Passage A: The mountain lake

In this passage, the writer describes a remote mountain lake in Ireland and tells what happened on a
family trip to fish for brown trout.

There is a lake, halfway up a mountain, where my family and I spend a day or two fishing
each year. The climb, over waterlogged ground, drains the energy from our legs and makes us pause
every now and then to catch our breath. During these short breaks we turn our backs on the
mountain, and face, instead, the open country beneath us. There is plenty to see. The flat green
country is divided by the River Shannon. There are lakes everywhere. Some of the larger ones we can
name, but the small ones are too many to count; each one a jewel nestled into a fold in the velvet
landscape. All around us the air carries the sound of the tiny streams which gather the water from
the mountain and begin to steer it, well beyond our vision, towards the ocean.

The mountain lake is not easy to find. It seems unusual to locate a lake by climbing upward
and, in many ways, we were lucky to find it at all on our first trip. It is very small and seemingly
invisible until you arrive at a ridge and discover it, quite suddenly, at your feet. Sometimes it is not
there at all. The dark clouds that graze the mountaintops here may decide to throw a protective fog
around it, and steal it back. On such days we are forced to turn away and leave the local fish, the
brown trout, to cruise the dark waters undisturbed.

This isolated lake is fed only by a stream which gathers rainfall from the mountain ridge
above.

How did the trout get here? They are not big fish: the heaviest we have caught is probably
just under half a kilo. With their black backs, copper sides and two rows of red spots, they are all very
similar in appearance. It seems to me that their strict conformity to a shared dress code might say
something about their history. Scientists suggest that fewer physical differences are to be expected in
a small population long isolated from others. In my imagination, they are the descendants of
ancestors which colonised these waters in prehistoric times; ancestors which swam through channels
long since vanished in a landscape of ice and glaciers and a wilderness unseen by human eyes.

I had taken my son, Leo, on a short fishing trip and had decided to go to the mountain lake
as its eager fish might offer him the greatest hope of an early catch. Here the brown trout always rise
freely, as though to reward us for the effort we have made to reach them. Would these bold trout
oblige us by rising to the water’s surface as we had hoped? I need not have worried. Sure enough,
within ten minutes or so of our arrival, a swirl distorted the mirror of the mountain lake’s surface. A
few moments later, we were admiring the varnished scales of Leo’s first trout before he gently
lowered it into the lake once more and let the black water reclaim it. To celebrate Leo’s first trout, I
painted a watercolour picture of it. It is framed now and hangs on his bedroom wall. It is not a good
painting. While its proportions are approximately correct and its colours resemble the original, I
could no more capture its beauty using paints than I now can, using words. If you wish to see for
yourself how beautiful these trout really are, you must go there – and hope that, for a few hours at
least, the clouds will surrender the mountain lake to you.

1. State two features of the walk which made it difficult for the narrator to reach the lake
(paragraph 1, ‘There is a lake …’).
a. over waterlogged ground/ground saturated with water
b. the climb that made them tired/drained their energy
2. By using your own words, explain what the narrator can see as he faces the open country
(paragraph 1, ‘There is a lake …’).
 The beautiful large and small lakes, River Shannon and green countryside
3. Which four-word phrase in paragraph 1 suggests that the water in the tiny streams cannot be
seen by the narrator? (paragraph 1, ‘There is a lake …’)
Well beyond our vision
4. Re-read the passage. Using your own words, explain what the writer means by the words
underlined in the following quotations:
a. ‘… the brown trout, to cruise the dark waters undisturbed’
Cruise: to swim in a leisurely way/relaxed way
b. ‘… the brown trout always rise freely, as though to reward us for the effort …’
Freely: randomly/spontaneously
c. ‘… admiring the varnished scales of Leo’s first trout …’
Varnished: shining/glossy
5. Imagine that you are Leo, the narrator’s son in Passage A. You have decided to write a journal
entry describing the fishing trip to the mountain lake with your father.
Write your journal entry.
In your journal entry you should:
 describe the sights and sounds of the mountain and lake
 describe how you felt when you caught your first trout
 explain how these experiences have influenced your attitude to the natural world.

Base your journal entry on what you have read in Passage A, but do not copy from it. Be
careful to use your own words. Address each of the three bullet points.

Begin your journal entry: ‘I didn’t know what to expect when I first saw the mountain lake …’

Write about 200 to 300 words.

I didn’t know what to expect when I first saw the mountain lake. This was my first trip
joining my father. Once we arrived there, we went up the majestic mountain and
ended up on a lake. as we look back, we could see the green landscape which is
decorated with rivers. There are also plenty of lakes of different sizes: the large and
the small ones. I could hear the sound of birds chirping from the trees. The water of
the lake is very clear and clean; however, it is not that deep. The view of the
crystalline and clear water made my father and I felt relaxed.
We heard that there were some trout in this mountain lake and I was really eager to
catch one.
I tried hard to catch the trout until finally I got my first trout. I felt really happy
catching the trout. Do you know that it was the first time I saw a trout? I felt excited
because of its varnished scales. I have never seen this fish before! However, I didn’t
want to keep the trout for too long as it could die, so I gently lowered it into the lake
and let it go. That’s the best experience I have ever had, even though I couldn’t bring
the trout home! Seeing the mountain lakes and trout has taught me to keep
maintaining the environment to be clean. When you take care of the environment
well, then the environment will treat you well too.
 Passage B: A life-changing decision

In this passage the writer describes the solitary life of John Treagood, a former teacher who
decided to change his lifestyle.

John Treagood used to work as a teacher. One day he made a life changing decision. He
decided to go for a walk and hasn’t stopped travelling since. He trekked all the way from the north to
the south west of England, bought a horse and then built a caravan, based on a traditional design.
That was 40 years ago. Nowadays, John can regularly be seen travelling around roads and lanes, in
that same handbuilt caravan, pulled by his even-tempered horse, Misty. For him, home is now his
one-room caravan, parked on a piece of wasteland, and his chief companion is his horse.

Despite often facing sub-zero temperatures, John, 76, believes that life gets better every
year. He says he doesn’t feel the cold, adding that winters in the south west of England are mild, one
of the reasons why he chose it as his destination all those years ago.

John does not claim a government pension, even though he is entitled to receive it. He
makes money from odd jobs such as pruning hedges; he collects water from streams and food from
the land. In total, John collects about 70 litres of water each day. He drinks approximately 2 litres of
water a day while his horse drinks about 50 litres.

Although he occasionally supplements his diet with fish from the nearby river, he generally
eats any berries and vegetables he might discover along the way, always taking care to cut up carrots
and apples for his horse. John is rarely ill. One particularly frosty morning, however, he slipped and
fell, breaking his arm. He didn’t seek help until three days later, having walked nearly 7 kilometres to
a friend’s house.

His only items from modern life are a radio to listen to music and a mobile phone. He
explains, ‘A friend said I’d need one for emergencies, but I haven’t switched it on for six months.’