READING COMPREHENSION TEXT

Read the text and then answer the questions:

Howard Carter was an archaeologist who excavated in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. In this extract he describes how he discovered the long buried tomb ofPharaohTutankamen in 1922.

This was to be our final season in The Valley. Six full seasons we hadexcavated there, and season after season had drawn a blank; we hadworked for months at a stretch and found nothing, and only an excavatorknows how desperately depressing that can be; we had almost madeup our minds that we were beaten, and were preparing to leave TheValley and try our luck elsewhere; and then—hardly had we set shovel toground in our last despairing effort than we made a discovery that farexceeded our wildest dreams. Surely, never before in the whole historyof excavation has a full digging season beencompressed within thespace of five days.

Let me try and tell the story of it all. It will not be easy, for the dramaticsuddenness of the initial discovery left me in a dazed condition, and themonths that have followed have been so crowded with incident thatI have hardly had time to think. Setting it down on paper will perhapsgive me a chance to realize what has happened and all that it means.

I arrived in Luxor on October 28th, and by November 1st Ihad enrolled my workmen and was ready to begin. Our formerexcavations had stopped short at the north-east corner of the tombof Rameses VI, and from this point I started trenching southwards. Itwill be remembered that in this area there were a number of roughlyconstructed workmen’s huts, used probably by the labourers in thetomb of Rameses. These huts, built about three feet above bed-rock,covered the whole area in front of the Ramesesside tomb, and continuedin a southerly direction to join up with a similar group of huts on theopposite side of The Valley, discovered by Davis in connexion withhis work on the Akh·en·AtenTreasure. By the evening of November 3rdwe had laid bare a sufficient number of these huts for experimentalpurposes, so, after we had planned and noted them, they wereremoved, and we were ready to clear away the three feet of soil thatlay beneath them.

Hardly had I arrived on the work next morning (November 4th) thanthe unusual silence, due to the stoppage of the work, made me realizethat something out of the ordinary had happened, and I wasgreetedby the announcement that a step cut in the rock had been discoveredunderneath the very first hut to be attacked. This seemed too good tobe true, but a short amount of extra clearing revealed the fact that wewere actually in the entrance of a steep cut in the rock, some thirteenfeet below the entrance to the tomb of Rameses VI, and a similar depthfrom the present bed level of The Valley. The manner of cuttingwas that of the sunken stairway entrance so common in The Valley,and I almost dared to hope that we had found our tomb at last. Workcontinued feverishly throughout the whole of that day and the morningof the next, but it was not until the afternoon of November 5th that wesucceeded in clearing away the masses of rubbish that overlay the cut,and were able to demarcate the upper edges of the stairway on all itsfour sides.

It was clear by now beyond any question that we actually had beforeus the entrance to a tomb, but doubts, born of previous disappointments,persisted in creeping in. There was always the horrible possibility,suggested by our experience in the Thothmes III Valley, that the tombwas an unfinished one, never completed and never used: if it had beenfinished there was thedepressing probability that it had been completelyplundered in ancient times. On the other hand, there was just the chanceof an untouched or only partially plundered tomb, and it was withill-suppressed excitement that I watched the descending steps of thestaircase, as one by one they came to light. The cutting was excavatedin the side of a small hillock, and, as the work progressed, its western edgereceded under the slope of the rock until it was, first partially, andthen completely, roofed in, and became a passage, 10 feet high by6 feet wide. Work progressed more rapidly now; step succeeded step,and at the level of the twelfth, towards sunset, there was disclosed theupper part of a doorway, blocked,plastered, and sealed.

A sealed doorway—it was actually true, then! Our years of patientlabour were to be rewarded after all, and I think my first feeling was oneof congratulation that my faith in The Valley had not been unjustified.

View of the Cemeteryshowing the positions of the tombs of Tutankhamen and Rameses VI.

SECONDARY SCHOOL
HALF YEARLY EXAMINATIONS 2016/2017
FORM: 4 / TRACK 3
ENGLISH LANGUAGE / Time: 2 Hrs.
Name:______/ Class:______
  1. CLOZE: Fill in the blanks with an appropriate word.

Many of us may squirm at the 1.____________thought of eating snakes. However, in Hong Kong, snake-eating is fast 2.______very popular. It used to be an exotic dish reserved mainly for the 3.______but with Hong Kong citizens becoming more affluent, this dish has become more4.______.

Liu An, a sage from the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC - 25 AD) praised the 5.______of eating snakes. It is believed that a bowl of snake soup keeps one warm and 6.______ blood circulation, thereby promoting good health.

The number of snake shops in Hong Kong have7. ______ over the years. In one popular shop at the back lane of Temple Street, the 8. ______are lined with bottles containing snakes preserved in herbs or Chinese wine. Customers may9.______ buy them to take home or eat them prepared at the shop.At this shop, business is10.______ and the proprietor is able to sell an average of a hundred snakes a day during the winter months. A bowl of ordinary snake meat costs about $3.50. Rarer snakes however cost moreand the price may be quite exorbitant.

  1. Complete these sentences by forming ONE word from the one in brackets. The first one (0) has been done for you.

0. Once the office is totally computerised, it should save us a lot of time and money. (computer)

1. I've been ______for over a year now. I've had about 15 interviews but nobody seems to want to give me a job.(employ)

2. How could you consider her a ______when she won three matches for us last year?(fail)

3. The manager made several ______demands of his workforce and they eventually went on strike.(reason)

4. Mary and Peter don't have any children. They're ______but perfectly happy.(child)

5. My next guest is a ______name now but had to work for many years to become so well known.(house)

6. We tried, ______, to climb the mountain but the weather deteriorated quickly so we had to give up.(success)

7. My boss said your qualificationswere excellent so he's likely to look at your application very ______.(favour)

8. I wanted some information about your ______courses as I will be in the area for about a week. You do offer accommodation, don't you?(reside)

9. I've been working on a to this problem for months. I think I'll just have to accept it can't be fixed.(solve)

4. My mother knows how to cook all sorts of foreign food but her ______is Mediterranean cuisine.(special)

  1. Put each Verb in Brackets into a suitable Tense:

I come from a very large family, and recently my parents 1.______(decide) that they 2.______(spend) long enough living in an overcrowded house in Birmingham. “We 3.______(move) to the country,” my father 4.______(announce) one evening. “We5. ______(sell) thehouse, and we 6.______(live) on a farm.” So last week we 7.______(load) all our possessions into two hired vans and for the last few days we 8.______(try) to organise ourselves in our new home.

Yesterday, my brother and I 9.______(start) painting our bedroom. Unfortunately, while I 10. ______(mix) the paint, my sister 11.______(open) the door. Nobody 12.______(tell) her what we 13.______(do), so instead of painting the walls we 14.______ (spend) all morning cleaning the paint off the floor. But worse things 15.______ (happen) since then. This morning when I 16.______(wake up), water 17.______ (drip) through the ceiling, next to my bed. We 18.______(spend) today repairing the roof. It’s not all bad news, though. The school in the nearby village 19.______(close down) two years ago, and my parents 20.______ (not find) another school for us yet.

READING COMPREHENSION

Read the text which is on a separate sheet and then answer the following questions:

1. This passage is taken from a.

a. travel magazine

b. a business report

c. an autobiography

d. a novel (1 mark)

2. Answer T (true) or F (false) (6 marks)

a. Carter arrived in Luxor on November 1st

True / False because ______

b. When Carter saw the workmen’s huts he immediately ordered that they be removed.

True / False because ______

c. A steep cut into the rock was discovered under the third hut to be cleared away

True / False because ______

e. The final doorway to the tomb was discovered late at night.

True / False because ______

d. The tomb Carter discovered had been completely plundered in ancient times.

True / False because ______

f. Carter had been excavating the site unsuccessfully for many months.

True / False because ______

3. A ‘season’in the Valley of the kings ran from October to March. Why do you think Carter only worked during these months? (1 mark)

______

4. What, according to Carter, was special about this particular digging season? (1 mark)

______

5. Explain what these expressions mean as used in the passage: (4 marks)

a. Drawn a blank ______

______

b. Out of the ordinary ______

______

c. Too good to be true ______

______

d. Beyond any question ______

______

6. Explain in your own words the two main reasons why Carter wrote, ‘it will not be easy’ (line 11) to tell the story of his discovery. (2 marks)

______

7. How do you know that the excavation site was usually noisy and busy? (1 mark)

______

8. Mention one place where had Carter excavated before. (1 mark)

______

8. Why do you think Carter uses the word ‘feverishly’(line 33) to describe the work after the first step had been uncovered? (2 marks)

______

9. Carter was sure that he had found the entrance to a tomb but ‘doubts … persisted’. (line 38) Explain in your own words what these doubts were. (2 marks)

______

10. Quote an expression, made up of 3 words, which shows that although Carter had doubts, he was still optimistic. (1 mark)

______

11. What do the following refer to in the text (2 marks)

Our (line 4) ______

Them (line 24)______

It (line 40)______

Its (line 44)______

SUMMARY. In80 wordswrite about how Carter’s emotions change throughout the passage (6 marks)

______

______

______

______

______

______

TOTAL

WRITING

Write between 300 – 320 words on ONE of the following

  1. A Local newspaper is organising a competition for young writers about ‘An Act of Courage’. Write your story.
  2. You have attended a charity sports event organised by your school. Write a description of the event to appear in the school magazine.
  3. A teenage magazine is inviting its readers to send in reviews of either: a book, a movie, or a video game which they have enjoyed. Write your review.

TOTAL