Part 6: Gapped Text Instructions You are going to read an extract from a short story. Seven paragraphs have been removed from the extract. Choose from the paragraphs A-H the one which best fits each gap (1-7). There is one extra paragraph that you do not need to use. Just at that
turning between Market Road and the lane leading to the chemist's shop
he had his 'establishment'. At eight in the evening you would not see
him, and again at ten you would see nothing, but between those times he
arrived, sold his goods and departed. Those who saw him remarked thus,
'Lucky fellow! He has hardly an hour's work a day and he pockets ten rupees
- even graduates are unable to earn that! Three hundred rupees a month!'
He felt irritated when he heard such glib remarks and said, 'What these
folks do not see is that I sit before the oven practically all day frying
all this ...'
A Rama prepared a limited quantity of snacks for sale, but even then he had to carry back remnants. He consumed some of it himself, and the rest he warmed up and brought out for sale the next day. B All the coppers that men and women of this part of the universe earned through their miscellaneous jobs ultimately came to him at the end of the day. He put all his money into a little cloth bag dangling from his neck under his shirt, and carried it home, soon after the night show had started at the theatre. C No one could walk past his display without throwing a look at it. A heap of bondas, which seemed puffed and big but melted in one's mouth; dosais, white, round, and limp, looking like layers of muslin; chappatis so thin you could lift fifty of them on a little finger; duck's eggs, hard-boiled, resembling a heap of ivory balls; and perpetually boiling coffee on a stove. He had a separate alluminium pot in which he kept chutney, which went gratis with almost every item. D His customers liked him. They said in admiration, 'Is there another place where you can get six pies and four chappatis for one anna?' They sat around his tray, taking what they wanted. A dozen hands hovered about it every minute, because his customers were entitled to pick up, examine, and accept their stuff after proper scrutiny. E They gloated over it. 'Five rupees invested in the morning has produced another five...' They ruminated on the exquisite mystery of this multiplication. Then it was put back for further investment on the morrow and the gains carefully separated and put away in a little wooden box. F But he was a kindly man in private. 'How the customers survive the food, I can't understand. I suppose people build up a sort of immunity to such poisons, with all that dust blowing on it and the gutter behind.' G He got up when the cock in the next house crowed. Sometimes it had a habit of waking up at three in the morning and letting out a shriek. 'Why has the cock lost his normal sleep?' Rama wondered as he awoke, but it was a signal he could not miss. Whether it three o'clock or four, it was all the same to him. He had to get up and start his day. H When he saw some customer haggling, he felt like shouting, 'Give the poor fellow a little more. Don't begrudge it. If you pay an anna more he can have a dosai and a chappati.' |
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