Bài thi thử kỳ thi tốt nghiệp Trung học Phổ thông môn Tiếng Anh - Năm học 2017-2018 - Đề số 07

SỞ GIÁO DỤC ĐÀO TẠO BÀI THI THỬ KỲ THI TỐT NGHIỆP TRUNG HỌC PHỔ THÔNG 
 ĐỀ CHÍNH THỨC NĂM HỌC 2017- 2018
 (Đề gồm có 04 trang) MÔN TIẾNG ANH ~ MÃ ĐỀ 001
 7 Thời gian: 60 phút - không tính thời gian giao đề
Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the underlined part that needs correction in each of the following questions.
Question 1: Beneath the deep oceans that cover two-thirds of the Earth, intriguing secret of the planet are concealed.
A. concealed	B. secret	C. cover	D. Beneath
Question 2: It is said that Einstein feels very bad about the application of his theories to the creation of weapons of war.
A. to the creation	B. is said	C. feels	D. bad
Question 3: Animals that live in cold climates often hibernate throughout the winter when food is scarcely.
A. climates	B. is scarcely	C. that live	D. throughout
Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the word whose underlined part differs from the other three in pronunciation in each of the following questions.
 Question 4:A. mountain	B. maintenance	C. maintain	D. fountain
 Question 5:A. preferential B. intelligent	C. potential	D. apprentice
Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the word(s) OPPOSITE in meaning to the underlined word(s) in each of the following questions.
Question 6: Your house is always so neat - how do you manage it with three children?
A. dirty	B. tidy	C. cleanly	D. messy
Question 7: She's working on her father to get him to take her new boyfriend home. 
A. coaxing	B. imploring	C. preventing	D. discouraging
Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the sentence that is closest in meaning to each of the following questions.
Question 8: I consider Ted's habit of smiling shyly to be his most charming feature.
A. The way that Ted smiles at me shyly makes me like him even more.
B. What is more charming for me about Ted than anything else is his shy smile.
C. The most charming smile that I think I have ever seen is Ted‘s.
D. I think Ted is more charming than other people because of his shy smile.
Question 9: We're still debating whether or not he deserves to be promoted.
A. We haven‘t yet come to an agreement as to if he should be promoted.
B. The question of whether he‘s entitled to promotion has not yet been discussed.
C. There was much disagreement among us as to whether he‘s a suitable candidate for promotion.
D. His promotion will certainly cause a great deal of disagreement among us.
Question 10: Barely had the boat passed out of the harbour than it was struck by an enormous wave.
A. A huge wave collided with the boat just before it was able to exit the harbour.
B. Almost immediately after the boat had left the harbour, a very large wave crashed into it.
C. The very large wave which smashed into the boat passed right in front of the harbour.
D. By the time the boat departed from the harbour, it had already been hit by a huge wave.
Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct word or phrase that best fits each of the numbered blanks.
 Michelle Whiteman has dedicated her life to protecting the orang-utan. For ten months of the year she works in the jungles of Borneo, watching and studying the great apes in their natural ...(11).... The rest of the time she spends in the UK raising ...(12)... of the need for help. Like many of the animals in the islands of Indonesia, the orang-utan is in grave danger.
 The destruction of the jungles is so severe that according to some experts the species may be extinct within ten years. In addition to the destruction of their jungle homes, the animals are also at ...(13)... due to hunting and the capture of wild animals for the pet trade. Furthermore, their population does not increase rapidly: a female orang-utan has a single baby only once every eight years. Orang-utans are solitary animals which spend almost all of their time in the trees, ...(14)... for food or sleeping. They can weigh up to 77 kilos, which means they are also the largest tree-living animals in the world.
 Michelle learnt about the orang-utans while studying zoology at Bristol University. 'When I read about the terrible situation in Indonesia, I could ...(15)... believe it. There are a great number of new animal species there that could become extinct before we have had a chance to discover them! I knew I ...(16)... do something, so I came out here. If we don't find a way soon to stop the destruction of their habitat, the orang-utan will simply disappear.'
 Question 11:A. locations	B. habitats	C. places	D. sites
 Question 12:A. realisation	B. knowledge	C. awareness	D. appreciation
 Question 13:A. risk	B. hazard	C. trouble	D. threat
 Question 14:A. searching	B. seeking	C. locating	D. finding
 Question 15:A. absolutely	B. almost	C. just	D. hardly
 Question 16:A. can	B. had to	C. must	D. ought
Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the sentence that best completes each of the following exchanges.
Question 17: ~ Mary: "Do you live far from here?" ~ Bill: "............."
A. Take a taxi and you'll be here in ten minutes.	B. Yes, next door to mine.
C. Not too far to reach with a hook.	D. No. About fifteen minutes by bus.
Question 18: ~ Andrew: "............." ~ Hanna: "Today? Awful. It's raining and cold."
A. I'd rather stay in and watch some videos.	B. How's the weather there in Tokyo?
C. Why not going out on such a nice day?	D. Let's get out and find something to pass the time, Hanna.
Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the word that differs from the other three in the position of primary stress in each of the following questions.
 Question 19:A. frighten	B. threaten	C. beaten	D. moisten
 Question 20:A. sucrose	B. such	C. succulent	D. sucker
Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions.
 The train was at a standstill, some twenty minutes outside Kolkata, when an unexpected stroke of luck presented Piya with an opportunity to go for a seat beside a window. She had been sitting in the stuffiest part of the train compartment, on the edge of a bench, with her backpacks arrayed around her: now, moving to the open window, she saw that the train had stopped at a station called Champahati.
 Looking over her shoulder, Piya spotted a tea-seller patrolling the platform. Reaching through the bars of the window, she sununoned him with a wave. She had never cared for the kind of chai, Indian tea, sold in Seattle, her hometown in the USA, but somehow, in the ten days she had spent in India she had developed an unexpected taste for milky, overboiled tea served in earthenware cups. There were no spices in it for one thing, and this was more to her taste than the chai at home.
 She paid for her tea and was trying to manoeuvre the cup through the bars when the man in the seat opposite her own suddenly flipped over a page, jolting her hand. She turned her wrist quickly enough to make sure that most of the tea spilled out of the window, but she could not prevent a small trickle from spilling over his papers.
 'Oh, I'm so sorry!' Piya was very embarrassed; of everyone in the compartment, this was the last person she would have chosen to scald with her tea. She had noticed him while waiting on the platform in Kolkata and she had been struck by the self-satisfied tilt of his head and the way in which he stared at everyone around him, taking them in, sizing them up, sorting them all into their places.
 'Here,' said Piya, producing a handful of tissues. 'Let me help you clean up.'
 'There's nothing to be done,' he said testily. 'These pages are ruined anyway.'
 For a moment she considered pointing out that it was he who had knocked her hand. But all she could bring herself to say was, 'I'm very sorry. I hope you'll excuse me.'
 'Do I really have a choice?' he said in a tone more challenging than ironic. 'Does anyone have a choice when they're dealing with Americans these days?'
 Piya had no wish to get into an argument so she let this pass. Instead she opened her eyes wide and, in an attempt to restore peace, came out with, 'But how did you guess?'
 'About what?'
 'About my being American? You're very observant.'
 This seemed to do the trick. His shoulders relaxed as he leaned back in his seat. 'I didn't guess,' he said. 'I knew.'
 'Was it my accent?' she said.
 'Yes,' he said with a nod. 'I'm very rarely wrong about accents. I'm a translator you see, and an interpreter as well, by profession. I like to think that my ears are tuned to the nuances of spoken language.'
 'I'm afraid English is my only language. And I wouldn't claim to be much good at it either.'
 A frown of puzzlement appeared on his forehead. 'And you're on your way to Canning?'
 'Yes.'
 'But tell me this,' he said. 'If you don't know any Bengali or Hindi, how are you planning to find your way around over there?'
 'I'll do what I usually do,' she said with a laugh. 'I'll try to wing it. Anyway, in my line of work there's not much talk needed.'
 'And what is your line of work, if I may ask?'
 'I'm a cetologist,' she said. 'That means - ' She was beginning, ahnost apologetically, to expand on this when he interrupted her.
 'I know what it means,' he said sharply. 'You don't need to explain. It means you study marine mammals. Right?'
 'Yes,' she said, nodding. 'Dolphins, whales and so on. I'm hoping to wangle a permit to do a survey of the marine mammals of the Sundarbans.
Question 21: Piya asks 'But how did you guess?' in order to......
A. find out what the man really thought about Americans.
B. ensure the man realised that she had apologised.
C. try to calm the situation down by starting a conversation.
D. make sure the man knew he was being rude.
Question 22: When Piya had first seen the man she had thought that......
A. he had been looking for someone he knew on the station platform.
B. he was someone she should avoid if she could.
C. he seemed to think he was better than other people.
D. he had tried to keep his distance from his fellow passengers.
Question 23: Piya has found that the tea or chai she has bought while she has been in India......
A. reminds her of her home in Seattle.	B. is disappointingly bland in taste.
C. would have tasted better if served fresh.	D. is preferable to the chai she has had in the past.
Question 24: What is Piya's attitude to the work ahead of her in Canning?
A. She knows that it will be a working environment she is familiar with.
B. She is hoping to learn enough of the local languages to cope.
C. She is a little worried about what she might find there.
D. She is doubtful whether there will be anyone there who speaks English.
Question 25: In the first paragraph, Piya is relieved when she gets a window seat because it means that.....
A. there is less chance that she will miss her stop.
B. she doesn't have to stand up for the rest of the train journey.
C. there is more room for her backpacks.
D. she no longer has to suffer from a lack of air.
Question 26: How does the man react when Piya tells him her profession?
A. He is irritated that she thinks he doesn't understand.
B. He is pleased she is apologetic in her reply.
C. He is relieved that she is not just an American backpacker.
D. He is keen to point out that he knows quite a bit about it.
Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the word(s) CLOSEST in meaning to the underlined word(s) in each of the following questions.
Question 27: The mayor and her deputy locked horns over plans for the new road. 
A. collaborated	B. began to argue	C. shared ideas	D. feasted on
Question 28: When I opened the fridge, I realised the milk had gone off.
A. vapourized	B. been rotten	C. frozen	D. melted
Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the following questions.
Question 29: Please don't.....it amiss if I make a few suggestions for improvement. 
A. judge	B. take	C. think	D. assume
Question 30: Parliament has now ..... a law making skateboarding illegal on Sunday.
A. billed	B. legislated	C. voted	D. passed
Question 31: Tom tried his best to get good results in the exam.......please his parents.
A. in order that	B. so as he	C. in order to	D. so that he
Question 32: The easiest way to get this nut off the bolt would be to use a......
A. spanner	B. winch	C. jack	D. screwdriver
Question 33: I must confess I was.....myself with rage.
A. beside	B. outside	C. beyond	D. above
Question 34: .......the temperature, ........water turns into steam.
A. The higher - the fast	B. The more higher - the faster
C. Higher - faster the	D. The higher - the faster
Question 35: Stained glass becomes even more beautiful when it......because the corrosion diffuses light.
A. ages	B. will age	C. had aged	D. are aging
Question 36: Natural gas often occurs........petroleum in the minute pores of rocks such as sandstone and limestone.
A. both with	B. both together with	C. both together	D. with
Question 37: I succeeded in my job through sheer hard.......
A. effort	B. industry	C. work	D. labour
Question 38: Rarely.......to work on his own.
A. he is seen	B. is he seen	C. does he	D. does he seen
Question 39: If you wait a moment, there'll be another......of loaves, fresh from the oven.
A. bunch	B. bundle	C. batch	D. collection
Question 40: It is the greatest happiness on earth........
A. loving and to be loved	B. to love and being loved
C. to love and to be loved	D. love and be loved
Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions.
MY FIRST BIKE
Film star, Ewan McGregor, recently rode round the world on a motorbike.
He talks about how he first took up riding motorbikes.
 My biking beginnings can be summed up in two words: teenage love. My first girlfriend was small with short, mousy blonde hair, and I was mad about her. Our romance came to an abrupt end, however, when she started out with another guy in my hometown, Crieff. He rode a 50cc road bike first and then a 125. And whereas I had always walked my girlfriend home, suddenly she was going back with this guy.
 I was nearly sixteen by then and already heartbroken. Then one day, on the way back from a shopping trip to Perth with my mum, we passed Buchan's, the local bike shop. I urged my mother to stop the car. I got out, walked up the short hill to the shop and pressed my nose to the window. There was a light-blue 50cc bike on display right at the front of the shop. I didn’t know what make it was, or if it was any good. Such trivialities were irrelevant to me. All I knew was that I could get it in three or four months' time when I was sixteen and allowed to ride it. Maybe I could even get my girlfriend back.
 I’d ridden my first bike when I was about six. My father got hold of a tiny red Honda 50 cc and we headed off to a shot off to a field that belonged to a family friend. I clambered on and shot off. I went all over the field. I thought it was just best thing. I loved the smell of it, the sound of it, the look of it, the rush of it, the high-pitched screaming of the engine. Best of all, there was a Land Rover parked next to two large piles of straw with about a metre and a half between them. I knew that from where the adults were standing it looked as if there was no distance between them. Just one large heap of straw. I thought I would have a go. I came racing towards the adults, and shot right through the gap in the straw. I was thrilled to hear the adults scream and elated that it had frightened them. It was my first time on a motorbike. It was exciting and I wanted more.
 So when I looked through Buchan's window in Perth that day, it suddenly all made sense to me. It was what had to happen. I can't remember whether it was to win back my ex-girlfriend's heart or not, but more than anything else it meant that, instead of having to walk everywhere, I could ride my motorbike to school and the games fields at the bottom of Crieff and when I went out at weekends.
 I started to fantasise about it. I spent all my waking hours thinking about getting on and starting up the bike, putting on the helmet and riding around Crieff. I couldn't sleep. Driven to desperation by my desire for a bike, I made a series of promises to my mum: I won’t leave town. I'll be safe. I won't take risks. I won't do anything stupid. But, in fact I was making the promises up - I never thought about keeping them.
 At the time that I was begging for a bike, I'd already had an accident with a bike belonging to George Carson, the school laboratory technician. When I asked him if I could borrow it, he agreed, not knowing that I didn't have a clue how to ride it. The bike was in an alleyway up the side of the school hall. I managed to start it and zoomed down the alleyway until I crashed smack into a wall, bending the wheel and snapping the handlebars. Mr Carson came out to find me looking very red-faced. The bill for the damage came to more than £80, a fortune to a fifteen-year old in those days and one that took me months of working as a dish washer and waiter at the Murray Park Hotel to pay back.
[Adapted from 'Long Way Round' by Ewan McGrego and Charley Boorman]
Question 41: In paragraph 5, Ewan's desire for the bike meant he......
A. started behaving more carefully.	B. spent more time with his mother.
C. evented reasons for buying the bike.	D. thought about nothing else.
Question 42: What was Ewan's main reason for buying the motorbike?
A. It would be exciting to ride.	B. It was good for his image.
C. It would improve a friendship.	D. It was a useful means of transport.
Question 43: The phrase “it suddenly all made sense to me” is closest in meaning to.....
A. I got sense	B. I came round	C. I became sensible	D. I came to understood
Question 44: One result of Ewan's accident was that he......
A. was punished.	B. lost interest in bikes.	C. had to get a job.	D. was injured.
Question 45: What does 'Such trivialities' refer to in line 10?
A. the bike's price	B. the bike's size and colour
C. the bike's quality and its manufacturer	D. his mother's attitude to the bike
Question 46: The pronoun ‘one’ in the last sentences refers to.....
A. a bill	B. the damage	C. a fortune	D. one pound sterling
Question 47: Ewan did not buy the bike straightaway because......
A. He was too young to ride it.	B. He was uncertain about its quality.
C. He had to ask his girlfriend first.	D. He did not have enough money.
Question 48: The adults were frightened the first time Ewan rode a motorbike because.....
A. he disappeared from view.	B. they thought he was going to have an accident.
C. the bike was making too much noise.	D. he seemed too small for the bike.
Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the sentence that best combines each pair of sentences in the following questions.
Question 49: Dad invited ten guests to the house-warming party. Three of them were my teachers at highschool.
A. Ten guests Dad invited to the house-warming party among whom three were my teachers at highschool.
B. Three of ten guests Dad invited to the house-warming party were my teachers at highschool.
C. Three of ten guests were my teachers at highschool Dad invited to the house-warming party.
D. Dad invited ten guests three of whom were my teachers at highschool to the house-warming party. 
Question 50: We’re expecting Helen. Her asistance is indispensable to our project.
A. We’re expecting Helen, whose asistance is indispensable to our project.
B. We’re expecting Helen, whose asistance to our project is indispensable. 
C. We’re expecting Helen, the asistance of hers is indispensable to our project.
D. We’re expecting Helen, the asistance of her is indispensible to our project.
The End
SỞ GIÁO DỤC ĐÀO TẠO BÀI THI THỬ KỲ THI TỐT NGHIỆP TRUNG HỌC PHỔ THÔNG 
 ĐỀ CHÍNH THỨC NĂM HỌC 2017- 2018
 (Đề gồm có 04 trang) MÔN TIẾNG ANH ~ MÃ ĐỀ 002
 Thời gian: 60 phút - không tính thời gian giao đề
Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions.
 The train was at a standstill, some twenty minutes outside Kolkata, when an unexpected stroke of luck presented Piya with an opportunity to go for a seat beside a window. She had been sitting in the stuffiest part of the train compartment, on the edge of a bench, with her backpacks arrayed around her: now, moving to the open window, she saw that the train had stopped at a station called Champahati.
 Looking over her shoulder, Piya spotted a tea-seller patrolling the platform. Reaching through the bars of the window, she sununoned him with a wave. She had never cared for the kind of chai, Indian tea, sold in Seattle, her hometown in the USA, but somehow, in the ten days she had spent in India she had developed an unexpected taste for milky, overboiled tea served in earthenware cups. There were no spices in it for one thing, and this was more to her taste than the chai at home.
 She paid for her tea and was trying to manoeuvre the cup through the bars when the man in the seat opposite her own suddenly flipped over a page, jolting her hand. She turned her wrist quickly enough to make sure that most of the tea spilled out of the window, but she could not prevent a small trickle from spilling over his papers.
 'Oh, I'm so sorry!' Piya was very embarrassed; of everyone in the compartment, this was the last person she would have chosen to scald with her tea. She had noticed him while waiting on the platform in Kolkata and she had been struck by the self-satisfied tilt of his head and the way in which he stared at everyone around him, taking them in, sizing them up, sorting them all into their places.
 'Here,' said Piya, producing a handful of tissues. 'Let me help you clean up.'
 'There's nothing to be done,' he said testily. 'These pages are ruined anyway.'
 For a moment she considered pointing out that it was he who had knocked her hand. But all she could bring herself to say was, 'I'm very sorry. I hope you'll excuse me.'
 'Do I really have a choice?' he said in a tone more challenging than ironic. 'Does anyone have a choice when they're dealing with Americans these days?'
 Piya had no wish to get into an argument so she let this pass. Instead she opened her eyes wide and, in an attempt to restore peace, came out with, 'But how did you guess?'
 'About what?'
 'About my being American? You're very observant.'
 This seemed to do the trick. His shoulders relaxed as he leaned back in his seat. 'I didn't guess,' he said. 'I knew.'
 'Was it my accent?' she said.
 'Yes,' he said with a nod. 'I'm very rarely wrong about accents. I'm a translator you see, and an interpreter as well, by profession. I like to think that my ears are tuned to the nuances of spoken language.'
 'I'm afraid English is my only language. And I wouldn't claim to be much good at it either.'
 A frown of puzzlement appeared on his forehead. 'And you're on your way to Canning?'
 'Yes.'
 'But tell me this,' he said. 'If you don't know any Bengali or Hindi, how are you planning to find your way around over there?'
 'I'll do what I usually do,' she said with a laugh. 'I'll try to wing it. Anyway, in my line of work there's not much talk needed.'
 'And what is your line of work, if I may ask?'
 'I'm a cetologist,' she said. 'That means - ' She was beginning, ahnost apologetically, to expand on this when he interrupted her.
 'I know what it means,' he said sharply. 'You don't need to explain. It means you study marine mammals. Right?'
 'Yes,' she said, nodding. 'Dolphins, whales and so on. I'm hoping to wangle a permit to do a survey of the marine mammals of the Sundarbans.
Question 1: Piya asks 'But how did you guess?' in order to......
A. try to calm the situation down by starting a conversation.
B. make sure the man knew he was being rude.
C. find out what the man really thought about Americans.
D. ensure the man realised that she had apologised.
Question 2: How does the man react when Piya tells him her profession?
A. He is irritated that she thinks he doesn't understand.
B. He is pleased she is apologetic in her reply.
C. He is relieved that she is not just an American backpacker.
D. He is keen to point out that he knows quite a bit about it.
Question 3: What is Piya's attitude to the work ahead of her in Canning?
A. She is a little worried about what she might find there.
B. She knows that it will be a working environment she is familiar with.
C. She is hoping to learn enough of the local languages to cope.
D. She is doubtful whether there will be anyone there who speaks English.
Question 4: In the first paragraph, Piya is relieved when she gets a window seat because it means that.....
A. she no longer has to suffer from a lack of air.
B. there is more room for her backpacks.
C. she doesn't have to stand up for the rest of the train journey.
D. there is less chance that she will miss her stop.
Question 5: When Piya had first seen the man she had thought that......
A. he had been looking for someone he knew on the station platform.
B. he had tried to keep his distance from his fellow passengers.
C. he seemed to think he was better than other people.
D. he was someone she should avoid if she could.
Question 6: Piya has found that the tea or chai she has bought while she has been in India......
A. reminds her of her home in Seattle.	B. would have tasted better if served fresh.
C. is disappointingly bland in taste.	D. is preferable to the chai she has had in the past.
Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the word whose underlined part differs from the other three in pronunciation in each of the following questions.
 Question 7:A. mountain	B. maintain	C. maintenance	D. fountain
 Question 8:A. potential	B. intelligent	C. preferential	D. apprentice
Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the sentence that is closest in meaning to each of the following questions.
Question 9: Barely had the boat passed out of the harbour than it was struck by an enormous wave.
A. The very large wave which smashed into the boat passed right in front of the harbour.
B. A huge wave collided with the boat just before it was able to exit the harbour.
C. By the time the boat departed from the harbour, it had already been hit by a huge wave.
D. Almost immediately after the boat had left the harbour, a very large wave crashed into it.
Question 10: I consider Ted's habit of smiling shyly to be his most charming feature.
A. The way that Ted smiles at me shyly makes me like him even more.
B. I think Ted is more charming than other people because of his shy smile.
C. What is more charming for me about Ted than anything else is his shy smile.
D. The most charming smile that I think I have ever seen is Ted‘s.
Question 11: We're still debating whether or not he deserves to be promoted.
A. We haven‘t yet come to an agreement as to if he should be promoted.
B. His promotion will certainly cause a great deal of disagreement among us.
C. The question of whether he‘s entitled to promotion has not yet been discussed.
D. There was much disagreement among us as to whether he‘s a suitable candidate for promotion.
Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the underlined part that needs correction in each of the following questions.
Question 12: Beneath the deep oceans that cover two-thirds of the Earth, intriguing secret of the planet are concealed.
A. Beneath	B. secret	C. cover	D. concealed
Question 13: It is said that Einstein feels very bad about the application of his theories to the creation of weapons of war.
A. feels	B. bad	C. to the creation	D. is said
Question 14: Animals that live in cold climates often hibernate throughout the winter when food is scarcely.
A. is scarcely	B. throughout	C. that live	D. climates
Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions.
MY FIRST BIKE
Film star, Ewan McGregor, recently rode round the world on a motorbike.
He talks about how he first took up riding motorbikes.
 My biking beginnings can be summed up in two words: teenage love. My first girlfriend was small with short, mousy blonde hair, and I was mad about her. Our romance came to an abrupt end, however, when she started out with another guy in my hometown, Crieff. He rode a 50cc road bike first and then a 125. And whereas I had always walked my girlfriend home, suddenly she was going back with this guy.
 I was nearly sixteen by then and already heartbroken. Then one day, on the way back from a shopping trip to Perth with my mum, we passed Buchan's, the local bike shop. I urged my mother to stop the car. I got out, walked up the short hill to the shop and pressed my nose to the window. There was a light-blue 50cc bike on display right at the front of the shop. I didn’t know what make it was, or if it was any good. Such trivialities were irrelevant to me. All I knew was that I could get it in three or four months' time when I was sixteen and allowed to ride it. Maybe I could even get my girlfriend back.
 I’d ridden my first bike when I was about six. My father got hold of a tiny red Honda 50 cc and we headed off to a shot off to a field that belonged to a family friend. I clambered on and shot off. I went all over the field. I thought it was just best thing. I loved the smell of it, the sound of it, the look of it, the rush of it, the high-pitched screaming of the engine. Best of all, there was a Land Rover parked next to two large piles of straw with about a metre and a half between them. I k