Passage III

    When it came to life Audrey was practical.  She accepted all she was told to accept.  And there had been quite a lot of it.  She had been in London for the last five years but for one short holiday.  There had been the big blitz, then the uneasy lull, then the little blitz, now the fly bombs.  But she still accepted all she was told to accept, tried to remember all she was told to remember.  The trouble was that she could not always forget all she was told to forget.  She could not forget, for instance, that on her next birthday she would be twenty-nine years of age.  Not a girl any longer.  Not really.  The war had already gobbled up several years and who knew how long it would go on?  Audrey dreaded growing old.  She disliked and avoided old people and thought with horror of herself as old.  She had never told anyone her real and especial reason for loathing the war.  She had never spoken of it---even to her friend Monica.

    Monica, who was an optimist five years younger than Audrey, was sure that the war would end soon.

    "People always think that wars will end soon.  But they don't," said Audrey.  "Why, one lasted for a hundred years.  What about that?"

    Monica said:  "But that was centuries ago and quite different.  Nothing to do with now."

    But Audrey wasn't at all sure that it was so very different.

    "It's as if I'm twins," she said to Monica one day in an attempt to explain herself.  "Do you ever feel like that?"  But it seemed that Monica never did feel like that or if she did she didn't want to talk about it.

    Yet there it was.  Only one of the twins accepted.  The other felt lost, betrayed, forsaken, a wanderer in a very dark wood.  The other told her that all she accepted so meekly was quite mad, potty.  And here even books let her down, for no book---at least no book that Audrey had ever read---even hinted at this essential wrongness or pottines.

From Jean Rhys, The Insect World.  (c)1976 by Jean Rhys.
 

7.    According to the passage, what is the most significant difference between Audrey and Monica?

       A.    Monica does not read as much as Audrey does.
       B.    Audrey is older than Monica.
       C.    Monica does not like the war.
       D.    Monica is an optimist.
 
 

8.    Given the nature of her feelings as they are described in the passage, if Audrey were to tell someone her "real and especial reason for loathing the war,"  which of the following would she be most likely to give as her reason?

       A.    She will be "old" by the time the war is over.
       B.    The war will prevent her from leaving London.
       C.    Her work will be made more difficult by the war.
       D.    The war will ruin her friendship with Monica.
 
 

9.    As it is used in line 34, the word potty means

       A.    oddly shaped.
       B.    crazy.
       C.    dark and mysterious.
       D.    dishonest.