English Olympiad Year 10 Reading Test 2

Dolphin Rescue

Free time isn’t in the vocabulary of British Divers’ Marine Life Rescue teams; one fairly normal weekend recently spilled over into three weeks, as a seal move turned into a major dolphin rescue.

To find a beached and stranded dolphin is a rarity; to nurse one back from the brink of death, and reintroduce it into the wild, is almost unheard of. Only two cases have occurred in Britain, the most recent of which involved a rescue team from British Divers’ Marine Life Rescue. They started the weekend trying to relocate a 9ft bull seal and finished it fighting to save a dolphin’s life after the Sea Life Centre on the south coast had informed them that a dolphin was beached at Mudeford (pronounced Muddyford) near Bournemouth.

The dolphin was found by a lady, who must have heard the message telling anyone who found it what to do. The animal was kept wet and its blowhole clean. Mark Stevens of the rescue team says:

‘The dolphin would have certainly been in a worse condition, if not dead, if that lady hadn’t known what to do.’

1        …’I cant thank those people enough. The woman even gave us her lemonade so we could have a much-needed drink.’ The Sea Life Centre had hastily moved several large tope and the odd stingray from their quarantine tank, and the dolphin was duly installed.

2        …By 1 a.m. the team were running out of energy and needed more help. But where do you find volunteers at that time of night? Mark knew of only one place and called his friends at the local dive centre.

3       …The team allowed the photographers in for a few minutes at a time, not wanting to stress the creature too much. They had to walk a fine line between highlighting the animal’s ordeal and being detrimental to its health.

4       …How a striped dolphin got stranded in Mudeford isn’t clear because they are primarily an oceangoing, rather than an inshore, species. Theories suggest that he was chucked out of his pod (group of dolphins) for some reason and, maybe chasing fish or attracted by the sounds coming from the Mudeford water festival, wandered into the bay by accident.

5        …It took several days before the dolphin was comfortable enough to feed itself – in the meantime it had to be tube-fed. Fish was mashed up and forced down a tube inserted into the dolphin’s stomach. It’s not a nice procedure, but without it the dolphin would have died. Eventually he started to feed and respond to treatment.

6        …His health improved so much that it was decided to release him, and on Tuesday, 24th August, the boat Deeply Dippy carried the dolphin out past the headland near the Sea Life Centre. The release, thankfully, went without a hitch; the dolphin hung around the area for a while before heading out to sea. And that was the end of another successful operation.

 

A    He actually started toying with the team and trying to gain attention. He would increase his heart rate and show distress so a team member had to quickly suit up to check him over. But as the person entered the pool, his heart rate returned to normal.

B    It is large but has only a small opening so, once in, getting out isn’t easy. The boats at the event would have panicked the creature and it ended up beached, battered and drained of energy.

C    The story actually appeared in several national newspapers as well as the local press. Publicity is very important for charities like the Marine Life Rescue, providing precious exposure which pleases the sponsor companies and highlights the team’s work.

D    Luck then seemed to be on the team’s side when a double-glazing van-driver stopped to investigate. The driver offered his services to transport the dolphin back to the Sea Life Centre and a lady spectator gave the team a brand new cooler box to store valuable water to keep the dolphin moist.

E    However, by the time they arrived, the dolphin had started to swim unsupported. The press picked up on the story and descended on the Sea Life Centre wanting stories, pictures and any information they could get hold of. And they wanted a name. Mark and the other team members had a hasty think and came up with ‘Muddy’ – after all, it was found at Mudeford.

F    Now the battle to save its life could begin, but a transportation problem arose. How do you get a grown dolphin back to the Sea Life Centre without a vehicle big enough?

G    The creature was so weakened by the ordeal that it could not even keep itself afloat and had to be walked in the tank to stop it from just sinking to the bottom and drowning. Most people can only walk a dolphin for around 20 minutes to half an hour. Holding a 150 kg animal away from your body and walking through water at sea temperature saps your strength.

Text 5

Read the following newspaper article and then answer questions 1 – 5. Choose the correct answer A, B, C or D. Give only one answer to each question.

Resurrection of a Dead Man’s Dream

Few great architects have been so adamant in their belief in the integration of architecture and design as Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Clients who tried to modify his grip on every detail of the structure, interior decoration or furniture often ended up with the architect losing his temper – and his commission. Now, 63 years after he died, Mackintosh has found the perfect patron, in the form of a 56-year-old structural engineer and fellow Glaswegian named Graham Roxburgh.

The story begins with a competition launched in December 1900 by Zeitschrift Fϋr Innendekoration, an innovative design magazine published in the German city of Darmstadt. European architects were invited to design an Art Lover’s House. Mackintosh sent in his entry in March 1901, his one chance to design a house unfettered by financial constraints or a conservative client. But he was disqualified for failing to include the required number of drawings of the interior. He hastily completed the portfolio, which he then resubmitted. Delighted with the designs, the judges awarded Mackintosh a special prize (there was no outright winner).

Publication of these drawings did much to establish Mackintosh’s reputation abroad as an original and distinctive architect, particularly in Austria and Germany. The Art Lover’s House is an important twentieth-century building because it anticipates the abstract forms of Modernism. At first glance it could be an illustration from the thirties. Artists of the avant-garde Vienna Secession described Mackintosh as ‘our leader who showed us the way’ – an acclaim that he was never able to gain at home. Rich Glasgow businessmen never quite took him seriously.

But today Glaswegians hail Mackintosh as their local genius. Three years ago, the enterprising Mr Roxburgh, who has already rescued Craigie Hail, a mansion on the outskirts of Glasgow that Mackintosh helped design, hatched a plan to build the Art Lover’s House – now close to completion on a site in Glasgow’s Bellahouston Park. Strathclyde Council, the Scottish Development Agency and the Scottish Tourist Board have picked up a third of the hefty £3 million bill. Roxburgh has raised the rest through sponsorship and private loans.

The original designs contradict each other in places. Details of the elaborate external stone carvings and much of the furniture and fittings for the main interiors – which will be open to the public – are exact, but Mackintosh gave no indication of what should be done with the lower ground floor or the roof spaces. No matter, for the area will be rented out as offices to recoup some of the costs. The plans have been meticulously interpreted by Andy McMillan of Glasgow’s Mackintosh School of Architecture and the furniture made by an expert cabinet-maker.

The elegant, mysterious music-room is lit by tall windows along one side; the vertical lines are repeated in the elongated female figures embroidered on linen that hang in the recesses, in the clusters of coloured lamps suspended on slender wires and the uncomfortable high-backed chairs. The whole effect culminates in the strange superstructure of the piano.

What would Mackintosh have made of the Art Lover’s House? There is a danger it will be all too perfect, like those expensive reproduction Mackintosh chairs you find in shiny magazines or on the dust-free floors of design buffs. Yet Roxburgh’s attention to detail and refusal to cut corners makes him a man after Mackintosh’s heart. He is now hunting for an extra £300,000 to complete the interiors according to his exacting requirements.

1. Why were there sometimes problems between Mackintosh and his clients?

A. Mackintosh resented interference from his clients.
B. Clients refused to pay him in full for his work.
C. Mackintosh did not pay enough attention to detail.
D. Clients did not like the changes Mackintosh made.

2. According to the writer, Mackintosh decided to enter the competition because

A. not many drawings had to be submitted.
B. no designs were required for furniture.
C. there was no need to worry about cost.
D. he had designed similar buildings before.

3. What was significant about Mackintosh’s entry for the competition?

A. It was considered to be ahead of its time.
B. It was based on architecture from Austria and Germany.
C. It changed the opinion of him in his own country.
D. It was the most attractive building he had designed.

4. Mackintosh’s original designs for the Art Lover’s House

A. included areas intended for commercial use.
B. gave full information about the interior.
C. concentrated on external features.
D. were incomplete in certain respects.

5. If Mackintosh could see the Art Lover’s House now, the writer feels he would probably

A. think that it had cost too much.
B. wish he had completed his designs.
C. think it was an improvement on his design.
D. approve of Roxburgh’s approach to building it.

Did you have any problems doing English Olympiad Year 10 Reading Test 2?