QUESTIONS 17 - 20

66. 67. 68. 69. 70. c. Questions 71-77: You are going to read an article written by someone who lives in a house in a valley. Seven sentences have been removed from the article. Choose from the sentences A – H the one which fits each gap (71-77). There is one extra sentence which you do not need to use. Write your answers in the box below. (7 pts) LIVING IN THE VALLEY We had been living in our valley for sixteen months when we first realized the dangers that could exist in the surrounding hills and threaten our very survival. (71) _______ Until that time, we had felt safe and sheltered in our valley below the protecting hills. Soon snow began to fall. Within a day it lay some 15 centimeters deep. (72) _______ But on the neighbouring heights the snow was much deeper and stayed for longer. Up there the wind blasted fiercely. Deep in our valley we felt only sudden gusts of wind; trees swayed but the branches held firm. And yet we knew that there was reason for us to worry. The snow and wind were certainly inconvenient but they did not really trouble us greatly. (73) _______ It reminded us of what could have occurred if circumstances had been different, if the flow of water from the hills had not, many years before, been controlled, held back by a series of dams. In a short time the snow started to melt. Day after day, we watched furious clouds pile up high over the hills to the west. Sinister grey clouds extended over the valleys. (74) _______ We had seen enough of the sky; now we began to watch the river, which every day was becoming fuller and wilder. The snow was gradually washed away as more and more rain streamed from the clouds, but high up in the hills the reservoir was filling and was fast approaching danger level. And then it happened – for the first time in years the reservoir overflowed. (75) _______ The river seemed maddened as the waters poured almost horizontally down to its lower stretches. Just a couple of metres from our cottage, the stream seemed wild beneath the bridge. (76) _______ For three days we prayed that it would stay below its wall. Fortunately, our prayers were answered as the dam held and the waters began to subside. On many occasions through the centuries before the dam was built, the river had flooded the nearby villages in just such a range. Now, though, the dam restricts the flow of the river and usually all is well; the great mass of water from the hills, the product of snow and torrential rain, remains behind its barrier with just the occasional overflow. (77) _______ Thanks to this protection we can feel our home in the valley is still secure and safe. A It was the river, the Ryburn, which normally flowed so gently, that threatened us most. B And yet the immense power of all this water above us prevents us from ever believing ourselves to be completely safe in our home. They twisted and turned, rising eastwards and upwards warning of what was to come. C It was far deeper than we’d ever seen it so near our home, lunging furiously at its banks. D

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THI THỬ VÀO 10 LẦN 4 – ANH CHUYÊN – trang 6/8

We can thus enjoy, rather than fear, the huge clouds that hang over the valley, and can be thrilled by the E tremendous power which we know the river possesses. It almost completely blocked our lane and made the streamside path slippery and dangerous. F There in the heights it was like the Niagara Falls, as the water surged over the edge of the dam and G poured into the stream below. H It was the year when the storms came early, before the calendar even hinted at winter, even before November was out.