IGCSE FLE-

COMPREHENSION AND SUMMARY

Read Text A, Across the Andes by bus, then answer Questions 1(a)–(f) on this question paper.

Text A- Across the Andes by bus

In this passage, the writer describes their journey, by bus, across the full length of the South American continent.

The bus was heading towards Colombia through a torrential rain storm, swerving into deep mud, its wheels turning

desperately for a few moments before the engine finally died. A few curses and the persistent rain were the only

sounds to break the silence. I had come to research a book on the Andes,and was intending to spend six months

journeying the whole length of the world’s longest continuous mountain range. The most practical option was to travel

by bus. Taking more than 100 public buses, I would travel through seven countries. On the way there would be jungles,

deserts, greenvalleys, high-mountain passes, dense forests and glaciers – every possible type of extreme and

sublime landscape.

My Andean bus adventure began in Venezuela in the middle of the tropical summer. This is a country where everyone

seems to delight in warning you about the potential dangers of travelling there. I managed to escape the capital city,

Caracas, unharmed, only to be told that Venezuela had some ofthe world’s most hazardous bus drivers who drove their

rickety contraptions at such speeds that the wheels would sometimes leave the ground. But, as it turned out, on driving

up into the VenezuelanAndes all my thoughts turned to the excitement of reaching the mountains and observing the

gradualtransformation from their lush lower slopes to the bleak high-altitude moorland.

It was not until I reached Peru that my mind as a passenger became increasingly fixed on the state of the roads

beneath us. Bus travel in Ecuador had been far too easy, withwell-graded, well-surfaced roads, and services so frequent

and obliging that you couldhail a bus anywhere along the main thoroughfares without having to wait for more than

fifteen minutes. I began my Peruvian adventures on an over-filled bus seemingly heldtogether by tape. From the hot

and dusty lowland centre of Piura, with its confusion oftaxis, motorised rickshaws and rundown, privately owned bus

stations, I travelled tothe distant mountain town of Chachapoyas. The main overland route took ages. The

bus was due to set off at five in the morning, and – if I was lucky – would cover a distanceof just 160 kilometres by
around 10 that night. The road was a continuous dirt trackbarely wider than the small and inevitably battered bus.

We had to climb 2 mountainpasses of about 4500 metres and then descend all the way to the tropical Marañón

river.

The main challenges facing me, as I headed towards South America’s southernmost point, were caused by the onset of

what threatened to be an extremely severe winter. Bus services, ever more infrequent, were often suspended because

of poor weather and did not exist at all after April along Argentina’s celebrated Route 4. This follows the Andes all the

way from the Bolivian border down to the very end of Patagonia’s largely uninhabited wilderness. I criss-crossedmy

way down the mountainousArgentinean-Chilean frontier, and was relieved to reach, in sub-zero but brilliantly blue

conditions, Chile’s Carretera Austral. This is the final section of the Pan-AmericanHighway that ends amid fjords,

forests and glaciers.

But however much I wanted never to lose sight of the Andes, the limitations of winter transport forced me to follow

the interminably straight roads of Patagonia’s unchanging flat and empty grasslands. The buses themselves became

less frequent and carried fewer passengers. Seated on one, I thought how fitting it was that my long journey,

begun in the heat and vibrancy of the tropics, should now be nearing its end like this –in the middle of winter,

and alone.

Question 1

(a) ( i) Reread the first sentence. Give one word that suggests the journey is difficult for the bus

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(ii) Using your own words, explain what the writer means when they say that travelling by bus

was ‘The most practical option’ (lines 5–6).

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(b) Explain how the following phrases help you understand the excitement that the narrator experiences on his
trip.
(i) ‘every possible type of extreme and sublime landscape.’

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(ii) ‘who drove their rickety contraptions at such speeds that the wheels would sometimes leave the
ground.

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(iii) ‘observing the gradual transformation from their lush lower slopes to the bleak high-altitude
moorland.’

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(c) Give two differences between travelling on buses in Ecuador and Peru (lines 18–23, ‘It was not ... by tape.’).

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(d)Why does the writer suggest that reaching the mountain town of Chachapoyas by 10 pm would only be achieved
through good luck (paragraph 3, ‘It was not ...’).

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(e) Identify twochallenges and one thing the writer enjoys when reaching Chile’s Carretera Austral (paragraph 4, ‘The

main challenges ...’)

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(f) Give two details the writer suggests make the journey through Patagonia less interesting (paragraph 5, ‘But, however
much ...’).

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Read Text B and then answer Question 1(g) on this question paper.

Passage B: We bought a zoo!

Benjamin Mee is a very persuasive man. In early 2005, Mee convinced his 76-year-old mother to sell the family home and
buy an old house in Devon with a failing zoo attached. He also persuaded his wife that they should leave their newly
renovated home in France, where they’d been living for two years, and move their young family back to England to live
with his mother and his brother, Duncan.

I meet Benjamin Mee at Dartmoor Zoological Park on a bright September day. Dressed in shorts, a fleece and a beanie
hat, he talks animatedly about the 200 animals in his care. These include a bear named Fudge, whose 13cm claws need
constant trimming.

The zoo was dangerously rundown when he bought it. Mee was faced with a myriad of expensive tasks just to keep it
afloat, including finding the money to feed the animals, something that the six members of unpaid staff he inherited had
been doing out of their own pockets.

‘Many times I thought, “What have I done?”’ Mee says now. ‘But when a jaguar escaped it was the first time I realised
there were lives at stake.’

We sit at a picnic bench outside the zoo’s restaurant, watching two Brazilian tapirs pottering about in their field. The zoo
has a simple charm. From the unmanicured edges of the grass to the homemade laminated signs, it feels almost like
someone’s garden. Which, of course, it is: the Mee house is right in the centre of the park. No ropes or fences segregate
it from the public.

A combination of circumstances led to Mee buying the zoo. Mee, a freelance journalist, and his wife, Katherine, were
living in France with their children, Milo, now ten, and Ella, eight. Then, Katherine became ill. Meanwhile, his mother,
Amelia, wanted to move house. Mee’s sister, Melissa, came across an estate agent’s brochure for Dartmoor Wildlife
Park – for sale at the same asking price as Amelia’s home. Melissa posted the brochure to him with a note: ‘Your dream
scenario.’

Persuading Amelia was easy. She loved the idea. But buying the zoo wasn’t simple. Their first offer was rejected in
favour of a higher bid. Then one year later, Mee heard news there were only days to find a buyer or the animals would
be put down. He knew he had to try again. Finally, in October 2006, their sale went through. By then the zoo’s licence
had been revoked: rotten fence-posts and faulty electric fences were unsafe, pathways had become unwalkable.

On day four of their new lives, the jaguar, Sovereign, escaped. An inexperienced keeper hadn’t bolted the enclosure
correctly. Sovereign jumped into the neighbouring enclosure, intent on fighting Tammy, the Siberian tiger. Mee’s first
job as a zoo director was to decide which animal to shoot dead. Fortunately, it didn’t come to that – Tammy’s keeper
managed to coax her back into her house. After an anxious night waiting for an anaesthetic dart gun to arrive from
another zoo, Sovereign was sedated and returned to his enclosure. The inexperienced keeper was fired.

Initially, the zoo was costing fortunes each week in utility bills, animal feed and staff wages. Mee needed more money
for urgent repairs before he would be allowed to let the paying public back in. He had exhausted his credit cards and
savings. In a BBC documentary about the zoo in 2007, cameras caught an increasingly desperate Mee begging a bank
manager for money.

The next six months were exhausting. Katherine’s health deteriorated and on 31 March 2007 she died. But Mee could
not give into his own grief – he had only weeks until the zoo inspection.

His extraordinary will and determination to succeed meant the zoo passed. On 7 July it opened to the public, rebranded
as ‘Dartmoor Zoological Park’, with signs that Katherine had designed. ‘Rebuilding the zoo was cathartic,’ continues
Mee. ‘It’s a tremendous place for healing. It connects you to the circle of life. We have births and we have deaths. They
remind you that we’re just another family unit that has suffered a loss – like the tigers who lost their grandfather.’
Mee pauses from his story to thank some people walking past for visiting the zoo. They say they have heard there’s a
Hollywood film being made about the zoo. He laughs, telling them it’s true.

Question 1

(g) According to Text B, what were the challenges for Benjamin Mee in buying, saving and running the zoo, according
to Passage B?
You must use continuous writing (not note form) and use your own words as far as possible.
Your summary should not be more than 120 words.
Up to 10 marks are available for the content of your answer and up to 5 marks for the quality of your
writing.

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