3126 02 INS 3RP AFP tcm142-699283

English
Stage 6
Paper 2 Fiction 2024

Cambridge Primary Progression Test
Insert
3126_02_INS_3RP
© UCLES 2024
2
Text for Section A, an extract from Tales of the Unexpected by Roald Dahl
Billy is a young travelling salesman working for a large company. He has arrived
in a town he has never been to before. It is evening and he only has a little
money. He is looking for a cheap place to stay.
Billy was seventeen years old. He was wearing a new navy-blue overcoat and a 5
new brown suit, and he was feeling fine. He walked briskly down the street. He
was trying to do everything briskly these days. Briskness, he had decided, was
the one common characteristic of all successful businessmen.
There were no shops on this wide street that he was walking along, only a line of
tall houses on each side, all of them identical. They had porches and pillars and 10
four or five steps going up to their front doors, and it was obvious that once upon
a time they had been swanky residences. But now, even in the darkness, he
could see that the paint was peeling from the woodwork on their doors and
windows, and that the handsome white facades1 were cracked and blotchy.
Suddenly, in a downstairs window that was brilliantly illuminated by a street-lamp, 15

Billy caught sight of a printed notice. It said BED AND BREAKFAST. There was a
vase of yellow chrysanthemums2, tall and beautiful, standing just underneath the
notice. He stopped walking. He moved a bit closer.
Green curtains (some sort of velvety material) were hanging down on either side
of the window. The chrysanthemums looked wonderful beside them. He went 20
right up and peered through the glass into the room, and the first thing he saw
was a bright fire burning in the hearth. The room itself, so far as he could see in
the half-darkness, was filled with pleasant furniture. There was a baby-grand
piano and a big sofa and several plump armchairs.
After dithering about in the cold for two or three minutes, Billy decided that he 25
would walk on. He turned to go. And a queer thing happened. He was in the act
of stepping back and turning away from the window when all at once his eye was
caught and held in the most peculiar manner by the small notice that was there.
BED AND BREAKFAST, it said. BED AND BREAKFAST, BED AND

BREAKFAST, BED AND BREAKFAST. Each word was like a large black eye 30
staring at him through the glass, holding him, compelling him, forcing him to stay
where he was and not to walk away from that house, and the next thing he knew,
he was actually moving across from the window to the front door of the house,
climbing the steps that led up to it, and reaching for the bell.
He pressed the bell. 35
Far away in a back room he heard it ringing, and then at once, it must have been
at once because he hadn’t even had time to take his finger from the bell-button,
the door swung open and a woman was standing there. Normally you ring the
© UCLES 2024 E/S6/INSERT/02

3
bell and you have at least a half-minute’s wait before the door opens. But this
dame3 was like a jack-in-the-box. He pressed the bell – and out she popped! It 40
made him jump.
She was about fifty years old, and the moment she saw him, she gave him a
warm welcoming smile.
‘Please come in,’ she said pleasantly.
Glossary
1
facade: the front of a building
2
chrysanthemum: a type of flower
3
dame: an American word for a woman

4
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English

Paper 2 Fiction 2024

Suddenly, in a downstairs window that was brilliantly illuminated by a street-lamp, 15

BED AND BREAKFAST, it said. BED AND BREAKFAST, BED AND

He pressed the bell. 35

© UCLES 2024 E/S6/INSERT/02

‘Please come in,’ she said pleasantly.

© UCLES 2024 E/S6/INSERT/02

© UCLES 2024 E/S6/INSERT/02

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