Study Exercises for FCE Cambridge First Certificate in English, Paper One, Reading Comprehension

Exercise answers. You need five, but preferably six, correct in order to reach a passing grade in FCE.

1. G.
In the good old optimistic days the streets of London were paved with gold. Now, they are littered with losers: the young, the drunk and the old, but mostly the young.

Scott is just 20. He is unemployed and, homeless, he is lucky enough to live in a hostel. He says: "A lot of people think that when you are young and homeless you can always go back home. But this is not the case for a large number of young people. If they go back, some of them will have to put up with violence and, in a lot of cases, sexual assault. The position I am in now is because of family arguments and disagreements. I thought it would be the best thing for everyone if I left home. Then I found a lot of things out of my control.

2. E.
"When I tried to get a job I had no hope whatever, because employers do not take on people with no fixed address. What makes it even more difficult is that it is hard to live up to basic expectations such as being clean and tidy. Many employers also assume that you are unreliable and lazy.

"The Social Security were no help either. If you haven't got a fixed address, you don't exist. I went to my local council offices who got me into a bed-and-breakfast place. This was very dirty, People were getting robbed and it was a very violent place. I felt very unsafe there, so I left and went back on the streets, sleeping rough.

3. H.
"The streets turned out to be just as bad. There are pimps and people looking for rent boys and prostitutes. Once you get involved with pimps it is very hard to get away. Young people on the streets are also seen as alcoholics and drug-users or pushers. There is a small number, but most of us just want to find a place of our own."

After five years on the London streets, chasing drink and drugs, Paul has been rehabilitated. Aged 28, he has chronic liver problems. He says: "I'd drink anything. Surgical spirit, methylated spirits. I'd go anywhere for a drink. In the end, I wasn't drinking to get drunk. I was drinking myself sober. I was bring blood up, I had DTs and terrible paranoia, I'd be seeing people walk through walls, people who weren't there. I talked to nobody for three months, just sat, day and night, under the Festival Hall.

4. C.
"A lot don't bother looking for help. They just beg. And every penny goes on the drink. You beg enough to buy another drink, buy it, drink it, then beg some more. A lot of people can't handle living in a building.

There's people from all walks of life on the street. A lot of them are well-educated, just not getting the right start, can't get a job, lose hope and that's it. I know a professor who used to sleep rough in London.

5. F.
And the numbers are growing. There are more on the street than ever before. I reckon the Nineties are going to be ten years of despair. When I think of the future, it terrifies me."

If you were in London last year, and walked down the Strand, you might have passed Michelle and James, who used to live, when the shop was closed, in the doorway of Boots the chemist.

6. A.
Interviewed by a reporter as they lay buried under blankets and sleeping bags, they were summoning the energy to get up and beg. Michelle was 17 and James, 18. They became engaged on the streets a year ago.

"The reality of a job and marriage does not exist. James is resigned to life on the streets. They are the discarded youngsters, sleeping in disposable boxes. They believe they have about 60 young neighbours in the Strand doorways alone.

7. D.
"Michelle is the product of local authority care and children's homes. She has not lived at home since she was a child. Contact with her family is now almost non-existent and any kind of life with them impossible. James is all she has. She has not slept in a proper bed for the past two weeks. Before that, she had a temporary shelter in a hostel. She left to rejoin James on the street. The streets, despite the risk of physical and sexual attack, were in her eyes a better option. Hostels are not all nice places and you don't get to choose who you are sleeping with.

"James explains that they beg to live. He says: `At first it was embarrassing. But now we are used to it. Sometimes you can do quite well. An average day will bring in £5. We lift things. Yesterday a crowd of us went into a chemist shop and lifted lots of aftershave and stuff, which we can sell. We don't see that stealing from big shops is theft. It's survival. I've learnt all the scams. There are doctors who will prescribe drugs you can sell. You can get into hostels more than once by giving a false name.'

8. B.
They see no way out of their situation. They are no longer embarrassed. "It is the others who are embarrassed - the yuppies, when we beg. They hold their pockets to stop the change rattling when they walk by us."

Not relevant.

I.
Many people say that they ought to find work, but it is a lot more complicated than that, even if the work were available. Even finding a job in a supermarket requires a permanent address, and it may take two months to arrange, and another month before the first pay packet arrives.