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TEXT D I know now that the man who sat with me on the old wooden stairs that hot summer night over thirty-five years ago was not a tall man. But to a five-year-old, he was a giant. We sat side by side, watching the sun go down behind the old Texaco service station across the busy street, a street that I was never allowed to cross unless accompanied by an adult, or at the very least, an older sibling. Cherry-scented smoke from Grandpa’s pipe kept the hungry mosquitoes at bay while gray, wispy swirls danced around our heads. Now and again, he blew a smoke ring and laughed as I fried to target the hole with ray finger. I, clad in a cool summer night, and Grandpa, his sleeveless T-shirt, sat watching the traffic. We counted cars and tried to guess the color of the next one to turn the corner. Once again, I was caught in the middle of circumstances. The fourth born of six children, it was not uncommon that I was either too young or too old for something. This night I was both. While my two baby brothers slept inside the house, my three older siblings played with friends around the comer, where I was not allowed to go. I stayed with Grandpa, and that was okay with me. I was where I wanted to be. My grandfather was babysitting while my mother, father and grandmother went out. "Thirsty" Grandpa asked, never removing the pipe from his mouth. "Yes," was my reply. "How would you like to nm over to the gas station there and get yourself a bottle of Coke" I couldn’t believe my ears. Had I heard it right Was he talking to me On my family’s modest income, Coke was not a part of our budget or diet. A few tantalizing sips was all I had ever had, and certainly never my own bottle. "Okay," I replied shyly, already wondering how I would get across the street. Surely Grandpa was going to come with me. Grandpa stretched his long leg out straight and reached his huge hand deep into the pocket. I could hear the familiar jangling of the loose change he always carded. Opening his fist, he exposed a mound of silver coins. There must have been a million dollars there, He instructed me to pick out a dime. After he deposited the rest of the change back into his pocket, he stood up. "Okay," he said, helping me down the stairs and to the curb, "I’m going to stay here and keep an ear out for the babies. I’ll tell yon when it’s safe to cross. You go over to the Coke machine, get your Coke and come back out. Wait for me to tell you when it’s safe to cross back." My heart pounded. I clutched my dime tightly in my sweaty palm. Excitement took my breath away. Grandpa held my hand tightly. Together we looked up the street and down, and back up again. He stepped off the curb and told me it was safe to cross. He let go of my hand and I ran. I ran faster than I had ever run before. The street seemed wide. I wondered if I would make it to the other side. Reaching the other side, I turned to fred Grandpa. There he was, standing exactly where I had left him, smiling proudly. I waved. "Go on, hurry up," he yelled. My heart pounded wildly as I walked inside the dark garage. I had been inside the garage before with my father. My surroundings were familiar. I heard the Coca-Cola machine motor humming even before I saw it. I walked directly to the big old red-and-white dispenser. I knew where to insert my dime. I had seen it done before and had fantasized about this moment many times. The big old monster greedily accepted my dime, and I heard the bottles shift. On tiptoes I reached up and opened the heavy door. There they were: one neat row of thick green bottles, necks staring directly at me, and ice cold from the refrigeration. I held the door open with my shoulder and grabbed one. With a quick yank, I pulled it free from its bondage. Another one immediately took its place. The bottle was cold in my sweaty hands. I will never forget the feeling of the cool glass on my akin With two hands, I positioned the bottleneck under the heavy brass opener that was bolted to the wall. The cap dropped into an old wooden box, and I reached in to retrieve it. I was cold and bent in the middle, but I knew I needed to have this souvenir. Coke in hand, I prondly marched back out into the early evening dusk Grandpa was waiting patiently. He smiled. "Stop right there," he yelled. One or two cars sped by me, and once again, Grandpa stepped off the curb. "Come on, now," he said, "run." I did. Cool brown foam sprayed my hands. "Don’t ever do that alone," he warned. I held the Coke bottle tightly; fearful he would make me pour it into a cup, ruining this dream come true. He didn’t, One long swallow of the cold beverage cooled my sweating body. I don’t think I ever felt so proud. From the passage we can infer that the relationship between the author and his Grandpa was
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In this section there are four reading passages followed by a total of 20 multiple, choice questions. Read the passages and then mark your answers on your coloured answer sheet.TEXT A Is there anything more boring than hearing about someone else’s dream And is there anything more miraculous than having one of your own The voluptuous pleasure of Haruki Murakami’s enthralling fictions—full of enigmatic imagery, random nonsense, and profundities that may or may not hold up in the light of day—reminds me of dreaming. Like no other author I can think of, Murakami captures the juxtapositions of the trivial and the momentous that characterize dream life, those crazy incidents that seem so vivid in the moment and so blurry and preposterous later on. His characters live ordinary lives, boiling pasta for lunch, riding the bus, and blasting Prince while working out at the gym. Then suddenly and matter-of-factly, they do something utterly nuts, like strike up a conversation with a coquettish Siamese cat, or maybe mackerel and sardines begin to rain from the sky. In Murakami’s world, these things make complete, cock-eyed sense. Like many of Murakami’s heroes, Kafka Tamura in Kafka on the Shore has more rewarding relationships with literature and music than with people. (Murakami’s passion for music is infectious; nothing made me want to rush out and purchase a Brahms CD until I read his Sputnik Sweetheart.) On his 15th birthday, Kafka runs away from his Tokyo home for obscure reasons related to his famous sculptor father. His choice of a destination is arbitrary. Or is it "Shikoku, I decide. That’s where I’ll go… The more I look at the map—actually every time I study it—the more I feel Shikoku tugging at me." On the island of Shikoku, Kafka makes himself a fixture at the local library, where he setties into a comfortable sofa and starts reading The Arabian Nights: "Like the genie in the bottle they have this sort of vital, living sense of play, of freedom that common sense can’t keep bottled up." As in a David Lynch movie, all the library staffers are philosophical eccentrics ready to advance the surreal narrative. Oshima, the androgynous clerk, talks to Kafka about ( inevitably) Kafka and the merits of driving while listening to Schubert ("a dense, artistic kind of imperfection stimulates your consciousness, keeps you alert. If I listen to some utterly perfect performance of an utterly perfect piece while I’m driving, I might want to close my eyes and die right there"). The tragically alluring head librarian, Miss Saeki, once wrote a hit song called "Kafka ma the Shore"—and may or may not be Katkn’s long-lost mother. Alarmingly, she also stars in his erotic fantasies. In alternating chapters, Murakami records the even odder antics of Nakata, a simpleminded cat catcher who spends his days chatting with tabbies in a vacant Tokyo lot. One afternoon, a menacing clog leads him to the home of a sadistic cat killer who goes by the name Johnnie Walker. Walker ends up dead by the end of the encounter; back in Shikoku, Kafka unaccountably finds himself drenched in blood. Soon, Nakata too begins feeling an inexplicable pull toward the island. If this plot sounds totally demented, trust me, it gets even weirder than that. Like a dream, yon just have to be them. And, like a dream, what this dazzling novel means—or whether it means anything at all—we may never know. The word "demented" in the last paragraph refers to
TEXT D I know now that the man who sat with me on the old wooden stairs that hot summer night over thirty-five years ago was not a tall man. But to a five-year-old, he was a giant. We sat side by side, watching the sun go down behind the old Texaco service station across the busy street, a street that I was never allowed to cross unless accompanied by an adult, or at the very least, an older sibling. Cherry-scented smoke from Grandpa’s pipe kept the hungry mosquitoes at bay while gray, wispy swirls danced around our heads. Now and again, he blew a smoke ring and laughed as I fried to target the hole with ray finger. I, clad in a cool summer night, and Grandpa, his sleeveless T-shirt, sat watching the traffic. We counted cars and tried to guess the color of the next one to turn the corner. Once again, I was caught in the middle of circumstances. The fourth born of six children, it was not uncommon that I was either too young or too old for something. This night I was both. While my two baby brothers slept inside the house, my three older siblings played with friends around the comer, where I was not allowed to go. I stayed with Grandpa, and that was okay with me. I was where I wanted to be. My grandfather was babysitting while my mother, father and grandmother went out. "Thirsty" Grandpa asked, never removing the pipe from his mouth. "Yes," was my reply. "How would you like to nm over to the gas station there and get yourself a bottle of Coke" I couldn’t believe my ears. Had I heard it right Was he talking to me On my family’s modest income, Coke was not a part of our budget or diet. A few tantalizing sips was all I had ever had, and certainly never my own bottle. "Okay," I replied shyly, already wondering how I would get across the street. Surely Grandpa was going to come with me. Grandpa stretched his long leg out straight and reached his huge hand deep into the pocket. I could hear the familiar jangling of the loose change he always carded. Opening his fist, he exposed a mound of silver coins. There must have been a million dollars there, He instructed me to pick out a dime. After he deposited the rest of the change back into his pocket, he stood up. "Okay," he said, helping me down the stairs and to the curb, "I’m going to stay here and keep an ear out for the babies. I’ll tell yon when it’s safe to cross. You go over to the Coke machine, get your Coke and come back out. Wait for me to tell you when it’s safe to cross back." My heart pounded. I clutched my dime tightly in my sweaty palm. Excitement took my breath away. Grandpa held my hand tightly. Together we looked up the street and down, and back up again. He stepped off the curb and told me it was safe to cross. He let go of my hand and I ran. I ran faster than I had ever run before. The street seemed wide. I wondered if I would make it to the other side. Reaching the other side, I turned to fred Grandpa. There he was, standing exactly where I had left him, smiling proudly. I waved. "Go on, hurry up," he yelled. My heart pounded wildly as I walked inside the dark garage. I had been inside the garage before with my father. My surroundings were familiar. I heard the Coca-Cola machine motor humming even before I saw it. I walked directly to the big old red-and-white dispenser. I knew where to insert my dime. I had seen it done before and had fantasized about this moment many times. The big old monster greedily accepted my dime, and I heard the bottles shift. On tiptoes I reached up and opened the heavy door. There they were: one neat row of thick green bottles, necks staring directly at me, and ice cold from the refrigeration. I held the door open with my shoulder and grabbed one. With a quick yank, I pulled it free from its bondage. Another one immediately took its place. The bottle was cold in my sweaty hands. I will never forget the feeling of the cool glass on my akin With two hands, I positioned the bottleneck under the heavy brass opener that was bolted to the wall. The cap dropped into an old wooden box, and I reached in to retrieve it. I was cold and bent in the middle, but I knew I needed to have this souvenir. Coke in hand, I prondly marched back out into the early evening dusk Grandpa was waiting patiently. He smiled. "Stop right there," he yelled. One or two cars sped by me, and once again, Grandpa stepped off the curb. "Come on, now," he said, "run." I did. Cool brown foam sprayed my hands. "Don’t ever do that alone," he warned. I held the Coke bottle tightly; fearful he would make me pour it into a cup, ruining this dream come true. He didn’t, One long swallow of the cold beverage cooled my sweating body. I don’t think I ever felt so proud. The author’s grandpa was described as being all the following EXCEPT
In this section you will hear everything ONCE ONLY. Listen carefully and then answer the questions that follow. Mark the correct answer to each question on your coloured answer sheet. As children grow up, their online photos and webpages may be viewed by authority from the fields of
TEXT C The road from Mildura to Merbein, in north-west Victoria, is a sad sight. Many of its farms are covered with wine grapes, dying on the vines. Farmers planted the vines hoping to cash in on the seemingly endless boom in Australian wine. But in 2007 the boom turned to bust, forcing many farmers to walk away from grapes and land they cannot sell. Over the past 15 years Australia’s wine industry has been one of its great success stories. Export revenues last year reached A$3 billion ($2.4 billion), four times the figure from 1997. Britain, America and Canada, among the most competitive markets for wine, are Australia’s three biggest customers. But the suffering in places like Mildura and nearby Remark in South Australia is a sign that the industry fell victim to its own success. Flushed with a growing demand for Australian wines, a grape shortage, and soaring grape prices, growers rushed to plant more vines in the late 1990s. In 1998 they put in a record 16,000 new hectares, double the new plantings two years earlier. In 2005 Australia produced almost 2 million tons of wine grapes, a quarter more than analysts say its markets can absorb. Then came Australia’s worst drought in a century. Mildum and Renmark are surrounded by desert, and fruit farms and vineyards survive only with irrigation from the Murray River, the lifeblood of Australia’s agriculture. Smaller firms, which supply the big winemakers with some of their grapes, faced a double whammy: falling grape prices and cuts to irrigation water. Stephen Strachan, chief executive of the Winemakers’ Federation of Australia, reckons the drought was a turning point, even a tragic one in some cases, in forcing the industry back to "sustainable levels". The planting rush has ended. The 3,600 hectares of new vines planted in 2006 almost equaled the 3,400 hectares of vines ripped out of the ground that year. The drought has also led to much soul-searching among Australia’s 2,000 wine producers about how the industry can recapture its reputation for quality wines. There is now stiff competition in the mid-market from other New World producers, .notably New Zealand, where the wine industry is booming. Much Australian wine during the grape glut found its way onto the world market as bulk or "commodity" wine, sold at low prices or even at a loss. This harmed Australia’s reputation among consumers. Australian producers now face the task of earning a reputation for quality rather than quantity. The appreciation of the Australian dollar, which makes Australian wines more expensive overseas, has brought a new urgency to the job. Historically, many Australian winemakers have derided the French approach to making wine, especially the idea that the finest wines come only from a terroir—the union of climate and soil characteristic of each place. Australian producers instead pride themselves on what they regard as a less snooty and more democratic approach: blending grapes from different regions to achieve a consistent wine. But some are now asking whether marketing an Australian wine’s locality, as much as its grape variety, might work better. Some smaller producers are already doing just that. In Margaret River in Western Australia, for example, small winemakers produce 3% of the country’s production, mainly at the high end of the market, and independently of the big companies that predominate in eastern Australia. Denis Horgan, the owner of Leeuwin Estate, raves about the region’s soil and climate, and prides himself on Leeuwin’s high-quality wines, which sell for as much as A$95 a bottle. Steve Webber, the winemaker at De Bortoli, a family winery in the Yarra Valley of Victoria, argues that Australia can no longer hope to compete on price alone. "We have to be making more interesting wines, and we have to look more to our regions, as the French do," he says. Australia’s 2008 grape harvest is expected to be back down to 1.6 million tons. Grapes are once again in short supply, and prices are rising modestly. But only the foolhardy would take this as a chance to make a killing, and start planting again. In terms of approaches to making wine,
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