7. 8. 9. 10.PART 4

6. 7. 8. 9. 10.Part 4: Read the following passage and choose the best answer (A, B, C, or D) for each question.Write your answer in the numbered boxes.I shifted uncomfortably inside my best suit and eased a finger inside the tight white collar. It washot in the little bus and I had taken a seat on the wrong side where the summer sun beat on thewindows. It was a strange outfit for the weather, but a few miles ahead my future employer mightbe waiting for me and I had to make a good impression.There was a lot depending on this interview. Many friends who had qualified with me wereunemployed or working in shops or as laborers in the shipyards. So many that I had almost given uphope of any future for myself as a veterinary surgeon.There were usually two or three jobs advertised in the Veterinary Record each week and anaverage of eighty applicants for each one. It hadn’t seemed possible when the letter came fromDarrowby in Yorkshire. Mr.S. Farnon would like to see me on the Friday afternoon; I was to cometo tea and, if we were suited to each other, I could stay on as his assistant. Most young peopleemerging from the colleges after five years of hard work were faced by a world unimpressed bytheir enthusiasm and bursting knowledge. SoI had grabbed the lifelineunbelievingly.The driver crashed his gears again as we went into another steep bend. We had been climbingsteadily now for the last fifteen miles or so, moving closer to the distant blue of the Pennine Hills. Ihad never been in Yorkshire before, but the name had always raised a picture of a region as heavyand unromantic as the pudding of the same name; I was prepared for solid respectability, dullnessand a total lack of charm. But as the bus made its way higher, I began to wonder. There were highgrassy hills and wide valleys. In the valley bottoms, rivers twisted among the trees and solid greystone farmhouses lay among islands of cultivated land which pushed up the wild, dark hillsides.Suddenly, I realized the bus was clattering along a narrow street which opened onto a squarewhere we stopped. Above the window of a small grocer’s shop I read ‘Darrowby Co-operativeSociety’. We had arrived. I got out and stood beside my battered suitcase, looking about me. Therewas something unusual and I didn’t know what it was at first. Then it came to me. The otherpassengers had dispersed, the driver had switched off the engine and there was not a sound or amovement anywhere. The only visible sign of life was a group of old men sitting round the clocktower in the center of the square, but they might have been carved of stone.Darrowby didn’t get much space in the guidebooks, but where it was mentioned it was describedas a grey little town on the River Arrow with a market place and little of interest except its twoancient bridges. But when you looked at it, its setting was beautiful. Everywhere from the windowsof houses in Darrowby you could see the hills. There was a clearness in the air, a sense of space andairiness that made me feel I had left something behind. The pressure of the city, the noise, thesmoke – already they seemed to be falling away from me.Trengate Street was a quiet road leading off the square and from there I had my first sight ofSkeldale House. I knew it was the right place before I was near enough to read S. Farnon,Veterinary Surgeon on the old-fashioned brass nameplate. I knew by the ivy which grew untidilyover the red brick, climbing up to the topmost windows. It was what the letter had said – the onlyhouse with ivy; and this could be where I would work for the first time as a veterinary surgeon. Irang the doorbell.