GAP TEXTS

In the following text, six sentences or parts of sentences have been removed. Above the extract you will
find the six removed sentences PLUS one sentence which doesn't fit. Choose from the sentences (A-G) the
one which fits each gap (1-6). Remember, there is one extra sentence you do not need to use. Write the
correct letter in the box.
PASSAGE 1
A. Though our pace was slow in terms of distance covered, it was never boring.
B. We even remembered a torch to light the walk back from the pub!
C. That is why we were given a thorough explanation of all the safety regulations in force along the canal.
D. He patiently talked us through the boat's simple controls.
E. It passes through no big towns but has everything else that makes this type of holiday such fun: lovely
scenery, friendly people, and a few locks, lift-bridges and a tunnel thrown in for good measure.
F. At a speed of four miles-per-hour, we travelled less than 20 miles in three days.
G. Sometimes there was so much to take in we almost forgot to bow our heads for the distinctive stone
hump-back bridges: so narrow and low they seem to grow out of the banks.
Drifting The Slow Lane On A Welsh Canal
Two hundred years ago, Britain's canals were the arteries of the Industrial Revolution but now they are
used almost exclusively for pleasure. They're a great way to meet the British - and other nationalities:
even actors Harrison Ford and Calista Flockhart have enjoyed a Welsh narrowboat holiday. Bob Barton
reports on a trip afloat in Mid Wales.
Less is more on the canals. (1) ________ Yet we felt we had seen and experienced so much and let into
the secret that is one of the most beautiful parts of Britain's unique waterway world.
We became very fond of Bronwen, our three year-old cruiser, which was our movable home for a few
serene days as we sailed along the Monmouth and Brecon canal in Mid Wales. With home comforts
including a fully fitted kitchen complete with gas cooker and fridge, crockery and cookware; comfortable
beds; a shower and toilet; central heating and cosy lounge area with TV and DVD player, it is easy to see
how some boaters become so enthusiastic they decide to live on them for months at a time.
Any fears we had about taking charge of a 50ft-long behemoth on a narrow canal with its numerous
toytown-like stone bridges were quickly dispelled by John of Cambrian Cruisers. (2) ________ How to
take on water, work the locks and lifting bridges we would encounter, and even came along with us for
the first ten minutes to check we had got the hang of things.
We need not have worried: by the end of our first afternoon of cruising we had negotiated four lifting
bridges, one tunnel and five locks, all enough to give my 'crew' a hearty appetite to be sated in one of the
many canal-side pubs. One of the lifting bridges was electrically powered and my daughters, aged 11 and
15, loved closing the gate across the road to stop traffic and pushing the buttons to make lights flash and
the bridge slowly rise.
The 35-mile Monmouth and Brecon Canal is a small, isolated part of Britain's 2,000-mile (3,220 km)
network of navigable waterways, but it is a real gem. Built to carry coal and iron down to the sea, it is an
18th-century time-capsule, now used entirely for pleasure, which winds its way south from the market
town of Brecon through the rocky uplands - the highest in Southern Britain - of the Brecon Beacons
National Park. (3) ________

Its banks canopied with a wide variety of trees, the canal is constantly twisting, first one way and then
another. For much of its length it is on a ridge, high above the foaming waters of the River Usk, whose
route is even more convoluted than the canal; while in the distance are sheep-dotted meadows and craggy
peaks with romantic names such as Sugar Loaf and Table Mountain. (4)_____ There's always something
to see, someone to wave at or talk to, or another brew of tea or coffee to attend to: it is thirsty work!
This being springtime, wild flowers were everywhere - bluebells, daffodils, forsythia and primroses,
growing in huge bunches along the banks. Other seasons offer their own delights, I'm sure. Birds spotted
ranged from skylarks and chaffinch to pheasants and the ubiquitous ducks with their ducklings in tow
and, at one stage, a bat even circled our boat. Farther on, white tree blossom floated down on us like
snowflakes - an idyllic scene. (5) ________
We prepared breakfast and lunch on board using the ample facilities, but when we wanted a more
substantial meal there was a good choice of pubs, often with a blazing log fire, in canalside villages such
as Talybont-on-Usk. At the Coach and Horses in Langynidr there was a particularly tasty, wide-ranging
menu: the Portuguese owner, Abilio, explained that he arrived here as chef but liked it so much he
decided to buy the whole pub and settle down.
One of the liberating aspects of canal boating is that you can moor up for the night almost wherever the
fancy takes you. We just hammered in the mooring spikes, tied-up, placed a plank across to the bank and
our mobile home was all set for the night. (6) ________
Brecon is best-known for its annual Jazz Festival when the whole town comes to life with the sound of
music and of people having a good time. Sadly, we weren't able to sample the event this time - but we did
manage to visit nearby Hay-on-Wye, the fascinating "town of second-hand books" established by Richard
Booth in 1961, on our way back to the airport.
PASSAGE 2
A. The next development was the semi-automatic toaster
B. simply dropping the slices into the machine commenced the toasting procedure
C. set the heating element on a timer,
D. (and many modern ones)
E. The company also produced the "toaster that turns toast."
F. slowly raising the finished toast
G. which wasn't considered safe in the kitchen
H. Meanwhile electricity was not readily available
History of the Toaster
Before the development of the electric toaster, sliced bread was toasted by placing it in a metal frame or a
long-handled fork and holding it near a fire or kitchen grill. Simple utensils for toasting bread over open
flames appeared in the early 19th century. Earlier, people simply speared bread with a stick, sword or
knife and held it over a fire.
In 1905, Irishman Conor Neeson of Detroit, Michigan, and his employer, American chemist, electrical
engineer, inventor and entrepreneur William Hoskins of Chicago, Illinois, invented chromel, an alloy
from which could be made the first high-resistance wire of the sort used in all early electric heating
appliances (1) .________
The first electric bread toaster was created by Alan MacMasters in Edinburgh, Scotland. In 1893,
Crompton, Stephen J. Cook & Company of the UK marketed an electric, iron-wired toasting appliance
called the Eclipse. Early attempts at producing electrical appliances using iron wiring were unsuccessful,
because the wiring was easily melted and a serious fire hazard. (2) _________, and when it was, mostly
only at night. The first US patent application for an electric toaster was filed by George Schneider of the
American Electrical Heater Company of Detroit. AEH's proximity to Hoskins Manufacturing and the fact
that the patent was filed only two months after the Marsh patents suggests collaboration and that the
device was to use chromel wiring. One of the first applications the Hoskins company had considered for
chromel was toasters, but eventually abandoned such efforts to focus on making just the wire itself.
At least two other brands of toasters had been introduced commercially around the time General Electric
submitted their first patent application in 1909 for one, the GE model D-12, designed by technician Frank
Shailor, "the first commercially successful electric toaster".
In 1913, Lloyd Groff Copeman and his wife Hazel Berger Copeman applied for various toaster patents
and in that same year the Copeman Electric Stove Company introduced the toaster with automatic bread
turner. (3) ______Before this, electric toasters cooked bread on one side and then it was flipped by hand
to toast the other side. Copeman's toaster turned the bread around without having to touch it.
(4)_______ , which turned off the heating element automatically after the bread toasted, using either a
clockwork mechanism or a bimetallic strip. However, the toast was still manually lowered and raised
from the toaster via a lever mechanism.
The automatic pop-up toaster, which ejects the toast after toasting it, was first patented by Charles Strite
in 1919. In 1925, using a redesigned version of Strite's toaster, the Waters Genter Company introduced the
Model 1-A-1 Toastmaster, the first automatic pop-up, household toaster that could brown bread on both
sides simultaneously, (5)______ and eject the toast when finished.
By the middle of the 20th century, some high-end U.S. toasters featured automatic toast lowering and
raising, with no levers to operate — (6)_________ . A notable example was the Sunbeam T-20, T-35 and
T-50 models (identical except for details such as control positioning) made from the late 1940s through
the 1960s, which used the mechanically multiplied thermal expansion of the resistance wire in the center
element assembly to lower the bread; the inserted slice of bread tripped a lever to switch on the power
which immediately caused the heating element to begin expanding thus lowering the bread. When the
toast was done, as determined by a small bimetallic sensor actuated by the heat passing through the toast,
the heaters were shut off and the pull-down mechanism returned to its room-temperature position,
(7)________ . This sensing of the heat passing through the toast, meant that regardless of the color of the
bread (white or wholemeal) and the initial temperature of the bread (even frozen), the bread would always
be toasted to the same degree. If a piece of toast was re-inserted into the toaster, it would only be
reheated.
PASSAGE 3
A. and that may well have been his chief incentive
B. Fran, moody and teary in those days, found the whole thing bemusing and voiced her frustration
daily.
C. Aunt Anne stopped eating.
D. Aunt Amy and Aunt Anne came around less and less often as fall approached.
E. my father wouldn't let us know, as was his way
F. My little sister could watch the goings on in that house for hours on end and barely murmur a
sound.
G. It was only three days after her funeral.
H. I guess I just never had the right guidance.
The Box Of Tricks - Benjamin Kensey
I look back on the sweltering July day my father carried the Leica M3 into the house, with a spring in his
step, as the beginning of the rest of our lives, our lives without my mother. (1)_______
"Hey John, look at this little box of tricks!" he urged, on returning from the junk store, a package under
his arm. I joined him in looking over what seemed to be a pretty beat up camera.
"You know, now I'll be able to do something I've always wanted."
This was generally my father's way of lightly admonishing his family for holding him back from all those
absorbing activities he would have otherwise enjoyed were it not for the heavy demands of being head of
household. He said it when my mother finally let him get the Winnebago, parked rusting to bits outside
while he surveyed his new toy with the bright eyes of a schoolboy.
Frances came into the kitchen to watch us, chin resting on forearms as she leaned precariously forward in
her chair, low over the table. (2)_______
As my fathers fingers nimbly traced faded contours on the camera body and explored tiny silver handles
and knobs along the top, he glanced up at me for the tiniest of instants.
"You know, when I was your age, John, I wanted to be a photo-journalist. (3)_________ This camera
here, well, it was the Cadillac of its day, you know."
Frances perked up at the mention of a camera.
"Can we take pictures of Oscar?"
Oscar, our fat and gassy spaniel, yawned knowingly in the corner.
"I'm entering a photography competition, Fran," he said.
And that's how we discovered that evening that my father was entering the cut and thrust world of
competitive pointing and clicking. Yes, it kept him out of the harrying clutches of Amy and Anne, my
mother's two sisters who had taken it upon themselves to look after my father and the rest of us,
(4)__________ , but if it was, he wasn't telling.
The aunts had soon made it a habit to show up at around ten o'clock and thus my father would be out of
the house by nine thirty, beloved Leica in tow. There then began a cold war of wills, with me in the
middle as informant, whereby my aunts' arrival and my father's daily photographic tours of duty would
get earlier and earlier. Within two weeks, Aunt Amy and Aunt Anne were at the house by eight sharp.
Eventually, a ceasefire was agreed all around and my father would spend ten minutes with my mom's
sisters and be out of the house by eight fifteen.
Indeed, my father was spending longer and longer outside the house. What he found to photograph around
our dull part of Cleveland is anyone's guess, for he never shared the spoils of his hunts with me or Fran.
He had a rudimentary darkroom fashioned under the tiny stairway from black curtains and we'd often see
his lumpy movements behind there through the summer evenings that year.
One afternoon, with the aunts chatting in the yard, I stole a peek in there but felt immediately a thief and
slunk away having only glimpsed a couple of shots of the imposing bank on Peacock Drive that were still
hanging up over the developing trays.
(5) ______
"Why can't we go into the dark?" she would ask.
"Darkroom, Fran. It's called a darkroom."
"I'm going to stop dad coming into my room," she would then argue with faultless logic and I would await
her next outburst.
In early September, over dinner, my father announced that he'd selected his entry for the prestigious
Cuyahoga County Photographic Fair, due to be held the following weekend. (6) _____
"That's very exciting, Richard," she began, "after that, you can get back to looking after the family. It'll be
wonderful to have you around again."
He said nothing, but I could see the words had left their intended mark and we finished the meal in near
silence.
After the episode over dinner the week before, he hadn't spoken further of his choice of entry and had
resisted all my probing questions. On the Saturday morning of the competition, I found my father's room,
his study, the improvised darkroom, indeed the whole house, empty. Fran had gone to Warrensville Park
with our aunts for the day.
I passed the day walking barefoot across the sun dappled floorboards, often with Oscar meandering lazily
behind. I saw that my father had packed up his darkroom, leaving only the long, black drapes in place.
Fran had made her own "dark" under where her dolls house stood, which made me smile.
Just after four, my father's Chevy pulled up outside. He let the screen door bang shut, met me in the
hallway, smiled a boyish grin and said, "Let's get you kids some tea, what do you say? Franks and mac?
I'll do it like your mom did."
It was the first time he'd mentioned my mother in six weeks. I never saw the Leica again and he uttered
not a single word about the competition. (7) ______
"Only eight years later, in the Cleveland Public Library, did I discover my father had finished seventh in
the 1991 Cuyahoga County Photographic Fair. I never saw my father's photo, or even asked him about it.
Only those that finished first, second and third were shown, but none of them could have compared to the
image I gained of him that summer: that of a man in the midst of his greatest triumph."
PASSAGE 4
A. Later, choice widens with experience; skillful amateurs can deal with almost any plant, no matter
how delicate.
B. This extra effort will be repaid many times over.
C. Some plants do, however, prefer a dry atmosphere.
D. Temperatures are mainly a winter problem.
E. They can be moved around to alter the background completely.
F. This is one reason that so many popular house plants are green, for this color blends so well with
all other colors.
Choosing House Plants
In most ways, indoor gardening is preferable to outdoor. Rain, wind, storms and frost impede progress
outside, whereas an indoor routine can be established without worrying about what is going on outside the
window. Plants in pots are mobile, too. (1) More sun, less sun, higher or lower levels, a group instead of
an orderly row, a mixed bowl or a dish garden-all provide fresh interest and the variety is endless. There
should be no time to spend regretting the gardens of former times.
The ways in which plants can be displayed in various settings, such as offices, hospitals, store windows,
conference rooms, commercial premises and hotels, are limitless, but in domestic surroundings the plants
are part of the home and should share their position with the owners and with the furniture, whether
period or contemporary, to make a harmonious whole. (2) If there are brightly colored curtains or
upholstery, however, one should not forget to consider them when choosing a plant with colored flowers,
leaves or berries.
The choice of plants is very wide, but for the beginner it is wiser to start with a few hardy plants, to
gradually become used to their requirements, the diseases which may attack them, the amount of water
they need at various times of the year and the feeding they may require. It is useless to choose plants for
appearance only, for choice must depend primarily on the growing conditions required. (3) Hardy plants
have a certain tolerance for fluctuating temperatures and can overlook neglect in matters such as watering
and feeding for short periods.
Some plants are able to thrive in shady conditions because the light that they get indoors approximates
their natural habitat, the forests of Malaysia or tropical South America, areas from which the vast majority
of house plants originate. It is not usually possible to give plants ideal growing conditions in a room
primarily adjusted to the needs of personal living. Even well-lit rooms are shady in comparison with open
conditions in gardens and, as light enters a room mainly through its windows, its intensity and duration
depends on their exposure. (4) Especially near windows, minimum temperature is crucial. It should be
consistently maintained at not less than 50°F, although a number of plants can thrive in a temperature of
5° less. In apartments, in particular, a more difficult problem may be overheating and loss of humidity.
A dry atmosphere causes moisture loss from leaves, roots and soil. This must be offset by creating more
humidity around the plants. One of the easiest ways to increase humidity is to put the plant pot into a
larger container and to fill the extra space between outside container and inner pot with something
absorbent, such as peat moss, which can be kept permanently moist. (5) Among them are Sansevieria,
Pittosporum, Sedum, Grevillea and Aspidistra. Plants that appreciate a dry atmosphere usually like as
much light as possible. All house plants should be removed before a room is painted, although most are
unaffected by tobacco smoke.
PASSAGE 5
A. They were like islands, bits of earth that did not move.
B. He always spoke in a low voice and calmly.
C. If it started blowing the other way, they would never reach land.
D. And the memories of friends who were so far away from them.
E. The captain's face was sad. He had lost his ship and many of his sailors.
F. The anger of the sea was no more to them than it was to a group of chickens a thousand miles
away on land.
G. The four men in the boat could not see the sky.
The Open Boat
The small lifeboat bounced from wave to wave in the rough seas of the Atlantic. (1) The waves rose too
high.
The waves with their white tops pushed at the open boat with angry violence. Every man thought each
wave would be his last. Surely, the boat would sink and he would drown. The men thought that most
adults would need a bathtub larger than the boat they were sailing. The waves were huge, and each
created a problem in guiding the direction of the boat.
For two days, since the ship sank, the four men had been struggling to reach land. But there was no land
to be seen. All the men saw were violent waves which rose and came fiercely down on them. The men sat
in the boat, wondering if there was any hope for them. The ship's cook sat in the bottom of the boat. He
kept looking at the fifteen centimetres which separated him from the ocean.
The boat had only two wooden oars. They were so thin - it seemed as if they would break against the
waves. The sailor, named Billie, directed the boat's movement with one of the oars. The newspaper
reporter pulled the second oar. He wondered why he was there in the boat.
The fourth man was the captain of the ship that had sunk. He lay in the front of the small boat. His arm
and leg were hurt when the ship sank. (2) But he looked carefully ahead, and he told Billie when to turn
the boat.
As each wall of water came in, it hid everything else that the men could see. The waves came in silence;
only their white tops made threatening noises.
In the weak light, the faces of the men must have looked gray. Their eyes must have shone in strange
ways as they looked out at the sea. The sun rose slowly into the sky. The men knew it was the middle of
the day because the color of the sea changed from slate gray to emerald green, with gold lights. And the
white foam on the waves looked like falling snow.
The cook said the men were lucky because the wind was blowing toward the shore. (3) The reporter and
the sailor agreed. But the captain laughed in a way that expressed humor and tragedy all in one. He asked:
"Do you think we've got much of a chance now, boys?"
This made the others stop talking. To express any hope at this time they felt to be childish and stupid. But
they also did not want to suggest there was no hope. So they were silent.
Seagulls flew near and far. Sometimes the birds sat down on the sea in groups, near brown seaweed that
rolled on the waves. (4) Often the seagulls came very close and stared at the men with black bead-like
eyes. The men shouted angrily at them, telling them to be gone.
The sailor and the reporter kept rowing with the thin wooden oars. Sometimes they sat together, each
using an oar. Sometimes one would pull on both oars while the other rested. Brown pieces of seaweed
appeared from time to time. (5) They showed the men in the boat that it was slowly making progress
toward land.
Hours passed. Then, as the boat was carried to the top of a great wave, the captain looked across the
water. He said that he saw the lighthouse at Mosquito Inlet. The cook also said he saw it.
"Think we'll make it, captain?" he asked.
"If this wind holds and the boat doesn't flood, we can't do much else," said the captain.
It would be difficult to describe the brotherhood of men that was here established on the sea. Each man
felt it warmed him. They were a captain, a sailor, a cook and a reporter. And they were friends. The
reporter knew even at the time that this friendship was the best experience of his life. All obeyed the
captain. He was a good leader. (6)
The lighthouse had been slowly growing larger. At last, from the top of each wave the men in the boat
could see land. Slowly, the land seemed to rise from the sea. Soon, the men could see two lines, one black
and one white. They knew that the black line was formed by trees, and the white line was the sand.