Coketown is an 0 ...................... industrialised town whose 1 ...................... characteristics are brilliantly depicted. It is portrayed as a town of red 2 ...................... , machinery and tall chimneys, which lacks beauty and 3 ...................... . It is a grim, unnatural place with serpents of smoke that come out of factories and 4 ...................... the air.

The fact that both its streets and people have lost individuality is emphasised by the 5 ...................... repetition of 6 ...................... one another’ and by the people’s doing ‘the 7 ...................... things at the same time’.

The inhabitants can be said to derive their character from the 8 ...................... and their alienation from the ‘steam engine’ which Dickens uses in a striking 9 ...................... . The schoolmaster’s name, Choakumchild, (from ‘choak’ – to make someone 10 ...................... breathing – and ‘child’), the name of the town, the principle of 11 ...................... knowledge which pervades life, and the word ‘Amen’ underlining the state of things and the 12 ...................... of certainties, all contribute to show Dickens’s 13 ...................... attitude towards the process of 14 ...................... .

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0    a innovative           b rural                    c historical                  d imaginary

1    a eminent              b negative              c romantic                  d positive

2    a roads                  b pavements           c bricks                      d buildings

3    a factories              b logic                    c reason                     d fancy

4    a invigorate           b clean                   c pollute                     d purify

5    a illogical               b mechanical          c discontinuous          d meaningless

6    a like                     b alike                    c similar                     d as

7    a dislike                 b dissimilar             c same                       d different

8    a mountains           b country                c nature                     d surroundings

9    a alliteration           b comparison          c hyperbole                d refrain

10  a start                    b continue              c stop                         d force

11  a factual                b tangible               c concrete                  d actual

12  a rebirth                 b drawback             c conquest                 d loss

13  a pathetic              b critical                 c favourable               d sympathetic

14  a colonisation         b industry               c industrialisation       d civilised

Complete the passage abaut Hard Times with an adequate word.

The passage starts with the description of Thomas Gradgrind, a typical Victorian 1...................................... who is defined a man of fact and 2 ...................................... . Instead of considering his pupils persons, he sees them as little 3...................................... who are to be filled with 4...................................... . Using a very effective simile, Dickens compares him to a 5...................................... ready to shoot on his students to eliminate any trace of 6...................................... in them. The two students portrayed in the passage, 7 ...................................... and Bitzer, symbolise two opposite types of children: the former is a shy, fearful 8...................................... whom the teacher addresses himself to calling her number 9 .................................... whereas the latter is Gradgrind’s ideal boy, who readily describes a 10 ...................................... as a set of scientific data as if it were a 11 ...................................... rather than a living being.