Practice Paper 1: Reading

The red-room was a spare chamber, very seldom slept in; I might say never, indeed, unless when a chance influx of visitors at Gateshead Hall rendered it necessary to turn to account all the accommodation it contained. Yet it was one of the largest and stateliest chambers in the mansion. A bed supported on massive pillars of mahogany, hung with curtains of deep red damask, stood out like a tabernacle in the centre; the two large windows, with their blinds always drawn down, were half shrouded in festoons and falls of similar drapery; the carpet was red; the table at the foot of the bed was covered with a crimson cloth.

This room was chill, because it seldom had a fire; it was silent, because remote from the nursery and kitchen; solemn, because it was known to be so rarely entered. The housemaid alone came here on Saturdays, to wipe from the mirrors and the furniture a week's quiet dust: and Mrs. Reed herself, at far intervals, visited it to review the contents of a certain secret drawer in the wardrobe.

My heart beat thick, my head grew hot; a sound filled my ears, which I deemed the rushing of wings; something seemed near me; I was oppressed, suffocated: endurance broke down; I rushed to the door and shook the lock in desperate effort. Steps came running along the outer passage; the key turned, Bessie and Abbot entered. I stretched out my hands, for I felt shaken to the core.

Source: public domain. Adapted for length.

The night was warm and still. I was stretched out on the lawn, counting the stars that were beginning to appear, when I felt, rather than saw, that something had changed in the evening sky. I turned my telescope towards Mars. The planet was familiar to me: a small, steady point of rose-coloured fire. But now, at the edge of its visible disc, a faint cloud seemed to rise, like the breath of a creature I had never imagined breathing.

I watched for an hour without moving. Then the cloud seemed to gather itself into a brighter, sharper flash - a thread of light flung across the void. For a moment I thought it was some failure of my own eyes, some trick of the lens. I looked away, rubbed my hands over my face, and looked back. The flash had gone, but the planet seemed to me subtly altered, as if the quiet face of an old friend had shifted into an expression I did not recognise.

In the quiet streets below, the gas-lamps burned on, indifferent. A cart rattled somewhere beyond the square. Nobody in London guessed, that night, what had just begun. I remember thinking, with the mild curiosity of a man who does not yet know what is being set in motion, that the heavens had surprised me.

Source: public domain. Adapted for length.