Class Register Number

Candidate Name

PEIRCE SECONDARY SCHOOL

Department of English Language, Literature and Drama
First Semestral Examination for Secondary Two Express

ENGLISH LANGUAGE
Paper 2 Comprehension

Thursday 28 April 2016 1100 h ─ 1250 h

1 hour 50 minutes

Additional Materials:
Question Booklet

INSERT

INSTRUCTIONS TO CANDIDATES

This Insert contains Text 1, Text 2 and Text 3

This insert consists of 6 printed pages including the cover page.

FINAL COPY by Ms Jasvin Kaur
[Turn over
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Section A

Text 1

Study the poster below and answer Questions 1-3 in the Question Booklet.

#ColdOutside

BC SPCA
British Columbia Society
for the Prevention of
www.spca.bc.ca/adopt Cruelty to Animals

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Section B

The text below describes the life of Piscine Molitor Patel. Read it carefully and answer
Questions 4-13 in the Question Booklet.

1 I was named after a swimming pool, the Piscine Deligny, Paris’ oldest pool,
dating back to 1796: Piscine Molitor Patel. I have always found this quite
peculiar, considering my parents never took to water. It was with age that I
learned the history behind my name. One of my father's earliest business
contacts was Francis Adirubasamy. He became a good friend of the family. 5
When he was a young man, long before I was born, Mamaji, as I fondly called
him, was a champion competitive swimmer, the champion of all South India. He
looked the part his whole life. I still think of him from time to time.

2 My name isn't the end of the story about my name. When your name is Bob, no
one asks you, "How do you spell that?" Unfortunately, a name like Piscine 10
Molitor Patel brings with it bouts of frustration. Some thought it was P. Singh and
that I was a Sikh, and they wondered why I wasn't wearing a turban.

3 I was in the schoolyard one morning when I was twelve. I had just arrived. My
classmate saw me and a flash of evil genius lit up his dull mind. He raised his
arm, pointed at me and shouted, "It's Pissing Patel!" The utter mortification made 15
me want to crawl into a hole and forget the world.

4 In a second, everyone was laughing. It fell away as we filed into the class. I
walked in last, wearing my crown of thorns. The cruelty of children comes as
news to no one. The spiteful words would waft across the yard to my ears,
unprovoked: "Where's Pissing? I've got to go." Or, "You're facing the wall. Are 20
you Pissing?" It made me seethe with fury.

5 I would freeze or, the contrary, pursue my activity, pretending not to have heard.
The sound would disappear, but the hurt would linger, like the smell of piss long
after it has evaporated. Teachers started doing it too. It was as if their tongues
were charioteers driving wild horses, oblivious to my pain. My hand would be up 25
to give an answer and I would be acknowledged with a "Yes, Pissing." Often I
would hope that I could vanish into thin air.
6
Before moving to Pondicherry, Father ran a large hotel in Madras. An abiding
interest in animals led him to the zoo business. In many ways, running a zoo is a
hotelkeeper's worst nightmare. Consider: the guests never leave their rooms; 30
they expect not only lodging but full board; they receive a constant flow of
visitors, some of whom are noisy and unruly. One has to wait until they saunter
to their balconies, so to speak, before one can clean their rooms, and then one
has to wait until they tire of the view and return to their rooms before one can
clean their balconies; and there is much cleaning to do, for the guests are as 35
unhygienic as alcoholics. Each guest is very particular about his or her diet,
constantly complains about the slowness of the service, and never, ever tips.
7
To me, it was paradise on earth. I have nothing but the fondest memories of
growing up in a zoo. I lived the life of a prince. What maharaja's son had such
vast grounds to play about? What palace had such majestic creatures? My alarm 40
clock during my childhood was a pride of lions. They were no Swiss clocks, but
the lions could be counted upon to roar their heads off between five-thirty and six
every morning. Breakfast was punctuated by the shrieks and cries of howler
monkeys, hill mynahs and Moluccan cockatoos. I left for school under the

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benevolent gaze of bright-eyed otters and burly American bison and stretching 45
and yawning orang-utans. I looked up as I ran under some trees, otherwise
peafowl might excrete on me. Better to go by the trees that sheltered the large
colonies of fruit bats; the only assault there at that early hour was the bats'
discordant concerts of squeaking and chattering.

Section C

Text 3

The text below is about the characteristics of rats. Read it carefully and answer
Questions 14-22 in the Question Booklet.

1 A rat is a rodent, the most common mammal in the world. The average brown rat is
large and stocky; it grows to be approximately sixteen inches long from its nose to its
tail and weighs about a pound, though brown rats have been measured by scientists
and exterminators at twenty inches and up to two pounds. The brown rat is sometimes
confused with the black rat, which is smaller. The black rat is always a very dark gray, 5
almost black, and the brown rat is gray or brown, with a belly that can be light gray,
yellow, or even a pure-seeming white.

2 Rats are nocturnal, and out in the moonlight the brown rat’s eyes are small and black
and shiny; when a flashlight shines into them in the dark, the eyes of a rat light up like
the eyes of a deer. Though it forages in darkness for prey, the brown rat has poor 10
eyesight. It compensates for this with, first of all, an excellent sense of smell. They
also have an outstanding sense of taste. They are able to detect the most minute
amounts of poison, down to one part per million. Despite often being dubbed as
unwanted inhabitants, rats are interesting animals with incredible capabilities. A brown

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rat has strong feet, the two front paws each equipped with four claw-like nails, the rear
paws even longer and stronger. It can run and climb city buildings with squirrel-like 15
agility. It is an excellent swimmer, surviving in rivers and bays, in sewer streams and
toilet bowls.
3
The brown rat’s teeth grow at a rate of five inches per year. Rats, like mice, seem to
be attracted to wires such as computer wires. One rat expert theorizes that wires may
be attractive to rats because of their resemblance to vines and the stalks of plants. 20
After all, cables are like intertwined vines of the city. Rats are often responsible for
electric-cable breaks and a leading cause of fires of unknown origins. When it is not
gnawing or feeding on trash, the brown rat digs. Anywhere there is dirt in a city, brown
rats are likely to be digging, especially in parks. They dig holes in places such as
parks to enter buildings and to make nests. Rat nests are commonly found beneath
the floorboards of apartments. 25
4
“Cluttered and unkempt alleyways associated in cities provide the ideal rat habitat,
especially food-serving establishments,” writes Robert Corrigan in Rodent Control, a
pest control manual. Their den is lined with soft debris, often shredded plastic garbage
or shopping bags, but sometimes even grasses or plants; some rat nests have been
found stuffed with the gnawed shavings of the wood-based, spring-loaded snap traps 30
that are used in attempts to “embrace” the rat. The back of the den, known as a bolt
hole, then narrows into a long tunnel that opens up on another hole back on the
5 street.

Rats also inhabit subways, as most people in New York City and any city with a
subway system are well aware. People tend to think that the subways are filled with 35
rats, but in fact rats are not everywhere in the system; they live in the subways
according to the supply of discarded human food and sewer leaks. Many subway rats
tend to live near stations that are themselves near fast-food restaurants. At the
various subway stations near Herald Square, for example, people come down from
the streets and throw the food that they have not eaten onto the tracks, along with 40
newspapers and soda bottles and thousands of no longer-charged AA batteries,
waiting to leak acid. The rats eat freely from the waste, enabling their population to
grow rapidly.

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Copyright Acknowledgements
Text 1 © Adapted from BC SPCA
Text 2 © Adapted from Yann Martel: Life of Pi
Text 3 © Adapted from Robert Sullivan “Rats”

Peirce Secondary School | SA1 | EL (P2) | INSERT| 2 (Express) I 2016 | Ms Jasvin Kaur