Choose the best answer

Read the text carefully.

READING COMPREHENSION

ALL THE PRESENT TENSES

1. Open the brackets using the Present Simple, Present Progressive, Present Perfect, or Present Perfect Progressive.

1. You look tired. – Yes, I (work) non-stop all day.

2. The police (investigate) the break-in at the college since last September.

3. My mother-in-law always (grumble)!

4. Older people (become) more isolated now.

5. How long you (be) in business?

6. Carol already (make) ten phone calls and it’s only nine o’clock.

7. I can smell something nice. What you (cook)?

8. I (not/see) you for ages. What you (do)?

9. I’m fed up. I (wait) for the bus for forty minutes.

10. Where you (come) from? – I (come) from Minsk.

CLINTON’S TRAIN

Clinton’s hands rested on the power-handle of the electric train, pressing it down. If he lifted them the ‘Dead Man’s Handle’ would rise and stop the train: stop it suddenly. Clinton had never yet heard of a driver who had died at his post, but the handle would save the train if such a thing ever happened.

Through the window in front his cool eyes watched the lines racing towards him; green signals rushed nearer and passed. He looked at the finger of the instrument below the window. It pointed to 68.

Clinton usually travelled at sixty-eight miles an hour on this part of the line. Further along he would reduce the speed to fifty-five, and later increase it again. This was his regular habit, and he nearly always drew into Brighton station as the hands of the clock pointed exactly to the hour. Today, so far he could judge, he was only half a minute behind time. He did not want to be late: it gave him a good deal of personal satisfaction to arrive at the right moment. Besides, it was a famous train: all the passengers depended on its arrival exactly at the minute.

He thought of the people in the crowded train behind him: all the doctors and nurses, the businessmen, the holiday-makers. He used to watch them leaving the station in Brighton, carrying away safely all the plans, all the ideas and troubles in their interesting heads.

1. Why is the handle called “Dead Man’s Handle’?

a) It has to be pressed down if the driver dies.

b) It stops the train suddenly, when something happens.

c) It switches the electric power on and off.

d) It will stop the train if the driver dies.

2. The word ‘cool’ in ‘Through the window in front his cool eyes watched …’ implies that

a) Clinton’s eyes were rather cold.

b) Clinton was calm.

c) Clinton was nervous.

d) Clinton was not warm.

3. The ‘finger’ in ‘He looked at the finger of the instrument below the window.’ belonged to

a) Clinton

b) the power-handle

c) the thermometer

d) the speedometer

4. At which of the following possible times should the train arrive at Brighton station? ’

a) 18.00

b) 18.15

c) 18.30

d) 18.55

5. Why didn’t Clinton want to be late?

a) He felt good when he was on time.

b) He got a fine when not on time.

c) His boss would surely dismiss him.

d) He got a good deal of money when on time.

Дата добавления: 2014-12-25