Task 1 (12 points)
Read the text. Choose a heading for each section of the text from the list. Note that there are more headings than needed. Use each heading only once. An example (0) has been given.
EXPLORING ROTTERDAM
It was still a couple of hours till dawn when we dropped anchor in the Hook of Holland. Snow covered everything and the flakes blew in a slant across the cones of the lamps and confused the glowing discs that spaced out the untrodden quay. (0) I hadn’t known that Rotterdam was a few miles inland. I was still the only passenger in the train and this solitary entry, under cover of night and hushed by snow, completed the illusion that I was slipping into Rotterdam, and into Europe, through a secret door.
I wandered about the silent lanes in exultation. (1) ; then the eaves drew away from each other and frozen canals threaded their way through a succession of hump-backed bridges. Snow was piling up on the shoulders of a statue of Erasmus. Trees and masts were dispersed in clumps and the polygonal tiers of an enormous and elaborate gothic tower soared above the steep roofs. (2).
The lanes opened on the Boomjes, a long quay lined with trees and capstans, and this in its turn gave on a wide arm of the Maas and an infinity of dim ships. Seagulls mewed and wheeled overhead and dipped into the lamplight, scattering their small footprints on the muffled cobblestones and settled in the rigging of the anchored boats in little explosions of snow. (3) . A shutter went up and a stout man in clogs opened a glass door, deposited a tabby on the snow and, turning back, began lighting a stove inside. The cat went in again at once; (4) . I made a second long entry in my journal – it was becoming a passion – and while the landlord polished his glasses and cups and arranged them in glittering ranks, dawn broke, with the snow still coming down against the lightening sky. (5) . The landlord asked where I was going. I said: ‘Constantinople.’ His brows went up and he signalled to me to wait: then he set out two small cups and filled them with dark strong coffee. He emptied his at once; I took some time to finish mine. With his wishes for godspeed in my ears and a hand smarting from his valedictory shake, I set off. (6) .
I hadn’t gone far before the open door of the Groote Kirk – the cathedral attached to the enormous belfry – beckoned me inside. Filled with dim early morning light, the concavity of grey masonry and whitewash joined in pointed arches high overhead, and the floor diminished along the nave in a chessboard of black and white flagstones. (7) that my mind’s eye instantaneously furnished the void with those seventeenth-century groups which should have been sitting or strolling there: burghers with pointed corn- coloured beards, conferring gravely with their wives and their children, still as chessmen, in black broadcloth and identical honeycomb ruffs under the tremendous hatchmented pillars. Except for this church, the beautiful city was to be destroyed a few years later. (8) .
I wandered about the silent lanes in exultation. (1) ; then the eaves drew away from each other and frozen canals threaded their way through a succession of hump-backed bridges. Snow was piling up on the shoulders of a statue of Erasmus. Trees and masts were dispersed in clumps and the polygonal tiers of an enormous and elaborate gothic tower soared above the steep roofs. (2).
The lanes opened on the Boomjes, a long quay lined with trees and capstans, and this in its turn gave on a wide arm of the Maas and an infinity of dim ships. Seagulls mewed and wheeled overhead and dipped into the lamplight, scattering their small footprints on the muffled cobblestones and settled in the rigging of the anchored boats in little explosions of snow. (3) . A shutter went up and a stout man in clogs opened a glass door, deposited a tabby on the snow and, turning back, began lighting a stove inside. The cat went in again at once; (4) . I made a second long entry in my journal – it was becoming a passion – and while the landlord polished his glasses and cups and arranged them in glittering ranks, dawn broke, with the snow still coming down against the lightening sky. (5) . The landlord asked where I was going. I said: ‘Constantinople.’ His brows went up and he signalled to me to wait: then he set out two small cups and filled them with dark strong coffee. He emptied his at once; I took some time to finish mine. With his wishes for godspeed in my ears and a hand smarting from his valedictory shake, I set off. (6) .
I hadn’t gone far before the open door of the Groote Kirk – the cathedral attached to the enormous belfry – beckoned me inside. Filled with dim early morning light, the concavity of grey masonry and whitewash joined in pointed arches high overhead, and the floor diminished along the nave in a chessboard of black and white flagstones. (7) that my mind’s eye instantaneously furnished the void with those seventeenth-century groups which should have been sitting or strolling there: burghers with pointed corn- coloured beards, conferring gravely with their wives and their children, still as chessmen, in black broadcloth and identical honeycomb ruffs under the tremendous hatchmented pillars. Except for this church, the beautiful city was to be destroyed a few years later. (8) .
Adapted from ‘A Time of Gifts’ by Patrick Leigh Fermor
Atsauce:
https://www.visc.gov.lv/lv/20202021-macibu-gada-uzdevumi
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