14-18__Reading_Passage_2_has_seven_paragraphs,_A-E.'>Cambridge IELTS Academic 17
TEST 40
Questions 14-18
Reading Passage 2 has seven paragraphs, A-E.
Which section contains the following information?
Write the correct letter,
A-E
, in boxes
14-18
on your answer sheet.
NB
You may use any letter more than once.
14
a reference to a type of tomato that can resist a dangerous infection.
15
an explanation of how problems can arise from focusing only on a certain type of
tomato plant.
16
a number of examples of plants that are not cultivated at present but could be
useful as food sources.
17
a comparison between the early domestication of the tomato and more recent
research
18
a personal reaction to the flavour of a tomato that has been genetically edited
178
SUMMARY COMPLETION
TEST 71 READING PASSAGE 3
You should spend about 20 minutes on
Questions 27-31
which are based on
Reading Passage 3 below.
[Note: This is an extract from READING PASSAGE 3 about To catch a king]
Anna Keay reviews Charles Spencer’s book about the hunt for King Charles II
during the English Civil War of the seventeenth century
Charles Spencer’s latest book, To Catch a King, tells us the story of the hunt
for King Charles II in the six weeks after his resounding defeat at the Battle of
Worcester in September 1651. And what a story it is. After his father was exe-
cuted by the Parliamentarians in 1649, the young Charles II sacrificed one of the
very principles his father had died for and did a deal with Scots, thereby accept-
ing Presbyterianism* as the national religion in return for being crowned King of
Scots. His arrival in Edinburgh prompted the English Parliamentary army to in-
vade Scotland in a pre-emptive strike. This was followed by a Scottish invasion of
England. The two sides finally faced one another at Worcester in the west of Eng
-
land in 1651. After being comprehensively defeated on the meadows outside the
city by the Parliamentarian army, the 21-year-old king found himself the subject
of a national manhunt, with a huge sum offered for his capture, through a series
of heart-poundingly close escapes, to evade the Parliamentarians before seeking
refuge in France. For the next nine years, the penniless and defeated Charles
wandered around Europe with only a small group of loyal supporters.
Years later, after his restoration as king, the 50-year-old Charles II requested a
meeting with the writer and diarist Samuel Pepys. His intention when asking Pepys
to commit his story to paper was to ensure that this most extraordinary episode
was never forgotten. Over two three-hour sittings, the king related to him in great
detail his personal recollections of the six weeks he had spent as a fugitive. As
the king and secretary settled down (a scene that is surely a gift for a future script
-
writer), Charles commenced his story: ‘After the battle was so absolutely lost as
to be beyond hope of recovery, I began to think of the best way of saving myself.’
One of the joys of Spencer’s book, a result not least of its use of Charles II’s own
narrative as well as those of his supporters, is just how close the reader gets to
the action. The day-by-day retelling of the fugitives’ doings provides delicious de
-
tails: the cutting of the king’s long hair with agricultural shears, the use of walnut
leaves to dye his pale skin, and the day Charles spent lying on a branch of the
great oak tree in Boscobel Wood as the Parliamentary soldiers scoured the for-
est floor below. Spencer draws out both the humour – such as the preposterous
refusal of Charles’s friend Henry Wilmot to adopt disguise on the grounds that it
was beneath his dignity – and the emotional tension when the secret of the king’s
presence was cautiously revealed to his supporters.
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