba could remember. It was black, with gold flowers painted along its side, and a heavy iron pedal underneath. Nobody had used it since Grandmother's eyes had grown weak.[2] During the summer holidays, Hiba decided to make it work again. She found a tin of oil in the storeroom, and her uncle showed her how to clean the dust and old thread out of the moving parts with a small brush. The belt that connected the pedal to the wheel had snapped, so they bought a new one from a shop near the railway station.[3] The first time Hiba pressed the pedal, the needle jumped and broke. Grandmother, listening from her bed, laughed and told her that she was pushing far too hard. 'Gently, like rocking a cradle,' she said.[4] By the end of August, Hiba had sewn two cushion covers and a bag for her school books. She gave the first cushion to Grandmother, who ran her fingers along every seam and pronounced them straight.

1. (a) Paragraph 1: Give two details about the appearance of the sewing machine. [1]
2. (b) Paragraph 1: Why had nobody used the machine for a long time? [1]
3. (c) Paragraph 2: Identify two things Hiba did, with help, to repair the machine. [2]
4. (d) Paragraph 3: What advice did Grandmother give Hiba, and why? [2]
5. (e) Paragraph 4: What items had Hiba made by the end of August? [1]

Read Text A, then answer the questions. Paragraph numbers are shown in square brackets.Text A: When the lights went out[1] Two nights before her chemistry exam, Amna was halfway through a page of equations when the fan slowed, sighed and stopped, and the room went dark. From the street came the familiar groan of the whole neighbourhood at once.[2] Her mother lit the emergency lamp, but its battery had not been charged since the last power cut and its light faded within minutes. Her brother suggested using his phone torch, but that, too, was low on charge. In the end Amna carried her books up to the roof, where it was cooler and a full moon lit the page just enough to read her notes, though not the small print of the tables in the back of the book.[3] At first she was furious. But on the roof, without the light to write, she began instead to test herself aloud, reciting each reaction and explaining it as if she were the teacher. Her younger sister, who could not sleep in the heat, listened and asked questions – 'Why does that one fizz?' – which forced Amna to explain things she had only memorised before.[4] The power returned at two in the morning. By then Amna realised she knew the reactions better than she had after a week of copying them out.

1. (a) Paragraph 1: Give two signs, other than darkness, that the power had gone off. [1]
2. (b) Paragraph 2: Explain why neither the emergency lamp nor the phone torch could solve the problem. [2]
3. (c) Paragraph 2: Give two reasons why Amna went up to the roof. [2]
4. (d) Paragraph 2: What could Amna still not read on the roof? [1]
5. (e) Paragraph 3: Explain how her sister's questions helped Amna. [2]

Read Text A, then answer the questions. Paragraph numbers are shown in square brackets.Text A: The audition[1] The waiting room of the music academy in Vienna had high windows, a polished wooden floor and twelve chairs, eleven of them occupied by young violinists who all seemed calmer than Leila. She had flown from Amman two days earlier, and her violin, which had belonged to her teacher, still felt strange after the dry heat at home; she had retuned it three times that morning.[2] When her name was called, she walked into a room so large that her footsteps echoed. Three judges sat behind a long table. The one in the middle, a grey-haired woman with reading glasses on a chain, asked her to begin with the scales, then the slow movement she had prepared.[3] Halfway through the slow movement, her E string slipped out of tune. Leila felt the note go flat. For a second she thought of stopping, as she had been told students sometimes did. Instead she adjusted her finger slightly higher on the string for every note that followed, listening harder than she had ever listened before.[4] When she finished, the grey-haired woman put down her pen. 'Your string went out of tune,' she said. 'And you corrected it with your ear, not your hand. That is what we are looking for.'

1. (a) Paragraph 1: Give two details that show Leila had travelled a long way to the audition. [2]
2. (b) Paragraph 1: Why did Leila's violin need retuning so often? [1]
3. (c) Paragraph 2: In what order did the judge ask Leila to play? [1]
4. (d) Paragraph 3: What two choices did Leila have when the string went out of tune, and which did she make? [2]
5. (e) Paragraph 4: According to the judge, what had Leila done that impressed the judges? [2]

Read Text A, then answer the questions. Paragraph numbers are shown in square brackets.Text A: The mound[1] The mound rose only a few metres above the flat, dusty land of Cholistan, and to anyone driving past it would have looked like nothing at all. But the team from the university had noticed that, after rain, the ground there was scattered with fragments of red pottery, and that was enough to bring Saima, a second-year student, and five others to spend three weeks digging in the heat.[2] They worked from dawn until eleven, when the sun became unbearable, and again from four until dusk. Saima's task was the slowest of all: sieving the soil from each layer through a fine mesh and picking out anything that was not stone.[3] On the twelfth day, among the pebbles in her sieve, she found a small square of baked clay no larger than a postage stamp. One side was smooth; on the other was part of a carved animal – a curved horn and the edge of an eye. Dr Hashmi, the leader of the dig, held it to the light for a long time without speaking. Then he told her to record exactly which layer it had come from before anyone touched it again.[4] That evening, by the light of a gas lamp, he explained that the position of an object mattered as much as the object itself. Without it, he said, the find could tell them nothing about when the people here had lived.

1. (a) Paragraph 1: Explain why the university team chose to dig at the mound, even though it looked like nothing. [2]
2. (b) Paragraph 2: Why did the team stop work between eleven and four? [1]
3. (c) Paragraph 2: What exactly was Saima's job? [2]
4. (d) Paragraph 3: Describe the object Saima found, giving three details. [2]
5. (e) Paragraph 4: According to Dr Hashmi, why was it important to record the layer the object came from? [1]

Read Text A, then answer the questions. Paragraph numbers are shown in square brackets.Text A: Results day[1] Zara had not slept. At six she was already dressed, checking her phone every few minutes although she knew the results would not be published until ten. She tried to eat breakfast, but the bread seemed to stick in her throat, and she pushed the plate away.[2] At five to ten she sat on the edge of her bed with the laptop on her knees. Her fingers were trembling so much that she typed her candidate number wrong twice. Downstairs, she could hear her mother pretending to wash dishes that were already clean.[3] When the page finally loaded, she read it once, then again, then a third time. Then she ran down the stairs two at a time, shouting her mother's name, and threw her arms around her so hard that a plate slipped into the sink and cracked. Neither of them cared.[4] Later that afternoon, the house filled with relatives who had heard the news. Zara's grandfather, who rarely left his armchair, insisted on walking to the sweet shop himself to buy a box of barfi for the neighbours.

1. (a) Paragraphs 1–2: How did Zara feel before the results were published? Give two details from the text to support your answer. [3]
2. (b) Paragraph 3: How did Zara feel when she read her results? Give one detail to support your answer. [2]
3. (c) Paragraph 2: How did Zara's mother feel while Zara waited? Explain how you know. [2]

Read Text A, then answer the questions. Paragraph numbers are shown in square brackets.Text A: The last over[1] Usman had bowled badly all afternoon. Two of his overs had gone for twelve runs each, and he had heard someone in the crowd laugh when he dropped an easy catch. When the captain tossed him the ball for the final over, with the other team needing eight runs to win, his stomach turned over.[2] He walked back to his mark slowly, rubbing the ball on his trousers far longer than necessary. He could feel every eye in the ground on him.[3] His first ball was hit for four. But then something changed. He stopped thinking about the crowd and thought only about the stumps. The next three balls were perfect, and the batsman could only block them. With the fifth, he took the middle stump clean out of the ground.[4] His teammates mobbed him. Usman stood in the middle of them, laughing, his arms in the air, hardly able to believe what had happened.

1. (a) Paragraphs 1–2: How did Usman feel when he was given the ball for the final over? Give two details from the text to support your answer. [3]
2. (b) Paragraph 4: How did Usman feel at the end? Give two details to support your answer. [3]

Read Text A, then answer the questions. Paragraph numbers are shown in square brackets.Text A: Leaving the house on Adeola Street[1] Mr Okafor had lived in the house on Adeola Street in Lagos for forty-one years. Now that his children had moved abroad and his knees could no longer manage the stairs, he had agreed to move into a flat near his daughter's old school, where a lift would carry him to the fourth floor.[2] On the last morning he walked through the empty rooms one by one. In the kitchen he ran his hand along the doorframe where he had marked his children's heights in pencil every birthday. He stood there a long time. When the removal men called for him, he pretended he had not heard.[3] In the garden, the mango tree he had planted the year his son was born was heavy with fruit. He picked one and put it carefully in his jacket pocket.[4] The new flat was bright, with a balcony overlooking a park. On the first evening his neighbour, a retired teacher, knocked on the door with a pot of pepper soup and an invitation to the residents' chess club. Mr Okafor found himself smiling as he set up the board.

1. (a) Paragraphs 2–3: How did Mr Okafor feel about leaving his house? Give two details from the text to support your answer. [3]
2. (b) Paragraph 4: How did his feelings change by the end of the passage? Support your answer with two details. [3]

Read Text A, then answer the questions. Paragraph numbers are shown in square brackets.Text A: First snow[1] Ayesha had been in Toronto for two months, and everything still felt wrong. The bread tasted of nothing, people spoke too fast, and at school no one pronounced her name correctly. In the evenings she lay on her bed scrolling through photographs of her cousins in Hyderabad, and when her grandmother called, she had to end the call quickly so her voice would not give her away.[2] Then, one Saturday in December, she woke to a strange silence. Outside the window, the street, the cars and the bare trees had all turned white. Flakes were still falling, slowly, like feathers.[3] She was out of the door before she had finished putting on her boots. The snow squeaked under her feet. She caught flakes on her tongue and laughed out loud at the cold. Her neighbour's children, whom she had never spoken to, threw a snowball that hit her on the shoulder, and without thinking she threw one back. An hour later the four of them had built a snowman with a carrot nose and her own red scarf.

1. (a) Paragraph 1: How did Ayesha feel during her first two months in Toronto? Give two details from the text to support your answer. [3]
2. (b) Paragraphs 2–3: Explain, using your own words, how Ayesha's feelings changed on the morning of the snow. Give three details from anywhere in paragraphs 2–3. [3]

Read Text A, then answer the questions. Paragraph numbers are shown in square brackets.Text A: The quarrel[1] Hassan had not spoken to his sister Maryam for three days, not since she had borrowed his bicycle without asking and returned it with a bent wheel. At meals he looked at his plate. When she came into a room, he left it. Each time he passed the bicycle leaning against the wall, he felt his jaw tighten.[2] On the fourth evening, he found a small envelope on his desk. Inside were the coins from Maryam's savings tin and a note in her round handwriting: 'For the wheel. I'm sorry. I was going to the pharmacy for Ammi's medicine and I didn't want to wake you.'[3] Hassan read the note twice. He thought of the night their mother had been ill and how he had slept through it. His face grew hot. He had not even asked why she had taken the bike.[4] He found Maryam on the roof, watching the kites. He sat down beside her and pushed the envelope into her hand. 'Keep it,' he muttered. 'Uncle Javed can fix the wheel.' She looked at him sideways, and he grinned, and for the first time in days she grinned back.

1. (a) Paragraph 1: How did Hassan feel towards Maryam at the start? Give two details from the text to support your answer. [3]
2. (b) Explain, using your own words, Hassan's different feelings during the passage. Give three details from anywhere in the text. [3]

Read Text A, then answer the questions. Paragraph numbers are shown in square brackets.Text A: Bargaining[1] Every Saturday, Bilal went with his aunt to the cloth market in Faisalabad. He loved watching her bargain. She would pick up a roll of cotton, frown at it as if it had personally insulted her, and ask the price in a voice that suggested she had never heard anything so ridiculous.[2] The shopkeeper, an old man with a white beard, played his part perfectly. He threw up his hands, swore that he was selling at a loss, and told her that his children would go hungry. They argued cheerfully for ten minutes.[3] In the end she paid almost exactly half of what he had first asked. As they left, the shopkeeper winked at Bilal. 'Your aunt drives a hard bargain,' he said, 'but she is my best customer.'[4] On the bus home, Bilal asked his aunt why she bothered to argue for so long over a few hundred rupees. She laughed and said that the money was not really the point. 'If I paid his first price,' she explained, 'he would think I didn't respect him enough to bargain.'

1. (a) Paragraph 1: Using your own words, explain what the text means by 'frown at it as if it had personally insulted her'. [2]
2. (b) Paragraph 2: Using your own words, explain what the text means by 'played his part perfectly'. [2]
3. (c) Paragraph 3: Using your own words, explain what the shopkeeper means by 'drives a hard bargain'. [1]

Read Text A, then answer the questions. Paragraph numbers are shown in square brackets.Text A: The new teacher[1] On the first day of term, the new mathematics teacher walked into Class 9B without a book, a register or even a pen. She sat on the edge of the desk and asked each student to tell her one thing they hated about mathematics.[2] The class, who had driven their last teacher to despair, were taken by surprise. At first the answers came slowly. Then they poured out: fractions, word problems, the feeling of being stupid when everyone else understood.[3] Miss Rana wrote every answer on the board without comment. When the bell rang, she said simply, 'Good. Now I know where we are starting.' For the first time that anyone could remember, 9B left a mathematics lesson talking about mathematics.[4] The next morning, the students arrived early and found their own words still on the board. Underneath them Miss Rana had written a single question: 'Which one shall we defeat first?' Several hands went up before she had even said good morning.

1. (a) Paragraph 2: Using your own words, explain what the text means by 'had driven their last teacher to despair'. [2]
2. (b) Paragraph 2: Using your own words, explain what the text means by 'were taken by surprise'. [1]
3. (c) Paragraph 2: Using your own words, explain what the text means by 'Then they poured out'. [2]

Read Text A, then answer the questions. Paragraph numbers are shown in square brackets.Text A: The keeper[1] For thirty years, Angus MacLeod kept the lighthouse on a rock off the west coast of Scotland. His only company was the wind, the seabirds and, once a fortnight, the supply boat, weather permitting. In winter the waves were so high that spray lashed the lamp room windows sixty metres above the sea.[2] People in the village thought him a strange, solitary man, and he did nothing to change their opinion. Yet the sailors who passed the rock at night knew him differently. To them, the steady beam that swept the sea every ten seconds was a promise kept, night after night, in every kind of weather.[3] When the lighthouse was made automatic and Angus was told he was no longer needed, he packed his few belongings without complaint. But on his first night in the village, they say, he stood at his window until dawn, watching the light turn without him.

1. (a) Paragraph 1: Using your own words, explain what the text means by 'weather permitting'. [1]
2. (b) Paragraph 2: Using your own words, explain what the text means by 'he did nothing to change their opinion'. [2]
3. (c) Paragraph 2: Using your own words, explain what the text means by 'a promise kept'. [2]

Read Text A, then answer the questions. Paragraph numbers are shown in square brackets.Text A: The kitten in the drain[1] The rain had been falling on Lahore since morning, and by the afternoon the streets of Ichhra were ankle-deep. Walking home from tuition, Fatima heard a thin, desperate mewing coming from somewhere below her feet.[2] Kneeling on the wet pavement, she peered through the iron grating of a drain. A tiny grey kitten was clinging to a ledge just above the rushing water, its fur plastered flat against its body. Every few seconds the water rose and lapped at its paws.[3] Fatima could not lift the grating alone. She flagged down a rickshaw driver, who grumbled about getting wet but nevertheless crouched beside her and heaved the iron up with a grunt. Fatima reached down, and the kitten, against all her expectations, climbed straight into her hand.[4] At home, her mother took one look at the dripping bundle and sighed. But by evening it was asleep in a basket by the stove, and her mother was the one warming its milk.

1. (a) Paragraph 2: Using your own words, explain what the text means by 'its fur plastered flat against its body'. [2]
2. (b) Paragraph 3: Using your own words, explain what the text means by 'grumbled about getting wet but nevertheless crouched beside her'. [2]
3. (c) Paragraph 3: Using your own words, explain what the text means by 'against all her expectations'. [1]
4. (d) Paragraph 4: Using your own words, explain what the final sentence suggests about Fatima's mother. [2]

Read Text A, then answer the questions. Paragraph numbers are shown in square brackets.Text A: Running at altitude[1] In the highland town of Iten in Kenya, where the air is thin and the red dirt roads wind between farms, running is not so much a sport as a way of life. Before dawn, groups of athletes glide past the houses in silence, their breath visible in the cold.[2] Joseph had arrived there at seventeen with little more than a pair of borrowed shoes and an unshakeable belief in himself. In his first training run with the senior group, he tried to stay at the front and paid the price: after eight kilometres his legs turned to wood and he was left behind, gasping, as the group disappeared over a hill.[3] His coach, a former champion with a quiet voice, found him sitting by the roadside. 'The mountain does not reward the impatient,' she said. 'Run with your head first, then your legs.'[4] Two years later, Joseph crossed the finish line of his first international race in third place. He had spent the final kilometre, he told reporters afterwards, holding back until the moment was right.

1. (a) Paragraph 1: Using your own words, explain what the text means by 'not so much a sport as a way of life'. [2]
2. (b) Paragraph 2: Using your own words, explain what the text means by 'an unshakeable belief in himself'. [2]
3. (c) Paragraph 2: Using your own words, explain what the text means by 'paid the price'. [1]
4. (d) Paragraph 3: Using your own words, explain what the coach means by 'Run with your head first, then your legs'. [2]

Read Text A, then answer the questions. Paragraph numbers are shown in square brackets.Text A: The broken vase[1] Omar heard the crash from the kitchen. When his mother came running, he was sitting on the sofa with a book open on his knees – upside down.[2] On the floor beside the table lay the pieces of the blue vase that had belonged to his grandmother. A cricket ball was resting under the curtain.[3] 'What happened?' his mother asked quietly. Omar looked at the ceiling, then at the window, then at the book. 'The cat,' he said at last. His mother glanced at the cat, which was fast asleep in the sunshine on the balcony, on the other side of a firmly shut glass door.[4] His mother said nothing more. She fetched a broom and a dustpan and handed them to him without a word. Omar swept up every blue fragment, slowly and carefully, and when he had finished, he went to his room and came back with the money from his birthday envelope.

1. (a) Paragraph 1: Suggest why Omar's book was upside down. [1]
2. (b) Paragraph 2: What does the cricket ball suggest had really happened to the vase? [1]
3. (c) Paragraph 3: Why does Omar look at the ceiling, the window and the book before answering? [1]
4. (d) Paragraph 3: Explain why his mother is unlikely to believe Omar's answer. [2]

Read Text A, then answer the questions. Paragraph numbers are shown in square brackets.Text A: Twelve years later[1] Rania saw him before he saw her: a tall man at the corner table of the café, turning a cup of coffee round and round without drinking it. Twelve years had passed since they had sat side by side in the back row of Mrs Hussain's English class, sharing answers and secrets.[2] When she sat down, Tariq stood up so quickly that he knocked the table, and coffee slopped into the saucer. They both laughed, a little too loudly.[3] For the first few minutes they talked about the weather, the traffic and the price of petrol. Then Rania mentioned Mrs Hussain, and Tariq's face changed. He told her the old teacher had died the previous spring, and that at the funeral he had looked for Rania among the crowd.[4] Rania was silent. She thought of the letters Mrs Hussain had sent her after she moved abroad, and of how she had always meant to reply.

1. (a) Paragraph 1: Suggest what Tariq's turning the cup 'round and round without drinking it' shows about his state of mind. [1]
2. (b) Paragraph 2: Why do they both laugh 'a little too loudly'? [1]
3. (c) Paragraph 3: Suggest why they talk about 'the weather, the traffic and the price of petrol' at first. [1]
4. (d) Paragraph 4: What do you think Rania is feeling at the end, and why? Use evidence from the text. [2]

Read Text A, then answer the questions. Paragraph numbers are shown in square brackets.Text A: The interview[1] The receptionist at Crescent Engineering told Bilqis that Mr Siddiqui was running late, and pointed to a row of chairs. Two other candidates were already waiting. One, a young man in a sharp grey suit, was talking loudly on his phone about the 'easy job' he expected to be offered. The other was reading through a thick folder of notes, her lips moving silently.[2] While she waited, Bilqis noticed that the water cooler in the corner was leaking onto the carpet. Nobody else seemed to have seen it. She found the receptionist, who thanked her and placed a bucket beneath it.[3] Forty minutes later, a grey-haired man in shirtsleeves came out of the corridor carrying a mop. He mopped up the water, then turned to the waiting candidates and smiled. 'I'm Siddiqui,' he said. 'Shall we start with you, Miss Bilqis? I'm told you notice things.'[4] The young man in the grey suit stopped talking on his phone. The woman with the folder closed it slowly. Bilqis stood up, smoothed her sleeve and followed Mr Siddiqui down the corridor, still not quite sure what had just happened.

1. (a) Paragraph 1: What impression do you get of the young man in the grey suit? Explain your answer. [2]
2. (b) Paragraph 1: Suggest what the woman with the folder was doing. [1]
3. (c) Paragraph 3: Why do you think Mr Siddiqui asks to see Bilqis first? Explain fully. [2]

Read Text A, then answer the questions. Paragraph numbers are shown in square brackets.Text A: The road[1] For three weeks the yellow machines had been crawling closer to Bibi Khadija's house at the edge of the village. Every morning she carried her chair out to the doorway and sat with her hands folded in her lap, watching them tear up the old track along which she had walked as a bride, sixty years before.[2] The young engineer in charge, who was polite and tired, came to explain that the new road would bring buses, a clinic within reach and lorries to carry the farmers' crops to the city. She listened, nodding, and offered him tea, but she did not say a word.[3] On the day the asphalt was laid outside her gate, her grandson came home from the city on the first bus. He jumped down, ran to her, and she held his face in both her hands for a long time.[4] That evening she did not carry her chair inside. She left it in the doorway, turned now towards the road.

1. (a) Paragraph 1: Suggest what Bibi Khadija is thinking as she watches the machines. Explain your answer. [2]
2. (b) Paragraph 2: What does her silence suggest about her attitude to the engineer's explanation? [1]
3. (c) Paragraph 3: Why does she hold her grandson's face 'for a long time'? [1]
4. (d) Paragraph 4: Explain what the last sentence suggests about how her feelings towards the road have changed. [2]

Read Text A, then answer the questions. Paragraph numbers are shown in square brackets.Text A: Into the desert[1] The jeep left the last village at noon and headed into the Cholistan desert. Within an hour the track had vanished, and the driver steered by a distant line of dunes. The heat was intense; the metal of the door burned Asad's arm when he rested it on the window.[2] Late in the afternoon they reached an ancient fort, its walls crumbling but still enormous, rising out of the sand like a ship. A guard emerged from a small gate, wiping his hands, and offered them water from a clay pot.[3] As the sun sank, the sand turned from gold to deep red, and the air grew cool so swiftly that Asad reached for his jacket.[4] That night they slept on mats inside the walls of the fort. Asad lay awake for a long time, staring at more stars than he had ever imagined existed, while the guard told stories of the caravans that had once stopped there on their way to distant cities.

1. (a) Which of the following is closest in meaning to 'vanished' as it is used in paragraph 1?A became roughB could no longer be seenC grew widerD was covered in stones [1]
2. (b) Which of the following is closest in meaning to 'intense' as it is used in paragraph 1?A extremeB pleasantC dampD changing [1]
3. (c) Which of the following is closest in meaning to 'crumbling' as it is used in paragraph 2?A paintedB falling apartC newly builtD very tall [1]
4. (d) Which of the following is closest in meaning to 'emerged' as it is used in paragraph 2?A shoutedB came outC hidD ran away [1]
5. (e) Which of the following is closest in meaning to 'swiftly' as it is used in paragraph 3?A slowlyB gentlyC quicklyD strangely [1]

Read Text A, then answer the questions. Paragraph numbers are shown in square brackets.Text A: The bakery at dawn[1] Long before the call to the dawn prayer, the bakery on Qissa Khwani Bazaar in Peshawar was ablaze with light. Inside, Gul Khan slapped rounds of dough against the inner wall of the tandoor with a speed that seemed almost careless, though he never burned his hand.[2] His apprentice, a slight boy of twelve, struggled to keep pace, kneading the dough in a huge tin bowl. Gul Khan rarely praised him, but occasionally, when a batch came out perfectly, he would grunt in a way the boy had learned to interpret as approval.[3] By sunrise a queue stretched along the street: schoolchildren, labourers and old men who had bought their bread here for half a century. The fragrance of fresh naan drifted across the bazaar, and even the stray dogs sat patiently, waiting for the inevitable scraps.[4] When the last naan had been sold, Gul Khan wiped his hands on his apron, poured two cups of green tea and handed one to his apprentice without a word. The boy understood that this, too, was a kind of praise.

1. (a) Which of the following is closest in meaning to 'ablaze' as it is used in paragraph 1?A on fireB brightly litC very hotD crowded [1]
2. (b) Which of the following is closest in meaning to 'slight' as it is used in paragraph 2?A unimportantB thin and smallC nervousD young [1]
3. (c) Which of the following is closest in meaning to 'interpret' as it is used in paragraph 2?A translateB ignoreC understandD repeat [1]
4. (d) Which of the following is closest in meaning to 'fragrance' as it is used in paragraph 3?A tasteB steamC pleasant smellD warmth [1]
5. (e) Which of the following is closest in meaning to 'inevitable' as it is used in paragraph 3?A unexpectedB certain to comeC deliciousD small [1]

Read Text A, then answer the questions. Paragraph numbers are shown in square brackets.Text A: Below the surface[1] Lina had dived many times off the coast of Aqaba, but she had never seen the reef so vivid. Shoals of tiny orange fish darted between branches of coral, and a turtle drifted past, utterly indifferent to the divers who hovered nearby.[2] At twenty metres she noticed that her diving partner, Omar, was gesturing urgently. He pointed to his gauge: the needle showed his air was running low far sooner than expected. Lina signalled calmly, and they began their ascent together, rising slowly and stopping as they had been trained.[3] Back on the boat, Omar admitted that he had neglected to check his tank before the dive. The instructor's reprimand was brief but sharp, and Omar did not argue.[4] Later, as the boat headed back to the harbour, Omar sat quietly at the stern. Lina handed him a bottle of water and told him that every diver makes a mistake once; the important thing was never to make the same one twice.

1. (a) Which of the following is closest in meaning to 'vivid' as it is used in paragraph 1?A quietB brightly colouredC damagedD deep [1]
2. (b) Which of the following is closest in meaning to 'indifferent' as it is used in paragraph 1?A unfriendlyB unconcernedC frightenedD different [1]
3. (c) Which of the following is closest in meaning to 'ascent' as it is used in paragraph 2?A agreementB journey upwardsC dive downwardsD escape [1]
4. (d) Which of the following is closest in meaning to 'neglected' as it is used in paragraph 3?A refusedB failedC rememberedD tried [1]
5. (e) Which of the following is closest in meaning to 'reprimand' as it is used in paragraph 3?A punishmentB praiseC telling-offD question [1]

Read Text A, then answer the questions. Paragraph numbers are shown in square brackets.Text A: The final game[1] The hall was hushed. At the last table of the junior chess championship in Kuala Lumpur, Arif sat opposite the defending champion, a composed girl from Singapore who had not lost a game all week. Her moves were deliberate, each one placed on the board with a small, decisive click.[2] For two hours the position was balanced. Then, on move forty, Arif saw a chance: if he sacrificed his knight, her king would be exposed. It was a gamble; if he had miscalculated, he would lose. His hand hovered over the piece. He hesitated, checked the line once more, and made the move.[3] The champion studied the board for a long time. At last she extended her hand across the table – a gesture of resignation – and the spectators, who had been told to remain silent, broke into spontaneous applause.[4] Arif shook the champion's hand. Only afterwards, when his coach hugged him in the corridor, did he notice that his own hands were shaking.

1. (a) Which of the following is closest in meaning to 'composed' as it is used in paragraph 1?A writtenB calm and self-controlledC proudD made up of parts [1]
2. (b) Which of the following is closest in meaning to 'deliberate' as it is used in paragraph 1?A careful and intentionalB quickC discussed at lengthD aggressive [1]
3. (c) Which of the following is closest in meaning to 'exposed' as it is used in paragraph 2?A shown to everyone watchingB open to attackC trapped in a cornerD removed from the board [1]
4. (d) Which of the following is closest in meaning to 'resignation' as it is used in paragraph 3?A leaving her jobB admitting defeatC sadnessD politeness [1]
5. (e) Which of the following is closest in meaning to 'spontaneous' as it is used in paragraph 3?A unplannedB loudC politeD long [1]

Read Text A, then answer the questions. Paragraph numbers are shown in square brackets.Text A: Three days before the wedding[1] Three days before her cousin's wedding, the courtyard of Grandfather's house in Sialkot had been transformed. Strings of tiny lights zigzagged between the walls, and marigold garlands hung from every window. Aunts arrived by the hour, each carrying a suitcase and an opinion.[2] In the kitchen, a hired cook stirred a vast pot of biryani with a paddle the size of an oar, while three cousins argued over the order of the dances. Somebody's phone played the same song again and again.[3] Amid all the commotion, only Grandfather seemed untroubled. He sat on his charpai in the corner, sipping tea and greeting each new arrival with the same slow smile, as if weddings happened every week.[4] By the evening of the first day, the cousins had finally agreed on the dances, the cook had produced enough biryani to feed the whole street, and the lights were switched on for the first time. The courtyard glowed like a lantern, and even the most critical aunt was heard to say that it was 'not bad at all'.

1. (a) Paragraph 1: Identify a single word that shows the courtyard had changed completely. [1]
2. (b) Paragraph 1: Which phrase suggests, with humour, that every aunt was ready to give advice? [1]
3. (c) Paragraph 2: Identify a phrase that emphasises how enormous the cook's spoon was. [1]
4. (d) Paragraph 3: Identify a single word that sums up the noise and activity in the house. [1]
5. (e) Paragraph 3: Which phrase shows that Grandfather was completely calm about the wedding? Explain your choice. [2]

Read Text A, then answer the questions. Paragraph numbers are shown in square brackets.Text A: Fog in the channel[1] By midnight the fog had swallowed the ferry completely. From the bridge, Captain Ruiz could not see the bow of his own ship, only a wall of grey that pressed against the windows. Every two minutes the foghorn bellowed, and every two minutes the fog seemed to absorb the sound and give nothing back.[2] The young officer beside him, on his first crossing, kept his eyes fixed on the radar screen, where a cluster of green dots crept slowly towards the centre. His knuckles were white on the edge of the console.[3] 'Fishing boats,' said the captain, in the unhurried voice of a man ordering breakfast. 'They'll move.' He reduced speed until the ship was barely crawling and gave a small order to the helmsman.[4] Ten minutes later the dots had slid harmlessly past on either side. Only then did the young officer realise he had been holding his breath.

1. (a) Paragraph 1: Identify a single word that suggests the fog was like a creature devouring the ship. [1]
2. (b) Paragraph 1: Which phrase shows that the fog seemed to deaden the noise of the foghorn? [1]
3. (c) Paragraph 2: Identify a phrase that shows the young officer's tension. [1]
4. (d) Paragraph 3: Identify the phrase that shows how calm the captain was, and explain why it is effective. [2]
5. (e) Paragraph 4: Which phrase shows that the danger passed without any damage? [1]