I.S.P. "Dr. Joaqun V.

Gonzlez"
Departamento de Ingls
Curso de Consolidacin
Docente a cargo: Lic. Daniela Fiorina
Name: .

Reading Comprehension Exercise # 214

Below the passage, you will find a number of questions or unfinished statements about the
passage, each with four suggested answers or ways of finishing. You must choose the
one which you think fits best. Give one answer only to each question. Show your choice
by circling a letter. Read the passage right through before choosing your answers.

By three oclock in the afternoon there was nothing left for Hilliard to do. He
had been to the Army and Navy Stores and gone slowly from counter to
counter buying what he needed, and after that, looking, looking. The war had
brought out a fever like that of Christmas among manufacturers and salesmen,
there were so many possible things to buy, expressly for the soldiers in France.
Hilliard watched people buying them, mothers, aunts, sisters, wives, who had
no idea what might be really suitable, who wanted to send something extra,
who were misled by the advertisements and the counter staff into ordering
useless gifts to be packed up and sent. He saw bullet-proof waistcoats and
fingered them in amazement, remembering the bullets, saw leather gauntlets,
too stiff and thick and hot, saw ornamental swords and pistols of use only to
gamekeepers, saw the shining new metal of entrenching tools and spurs.
But he wanted to buy something then, something that was entirely
superfluous, an extravagance, a gift to himself. He moved about among the
women and could see nothing, felt as he had felt on a days outing from school,
when the money his father had given him burned a hole in his pocket and he
was almost in tears at the frustration of finding nothing he desired to buy.
He spent more than two pounds on a pale cane walking-stick with a round
silver knob, and, carrying it out into the sunlit street, felt both foolish and
conspicuous, as though he had succumbed to the temptation of some appalling
vice. The cane looked so new. At school it had been the worst possible taste to
have an unblemished leather trunk with bright buckles: the thing had been to
kick it, or to drop it several times from the luggage van on to the station
platform. Now, he felt like a soldier who had not yet been to France, because
of the cane: people looked at him and he wanted to shout at them. I have
been before, I have been and now I am going back. I know.

1. The advice given by counter staff was

A.
B.
C.
D.

well-informed.
hurried.
unreliable.
unclear.

2. The gifts for soldiers at war were

A.
B.
C.
D.

impractical
expensive.
festive.
in short supply.

3. What did Hilliard hope to buy as a gift for himself?

A.
B.
C.
D.

Something
Something
Something
Something

he really needed.
suitable for war.
to remind him of his father.
he would enjoy.

4. How did the attempt to buy something affect Hilliard?

A.
B.
C.
D.

It
It
It
It

made him cry.

reminded him of his childhood.
made him feel proud.
pleased him.

5. Hilliard found the cane embarrassing because

A.
B.
C.
D.

he had had one like it at school.

it was not worth the money.
it made him look inexperienced.
he couldnt take it to France.