Advanced Level - Reading
Advanced Level - Reading
AdvancedLevel:Reading.MultipleChoiceSiberianWinter|ESLLounge
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AdvancedLevel:Reading.MultipleChoiceSiberianWinter|ESLLounge
Resilience
That incredible stoicism is everywhere. In Irkutsk at least, people
seem simply to accept that winter is harsh - and this one especially so.
It is without doubt the cruelest Siberian winter in living memory. Yet
outdoors, everything appears to function normally - even schools reopened as the temperature rose briefly to minus 25.
The trams and buses are back on the roads, though everyone drives
slowly to avoid skidding on the layers of ice below the grit. The main
street bustles with people wrapped in layers against the cold. But even
indoors, the chill is inescapable. After her shift as a tram conductor,
Natasha Fillipova comes home to a freezing house. She shows us the
bedroom - where ice has built up on the inside walls. She scrapes it
off with her fingers, but that has little effect. One night, Natasha says,
she washed her hair before going to bed. When she woke up, it was
frozen solid to the wall. The children are doing their homework in the
bathroom - the only room warm enough to sit in. Natasha doesn't
want to complain. But she is angry with the state and the architects
for building shoddy houses.
The flats here are supposed to withstand up to minus 40 degrees.
They don't, and her children are ill with coughs and colds. Natasha's
anger is brief, and she seems faintly embarrassed about it. Siberians
are used to cold weather, she explains. Here, she tells us, people
prefer to rely on themselves - and the knowledge that eventually,
spring will come.
Questions
Choose the best answer:
1. What do we learn in the opening paragraph.
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