You are going to read a magazine article about dog-training process.

For
questions 31-36, choose the answer (A, B, C or D) which you think fits best
according to the text.

A working life: the guide dog trainer

As mobility instructor for Guide Dogs for the Blind, Gareth Evans has the
rewarding job of matching dogs to their owners.

I’m blindfolded and frightened. Cars are roaring past as I stumble along busy
Leamington Spa pavements, terrified I’ll unwittingly stray into the path of a
vehicle. But Spriggs, the black Labrador whose brown training harness I’m
desperately clinging to, soon has me at ease, calmly steering me around
hidden obstacles, pedestrians, workmen and parked cars with every wag of
his tail. Spriggs is close to finishing his training with Guide Dogs for the Blind
and will soon be partnered with a visually impaired person.

At some point Spriggs will have been tutored by Gareth Evans, a local man
who has worked with the charity for close to sixteen years. ‘It has to be a
partnership when you take on a guide dog,’ he explains. ‘We can only get the
dogs to a certain level and then the owners have to take over and they will get
out of that partnership what they put in.’ Evans grew up in nearby Warwick
surrounded by puppies – his family were regular ‘puppy walkers’ for the
charity, the name given to families that look after a puppy for its first 12-14
months before handing it back for training, as well as breeders. ‘Guide dogs
have always been in my life and I’d always wanted to work for the charity.’

He achieved that ambition when he was nineteen, spending five years working
in the kennels before a broken wrist led him to shadow the organisation’s
rehab workers, who provide training and guidance to help people live
independently. ‘What impressed me most was how you could give someone
the smallest piece of advice, some of it not even related to dogs, that would
make a huge difference to their lives, such as how to make the text on their
television screen bigger,’ he remembers. ‘So I retrained as a rehab worker and
did that for eight years.’ Four years ago he became a mobility instructor for the
charity, which means that as well as finishing off the dogs’ tuition with
advanced training, he helps match dogs to owners, provides support while
they get to know each other and makes annual aftercare visits.
Evans thinks there are many myths about the role of guide dogs. ‘A lot of
people think they take their owners for a walk, that the owner says, “Right, off
to the fish and chips shop, please,” and the dog takes them there,’ he says.
‘The owners are the ones in control and who need to know where they are
going. The dog is only helping them look out for roads and obstacles, it’s not
actually taking them anywhere – although if it learns a route, it might pop into
a shop if the owner visits frequently.’ He talks of the occasional
embarrassment suffered by owners whose guide dogs betray their love of
takeaways by padding into the kebab shop even if the owner wishes to walk
past.

When I am blindfolded and partnered with Spriggs for my walk, I immediately

realise how big a jump it is from trusting your own eyesight to trusting that a
dog will guide you safely around town. For the first five minutes I am genuinely
scared that my life is held in the paws of a canine I’ve never met but I slowly
become attuned to Spriggs’s subtle movements when he pulls me to the left or
right to avoid obstacles or as he prepares to stop at a kerb. I marvel as he
obeys my command to turn right at one pavement edge. All the while Evans is
telling me what to do, how to give the dog feedback, to pat him affectionately
when he has done well, along with numerous other instructions.

By the time I take the blindfold off, I have genuinely bonded with Spriggs, to
the extent that Evans jokes: ‘I’d better check your bag to see you haven’t
stolen him,’ and I get an inkling of the incredible bond that dogs and owners
must share. On the train back to London I spot one of Spriggs’s black hairs on
my leg and it reminds me of my childhood pet Sid, a Jack Russell terrier I still
miss to this day. It then strikes me why Evans has been with Guide Dogs for
the Blind for so many years: when you are a key part in forging so many
beautiful relationships, partnerships that lead to vastly improved lives, why
would you want to work anywhere else?

31 Why does the writer start to feel more relaxed in the first paragraph?
He knows he will shortly regain his sight.
He has survived a difficult experience.
He begins to have faith in his guide.
He is approaching the end of the journey.

32 Gareth believes that a successful guide dog is ultimately the result of

the breeding and quality of the dog.
the level of training the dog is given.
the early stages of care when they are young.
the interaction between owner and dog.

33 When working in rehabilitation, Gareth was

encouraged by the degree of independence the blind people had.
surprised by the value of his own contributions.
confident that he could learn from the experience.
undeterred by his physical problems.

34 The writer mentions the ‘fish and chip shop’ to

illustrate the talents of a good guide dog.
correct a common illusion.
explain a difficult procedure.
emphasise the importance of training done by owners.

35 When taking part in the experiment, the writer believes that

being in control of the dog is a very powerful feeling.
knowing how to direct the dog takes time.
relying on the dog takes considerable courage.
reacting to the dog’s affection is important.

36 What is the writer’s reaction to the experience?

He would like to do the same work.
He can identify with the satisfaction Gareth gets from his job.
He values the experience of being dependent on a guide dog.
He wishes that he could have another dog of his own.

II.

Red Riding Trilogy

A
The “Red Riding” films all come across as great, gritty tales of police
corruption and human failing, but it’s the first film that has the most impact,
mainly because the young reporter Dunford is such a mix of romantic notions
— he’s going to solve the crime and save the girl. Such optimism runs dead
against reality in these films. Mix the best episodes of the superb British crime
series “Prime Suspect” with the current real-feel cinema (“Fish Tank”) coming
out of England and you’ve got a sense of what “Red Riding” is about. The key
isn’t the murders; the key is the reactions to the murders on a breadth of
levels, and those reactions lay bare gray and grave souls. Each film works
well separately, although 1983 is necessarily dependent on 1974, but taken as
one great sweep of a dark hand, “Red Riding” stands as a wrenching tale of
power abused and lives discarded. It is powerful stuff.

В
Red Riding is a challenge. The convoluted story is not easily summarized and
it demands constant viewer attention. A two-minute trip to the lavatory or
snack bar can be deadly. For American audiences, there is an additional
problem: some of the accents are so thick that it can be difficult to decipher
dialogue and entire passages may be missed. I’m generally not in favor of
subtitling English movies in English, but this is one occasion when such an
approach might have been helpful. There are times when the movie is slow
going. Patience is rewarded not only in the second half of this film, when the
violence mounts and secrets are revealed, but during the subsequent
productions, when a degree of familiarity with the initial narrative bears fruit.
Red Riding: 1974 is the weakest of the three Red Riding films, but it is
effective at setting the stage, introducing some of the characters, and
capturing the attention of those who love gritty, uncompromising dramas about
police corruption and the dark side of human nature.

C
There’s a good reason the indie-minded Zeitgeist Multi-Disciplinary Arts
Center has turned over its programming for the next three weeks to the
superb and ambitious “Red Riding” film trilogy: because “Red Riding” isn’t so
much a film series as it is a film event, and it deserves to be treated as such.
Inspired by author David Peace’s neo-noir “Red Riding Quartet” novels, it is
ambitious, it is gripping and it is dark. It’s also entirely irresistible cinema, an
uncompromising and hard-to-turn-away-from nightmare in three acts. With its
muted colours but unmuted violence, the beautifully shot “Red Riding” is
similar both tonally and texturally to David Fincher’s superb 2007 thriller
“Zodiac” about another 1970s serial killer. It’s also just as disturbing. “Red
Riding” is so richly produced, in fact, and so cinematic, that it’s easy to forget it
and its sister films were produced for British television, airing on England’s
Channel 4 last spring. This is movie that deserves to be seen in a theatre.
D
Buoyed by very strong performances and a deliberate, grim style, the first
installment in the acclaimed Red Riding Trilogy, Red Riding 1974 sets the tone
for the movies to come and makes clear that these are not sunny days for the
faint of heart. These are gloomy times; films not merely about the seedy
underbelly of society but the fact that the seedy underbelly keeps things
moving. They have been compared to Zodiac but they are more realistically
grim than David Fincher’s masterpiece. The film can be a bit too self-serious
at times, director Julian Jarrold (Brideshead Revisited) would have been wise
to focus on the procedural a bit more than the lead’s dream sequences or
moments of reflection, and the film’s television roots show on a production
level, but Red Riding 1974 is a well-made, expertly performed mystery with
the added bonus that there are two more films to watch when the first one’s
over.

Which reviewer(s) …

You are going to read four movie series reviews. For questions 47-56, choose
from the sections of the article (A-D). The sections may be chosen more than
once.
47 states the film he liked least?

48 mentions the difficulty in following the story plot?

49 criticises how one of the directors managed the film production?

50 gives importance to how the characters respond to some tragic events?

51 supports a venue’s decision to run the film?

52 implies that the film will not appeal to a certain group of people?

53 liked the acting?

54 wouldn’t have noticed that the trilogy was meant for TV viewers?

55 suggests how some people may find it difficult to understand?

56 says one film is good thanks to the feelings of one of the characters?