Đề thi Olympic truyền thống 30/4 môn Tiếng Anh Lớp 10

KỲ THI OLYMPIC TRUYỀN THỐNG 30/4
LẦN THỨ XIII TẠI THÀNH PHỐ HUẾ
ĐỀ THI MÔN TIẾNG ANH LỚP 10
Thời gian làm bài 180’
PART ONE : PHONOLOGY
A.	Find the word that has its underlined part pronounced differently from the other three in each question. (5 points)
1. 	A. massage	B. carriage	C. voyage	D. dosage
2. 	A. dimension	B. expansion	C. confusion	D. tension
3. 	A. increase	B. ink	C. pink	D. thank
4. 	A. apology 	B. classify 	C. testify 	D. verify 
5. 	A. beloved 	B. naked 	C. ploughed 	D. learned
B.	Find the word with the stress pattern different from that of the other three words in each question. (5 points)
1.	A. obvious	B. notorious	C. credulous	D. numerous
2.	A. dialect	B. diagram	C. diagonal 	D. diamond
3.	A. Europe	B. monument	C. province	D. minority 
4.	A. obsolete 	B. complete	C. compete	D. deplete
5.	A. consent	B. obstinacy	C. condolence	D. equality 
PART TWO: VOCABULARY AND GRAMMAR
A. Choose the best answer. (10 points)
1. She loved tennis and could watch it till the _____ came home.
	A. she	B. everyone	C. horses	D. cows
2. Could you close the window? There is a bit of a _____. 
	A. current	B. wind	C. draught 	D. breeze
3. Thousands of steel _____ were used as the framework of the new office block.
	A. beams	B. girders	C. stakes	D. piles
4. The ceiling fans were on, but unfortunately they only _____ the hot, humid air.
	A. stirred up	B. poured through	C. turned into	D. cut back
5. 	He set one alarm-clock for five o’clock and the other for five past so as to _____ that he did not oversleep.
	A. assure	B. ensure	C. insure	D. reassure
6. When Tim was eating a cherry, he accidentally swallowed the _____.
	A. nut	B. stone	C. seed	D. core
7. It was only _____ he told me his surname that I realised that we had been to the same school . 
	A. then 	B. until	C. as soon as 	D. when
8. 	He got an excellent grade in his examination _____ the fact that he had not worked particularly hard .
	A. on account of	B. because	C. in spite of	D. although
9. Their eventual choice of house was _____ by the time Peter would take to get to the office.
	A. related	B. consequent	C. determined	D. dependent
10. It turned out that we ______ rushed to the airport as the plane was delayed by several hours .
	A. hadn’t 	B. should have	C. mustn’t	D. needn’t have
B. Supply the correct form of the word provided in brackets in each sentence. (5 points)
1. His busy schedule made him completely (access) __________ to his students. 
2. He works for UNESCO in a purely (advice) ________ role. 
3. The sun and the moon are often (person)_________ in poetry. 
4. I’ve never known such a (quarrel) ______ person.
5. I don’t care if you had had too much to drink. Your behaviour last night was (defend) ______ .
C. 	Choose the right verbs provided in the box, then use the most suitable forms of the verbs to fill in the numbered blanks. (5 points)
	break 	call	slow 	take 	draw	
1. 	The red car has just ______ up in front of our house. Are we expecting anyone ?
2. 	His condition is worse than before. I think we should ______ in a doctor . 
3. 	I’ve won a million pound ! I don’t believe it ! I simply can’t ______ it in ! 
4. 	Could you ______ down, please. I don’t like driving so fast on country roads. 
5. 	I’m sorry. I’m late. The car has ______ down again. I’ve left it about a mile down the street. 
D. From the four underlined words or phrases (A), (B), (C), or (D), identify the one that is not correct. (10 points)
1. 	Anthropologists agree that our primitive ancestors who inhabited the tropics
	A 	B
	probably have natural protection against the sun. 
	C 	D
2. 	A good exercise program helps teach people to avoid the habits that might shorten
	A 	B 	C 	
	 the lives.
	D
3.	A thunder usually follows lightning by five seconds for every mile between the flash 
	A 	B 	C 	D
	and the observer.
4. 	Forgery, in law, is the fabrication or altering of a written document with the intent to 
	A 	B 	C 	
	deceive or defraud.
	D
5. 	During the first half of the nineteenth century, immigrants to the United States were 
	A
	predominant from Western Europe; after the Civil War, however, new arrivals came 
	B
	mainly from Eastern and Southern Europe, as well as from Asia.
	C	D
6. 	Bill Gates built his microcomputer software company into one of the largest
	A
	in the nation, and in doing so became one of the country's wealthiest and most 
	B	C
	respected man.
	D
7. 	With his many theories, Albert Einstein did a great impact on physics, so much so that 
	A	B	
	he is often called the greatest physicist of all time. 
	C	D
8.	Since rats are destructive and may carry disease, therefore many cities try to 
	A 	B 	C 	
	exterminate them.	
	D
9.	In that age of computers, it is difficult to imagine how tedious the work of accountants 
	A 	B 	C 	
	and clerks must have been in the past. 
	D
10.	Made up of more than 150 member countries, the organization known as the United 
	A 	B 	
	Nations were established after World War II to preserve international peace and 
	C	D 	 	
	security.
E. Supply the correct tense of the verb in brackets. (8 points)
1. You must tell me the truth. I insist on (tell) the truth.
2. (Thompson catch ) the ball, we would have won the game.
3. Don’t worry. We (finish) the report by 11 o’clock.
4. Fred was pleased (admit) to the college.
5. There were some people (row) on the river.
6. Alex has a test tomorrow that he needs to study for. He (not watch) TV right now.
7. Were I (know) the answer, I (tell) you right away.
PART THREE: READING
A. Read the passage and then decide which word (A, B, C, or D) best fits each space. (10 points)
WHALING
Rock carving suggest that Stone Age people were hunting whales for food as early as 2200 B.C. Such (1) ________ hunting is still practiced today in a number of (2) ________ including the Inuit people of Greenland and North America.
Whaling became big business from the seventh century as the (3) ________ for whalebone and whale oil rose, and humpback and sperm whales were hunted in (4) ________ large numbers. But just as stocks of these species began to fall, the explosive harpoon-gun was (5) ________. This weapon, together with the development of steam-power ships, (6) ________ the whalers to hunt the fast-moving fin and blue whales.
In 1905 the whaling (7) ________ moved to the waters of Antarctica. The introduction of massive factory ships enabled the whales to be processed at sea. As a result, the blue whale had (8) ________ disappeared by the 1950s. In 1946 the International Whaling Commission was established to maintain the declining whale populations. Quotas were (9) ________ but these were often (10)________ and numbers continued to fall. Hunting of many species continued until 1986 when the IWC finally responded to international pressure and a ban on commercial whaling was introduced.
1. 	A. survival	B. essential	C. basic	D. subsistence
2. 	A. groups	B. societies	C. races	D. nationalities
3. 	A. demand	B. desire	C. request	D. reliance
4. 	A. repeatedly	B. frequently	C. continually	D. increasingly
5. 	A. invented	B. discovered	C. assembled	D. applied
6. 	A. managed	B. employed	C. enabled	D. empowered
7. 	A. lines	B. troops	C. staff	D. fleets
8. 	A. virtually	B. possibly	C. uniquely	D. commonly
9. 	A. made	B. set	C. placed	D. done
10. 	A. refused	B. denied	C. ignored	D. exempted
B. Read the text below and think of the word which best fits each space. Use only one word in each space. (10 points)
Although the rise in the global temperature by 4 per cent predicted by many scientists may not sound like much, it is the difference between now and the last Ice Age, when huge glaciers covered Europe and most of Britain. Nobody knows (1) ______ what would happen in a warmer world, but we (2) ______ know some things. Heat a kettle and the (3) ______ inside it expands. The (4) ______ of the world has climbed more than half a degree this century, and the oceans have (5) ______ by at least 10 cm.
But (6) ______ as it takes several minutes for a kettle to begin warming, (7) ______ it may have taken the ocean thirty years to swell. This (8) ______ that the global warming we are now experiencing is a result only of the carbon dioxide we have dumped into the atmosphere (9) ______ to the 1960s. Since then, the (10) ______ of fossil fuels has increased rapidly. 
Scientists (11) ______ for the United nations and European governments have been warning that (12) ______ the Dutch and the people of East Anglia will need to do will (13) ______ to build more extensive sea defenses. Many of the world’s great cities are (14) ______ risk, because they are (15) ______ at sea level. Miami, (16) ______ entirely built on a sandbank, could be (17) ______ away. But the effect of rising sea levels will be much (18) ______ for the developing countries. With a meter rise in sea levels, 200 million could become homeless. 
There are other fears too, (19) ______ to a recent United Nations report. The plight of the hungry in northern Africa could (20) ______ , as rainfall in the Sahara and beyond is reduced by 20 per cent. 
C. Read the passage and choose the correct answer for the following questions: (5 points)
All at once Hazel was coming in through the French windows, pulling off gardening gloves, and Bill was entering through the door, both at once. So I only had time to take one quick look at her before I turned to face him. All very confusing. What that first glimpse showed me was that time had thickened her figure but didn’t seem to have made much difference to her face. It still had good skin and youthful outlines. She was holding a bunch of roses – must have been cutting them in the garden while waiting for me. The gardening gloves lent a delightfully informal touch. It was quite an entrance, though Bill spoilt it a bit by making his at the same time.
Bill seemed longer and thinner. His tightly massed hair had a tinge of grey. Apart from that, twenty years had done nothing to him, except deepen the lines of thoughtfulness that had already, when I knew him, begun to spread across his face. Or was that all? I looked at him again, more carefully, as he looked away from me at Hazel. Weren’t his eyes different somehow? More inward looking than ever? Gazing in not merely at his thoughts, but at something else, something he was keeping hidden or perhaps protecting.
Then we were chattering and taking glasses in our hands, and I came back to earth. For the first ten minutes we were all so defensive, so carefully probing, that nobody learnt anything. Bill had forgotten me altogether, that much was clear. He was engaged in getting to know me from scratch, very cautiously so as not to hit a wrong note, with the object of getting me to contribute a big subscription to his African project. I kept trying to absorb details about Hazel, but Bill was talking earnestly about African education, and the strain of appearing to concentrate while actually thinking about his wife proved so great that I decided it would be easier just to concentrate. So I did. I let him hammer away for about ten more minutes, and then the daughter, who seemed to be acting as parlourmaid, showed in another visitor. Evidently we were to be four at lunch.
1. What effect had time had on Hazel and Bill?
A. They had both lost weight.
B. They were more withdrawn.
C. They hadn’t changed at all.
D. They had changed in subtle ways.
2. When they all started talking, the writer 
A. relaxed at last.
B. stopped dreaming.
C. spoke most to Hazel.
D. began to remember things.
3. The writer found the first part of their conversation 
A. sentimental.
B. irritating.
C. uninformative.
D. trivial.
4. Why did Bill speak seriously?
A. He wanted some money from the writer. 
B. He did not remember the writer.
C. His wife was present.
D. He was talking about the past.
5. In the end the writer found Bill’s conversation 
A. monotonous
B. convincing
C. thought-provoking
D. instructive
D. You are going to read a text about closed-circuit television (CCTV) in public places. Seven paragraphs have been removed from the text. Choose from the paragraphs A-H the one which fits each gap (1 -7). There is one extra paragraph which you do not need to use. (7 points)
WE’VE ALL BEEN FRAMED
Everybody’s on television now. We are routinely filmed as we walk down the high street and enter the shop to buy a newspaper. Police cameras take over as we drive down the road to drop our children at school. Another hidden eye watches the playground for anything suspicious. And so it goes on - in the office, at the cashpoint, at shopping malls, stations, airports, car parks, football grounds, public squares, even public conveniences.
1. _______________________________
Do the claims for drastic crime reduction attributed to CCTV by the government and local authorities stand up to independent analysis? Could the £1bn spent on monitoring and system costs over the past decade have been used more effectively? If viewing surveillance is a form of power, what limits are placed on its operation by the democratic and legal processes?
2. _______________________________
When we meet in Hull, Norris and I travel to his home, where there are 10 cameras focused on various parts of the high street. While I pay the cab driver, Norris is switching off the burglar alarm. Aha! So he’s not against using modern technology to prevent crime? Of course not. Nor does he appear enthusiastic when I ask if he would like to get rid of all CCTV cameras tomorrow.
3. _______________________________
I’ve never been convinced, though’, he continues, ‘that there could be a simple solution to crime. One of my main complaints is that the last government invested 80% of the crime-prevention budget on technology which was never properly evaluated.
4. _______________________________
Norris and Armstrong felt it was high time to do some evaluating themselves. They spent days, nights, and weekends in three different control rooms - one in a poor, multi-racial inner-city area, one in a prosperous country town and one in a major city center. ‘In a busy street’, says Norris, ‘there are hundreds of issues to focus on. So how do you decide who’s a likely trouble-maker and who’s not? The answer, in all cases, is that it’s based on crude stereotypes.’
5. _______________________________
Norris is slightly surprised that a country where the concept of Big Brother has become part of the language should accept so many ‘little brothers and sisters’ to the point where its citizens are, he says, the most filmed in the world ‘without any democratic or legal controls’. To which I point out that most people assume that if they’ve done nothing wrong then they have nothing to fear.
6. _______________________________
State concern? What has the state got to do with it? ‘People think of a camera operator watching over them kindly but all the information is being stored. Real-time images can be connected to computers to be analyzed.’
7. _______________________________
What he sees as the possible long-term implications can best be summed up by the penultimate paragraph of the book: ‘The history of the 20th century should remind us that democratic institutions are not assured. They can be, and have been, captured by totalitarian regimes of both left and right. We should not trust in the myth of a benevolent government, for while it may be only a cynic who questions the benign intent of their current rulers, it would surely be a fool who believed that such benevolence! is assured in the future.’
A 	‘No, probably not,’ he replies after a pause. They can be effective in limited circumstances - in car parks, for instance. And with the new generation of speed cameras, we have a chance to reduce pedestrian deaths in urban areas. Their use on railway crossings seems highly sensible and when cameras allow the police to find a bomber, a mugger or a murderer then none of us could say it wasn’t a social good.
B 	Norris disagrees. ‘We all have something to hide,’ he says. ‘People have affairs. People hide their true feelings about others. Are these really matters of state concern?’
C 	Answers to these and many other questions are to be found in Norris and Armstrong’s book, The Maximum Surveillance Society: The Rise of CCTV. I decided to meet one of them in person.
D 	So where is all this leading? Should we be alarmed about what is likely to happen in the future - not tomorrow or the next day, perhaps, but some years from now?
E 	In other words the targets are men rather than women, young men rather than middle-aged or elderly men. If you’re a young man in a baseball cap, then your every move is likely to be under observation. ‘Older men are largely ignored,’ Norris says.
F 	Occasionally, we catch sight of ourselves on a screen in one of these places. But the real addicts of closed-circuit television are the ones who are paid to watch, day and night. Dr Clive Norris and Dr Gary Armstrong have spent a total of 600 hours in control rooms watching the people who watch us. Both are lecturers in criminology and both are worried about the phenomenal growth of CCTV surveillance in recent years. Accordingly, they set out to ask some questions.
G 	If the control room spots one of these crimes taking place, it doesn’t mean that the police or the security guards will respond, he says. ‘They have their own agendas. In our 600 hours they went into action just 43 times.’
H 	The present government, on the other hand, has begun a massive program of crime reduction and they should be congratulated on providing a lot of money for evaluation. But while the use of CCTV continues to spread, there still hasn’t been a properly conducted survey into its effectiveness.’
PART FOUR: WRITING
A. Finish each of the sentences in such a way that it means exactly the same as the sentence printed before it. (10 points)
1. 	Tim insisted on being told the complete story.
	Nothing but ____________________________________________________ 
2. 	She never seems to succeed, even though she works hard.
	However ____________________________________________________ 
3. 	Andrew is the most generous person I have ever met 
	I’ve yet ___________________________________ 
4.	She never seems to succeed even though she studies much. 
	Much ____________________________________________________ 
5.	I never thought that I would win a prize 
	It had ____________________________________________________ 
B. Write a new sentence using the word given. (10 points)
1. I don’t think the television’s likely to blow up at any minute.
	LIKELIHOOD	____________________________________________
2. This car only cost me five hundred pounds. 
	PICKED	____________________________________________
3. Someone paid five thousands pounds for the painting. 
	WENT 	____________________________________________
4. We have made neither a profit nor a loss this year. 
	EVEN	____________________________________________
5. In 1967 programs began to be transmitted in color. 
	ADVENT	____________________________________________
THE END –
ĐÁP ÁN TIẾNG ANH LỚP 10
Thời gian làm bài 180’
PART ONE : PHONOLOGY
A.	Find the word that has its underlined part pronounced differently from the other three in each question. (5 points)
1. A. massage B. carriage	C. voyage	D. dosage
2. 	A. dimension B. expansion C. confusion	D. tension
3. 	A. increase B. ink	C. pink	D. thank
4. 	A. apology B. classify C. testify D. verify 
5. 	A. beloved B. naked C. ploughed D. learned
B.	Find the word with the stress pattern different from that of the other three words in each question. (5 points)
1.	A.	obvious	B.	notorious	C.	credulous	D.	numerous
2.	A.	dialect	B.	diagram	C.	diagonal 	D.	diamond
3.	A.	Europe	B. 	monument	C. 	province	D. minority 
4.	A.	obsolete 	B.	complete	C.	compete	D.	deplete
5.	A.	consent	B.	obstinacy	C.	condolence	D.	equality 
PART TWO. VOCABULARY AND GRAMMAR
A. Choose the best answer. (10 points)
1. She loved tennis and could watch it till the _____ came home.
	A. sheB. everyone	C. horsesD. cows
2. Could you close the window? There is a bit of a _____. 
	A. currentB. windC. draught D. breeze
3. Thousands of steel _____ were used as the framework of the new office block.
	A. beamsB. girdersC. stakesD. piles
4. The ceiling fans were on, but unfortunately they only _____ the hot, humid air.
	A. stirred upB. poured throughC. turned into	D. cut back
5. 	He set one alarm-clock for five o’clock and the other for five past so as to _____ that he did not oversleep.
	A. assureB. ensureC. insureD. reassure
6. When Tim was eating a cherry, he accidentally swallowed the _____.
	A. nut B. stone C. seed D. core
7. It was only _____ he told me his surname that I realised that we had been to the same school . 
	A. then B. untilC. as soon as D. when
8. 	He got an excellent grade in his examination _____ the fact that he had not worked particularly hard .
	A. on account ofB. becauseC. in spite ofD. although
9. Their eventual choice of house was _____ by the time Peter would take to get to the office.
	A. relatedB. consequentC. determined	D. dependent
10. It turned out that we ______ rushed to the airport as the plane was delayed by several hours .
	A. hadn’t B. should haveC. mustn’tD. needn’t have
B. Supply the correct form of the word provided in brackets in each sentence. (5 points)
1. His busy schedule made him completely inaccessible to his students. 
2. He works for UNESCO in a purely advisory role. 
3. The sun and the moon are often personified in poetry. 
4. I’ve never known such a quarrelsome person.
5. I don’t care if you had had too much to drink. Your behaviour last night was indefensible .
C. Choose the right verbs provided in the box, then use the most suitable forms of the verbs to fill in the numbered blanks. (5 points)
1. 	The red car has just drawn up in front of our house. Are we expecting anyone ?
2. 	His condition is worse than before. I think we should call in a doctor . 
3. 	I’ve won a million pound ! I don’t believe it ! I simply can’t take it in ! 
4. 	Could you slow down, please. I don’t like driving so fast on country roads. 
5. 	I’m sorry. I’m late. The car has broken down again. I’ve left it about a mile down the street. 
D. From the four underlined words or phrases (A), (B), (C), or (D), identify the one that is not correct. (10 points)
1. 	Anthropologists agree that our primitive ancestors who inhabited the tropics probably have natural protection against the sun. 
2. A good exercise program helps teach people to avoid the habits that might shorten the lives.
3.	A thunder usually follows lightning by five seconds for every mile between the flash and the observer.
4. 	Forgery, in law, is the fabrication or altering of a written document with the intent to 	deceive or defraud.
5. During the first half of the nineteenth century, immigrants to the United States were predominant from Western Europe; after the Civil War, however, new arrivals came 
	B
	mainly from Eastern and Southern Europe, as well as from Asia.
	C	D
6. 	Bill Gates built his microcomputer software company into one of the largest
	A
	in the nation, and in doing so became one of the country's wealthiest and most 
	B	C
	respected man.
	D
7. 	With his many theories, Albert Einstein did a great impact on physics, so much so that 
	A	B	
	he is often called the greatest physicist of all time. 
	C	D
8.	Since rats are destructive and may carry disease, therefore many cities try to 
	A 	B 	C 	
	exterminate them.	
	D
9.	In that age of computers, it is difficult to imagine how tedious the work of accountants 
	A 	B 	C 	
	and clerks must have been in the past. 
	D
10.	Made up of more than 150 member countries, the organization known as the United 
	A 	B 	
	Nations were established after World War II to preserve international peace and 
	C	D 	 	
	security.
E. Supply the correct tense of the verb in brackets. (8 points)
1. You must tell me the truth. I insist on being told the truth.
2. Had Thompson caught the ball, we would have won the game.
3. Don’t worry. We shall/will have finished the report by 11 o’clock.
4. Fred was pleased to be admitted to the college.
5. There were some people rowing on the river.
6. Alex has a test tomorrow that he needs to study for. He should not be watching TV right now.
7. Were I to know the answer, I would tell you right away.
8. By the end of last year he had read four Shakespeare plays and by next year he will have read two more.PART THREE: READING
A. Read the passage and then decide which word (A, B, C, or D) best fits each space. (10 points)
WHALING
Rock carving suggest that Stone Age people were hunting whales for food as early as 2200 B.C. Such (1) ________ hunting is still practiced today in a number of (2) ________ including the Inuit people of Greenland and North America.
Whaling became big business from the seventh century as the (3) ________ for whalebone and whale oil rose, and humpback and sperm whales were hunted in (4) ________ large numbers. But just as stocks of these species began to fall, the explosive harpoon-gun was (5) ________. This weapon, together with the development of steam-power ships, (6) ________ the whalers to hunt the fast-moving fin and blue whales.
In 1905 the whaling (7) ________ moved to the waters of Antarctica. The introduction of massive factory ships enabled the whales to be processed at sea. As a result, the blue whale had (8) ________ disappeared by the 1950s. In 1946 the International Whaling Commission was established to maintain the declining whale populations. Quotas were (9) ________ but these were often (10)________ and numbers continued to fall. Hunting of many species continued until 1986 when the IWC finally responded to international pressure and a ban on commercial whaling was introduced.
1. 	A. survival	B. essential	C. basicD. subsistence
2. 	A. groups	B. societiesC. races	D. nationalities
3. 	A. demand	B. desire	C. request	D. reliance
4. 	A. repeatedly	B. frequentlyC. continuallyD. increasingly
5. 	A. invented	B. discovered	C. assembled	D. applied
6. 	A. managed	B. employed	C. enabled	D. empowered
7. 	A. linesB. troopsC. staff	D. fleets
8. 	A. virtually	B. possibly	C. uniquely	D. commonly
9. 	A. made	B. set	C. placed	D. done
10. 	A. refused	B. denied	C. ignored	D. exempted
B. Read the text below and think of the word which best fits each space. Use only one word in each space. (10 points)
Although the rise in the global temperature by 4 per cent predicted by many scientists may not sound like much, it is the difference between now and the last Ice Age, when huge glaciers covered Europe and most of Britain. Nobody knows (1) exactly / precisely what would happen in a warmer world, but we (2) do know some things. Heat a kettle and the (3) water inside it expands. The (4) temperature of the world has climbed more than half a degree this century, and the oceans have (5) risen by at least 10 cm.
But (6) just as it takes several minutes for a kettle to begin warming, (7) So it may have taken the ocean thirty years to swell. This (8) means that the global warming we are now experiencing is a result only of the carbon dioxide we have dumped into the atmosphere (9) up to the 1960s. Since then, the (10) use of fossil fuels has increased rapidly. 
Scientists (11) working for the United nations and European governments have been warning that (12) what the Dutch and the people of East Anglia will need to do will (13) be to build more extensive sea defenses. Many of the world’s great cities are (14) at risk, because they are (15) located / situated at sea level. Miami, (16) almost entirely built on a sandbank, could be (17) swept away. But the effect of rising sea levels will be much (18) worse for the developing countries. With a meter rise in sea levels, 200 million could become homeless. 
There are other fears too, (19) according to a recent United Nations report. The plight of the hungry in northern Africa could (20) worsen, as rainfall in the Sahara and beyond is reduced by 20 per cent. 
C. Read the passage and choose the correct answer for the following questions: (5 points)
All at once Hazel was coming in through the French windows, pulling off gardening gloves, and Bill was entering through the door, both at once. So I only had time to take one quick look at her before I turned to face him. All very confusing. What that first glimpse showed me was that time had thickened her figure but didn’t seem to have made much difference to her face. It still had good skin and youthful outlines. She was holding a bunch of roses – must have been cutting them in the garden while waiting for me. The gardening gloves lent a delightfully informal touch. It was quite an entrance, though Bill spoilt it a bit by making his at the same time.
Bill seemed longer and thinner. His tightly massed hair had a tinge of grey. Apart from that, twenty years had done nothing to him, except deepen the lines of thoughtfulness that had already, when I knew him, begun to spread across his face. Or was that all? I looked at him again, more carefully, as he looked away from me at Hazel. Weren’t his eyes different somehow? More inward looking than ever? Gazing in not merely at his thoughts, but at something else, something he was keeping hidden or perhaps protecting.
Then we were chattering and taking glasses in our hands, and I came back to earth. For the first ten minutes we were all so defensive, so carefully probing, that nobody learnt anything. Bill had forgotten me altogether, that much was clear. He was engaged in getting to know me from scratch, very cautiously so as not to hit a wrong note, with the object of getting me to contribute a big subscription to his African project. I kept trying to abs