Reading and Comprehension in the African Context: A Cognitive Enquiry

Appendix Three: A Reading and Comprehension Exercise (Level Three)

Appendix Three A Reading and Comprehension Exercise (Level Three) Reading and Comprehension (Time: 40 minutes) Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow it. Zero hour drew near, and I was escorted to the ringside. There was no turning back now. But I bid myself take courage. Had I not been told that every man in the village would be there? If anything went wrong I would have plenty of support. So, I took off my jacket, made a few preliminary passes, ducked into the ring, and waited. Then the church clock struck twelve, and a great cry went up. At the far end of ring, where the bull-pens were, I saw a couple of men fumble with a padlock, then skip for shelter. The next moment, a young bull came rocketing forth, small and black as a meteor, his sharp heels kicking up high in the air, his stiff gold tail like sparks behind him. Slowly, holding my jacket like a shield, I stepped forward to meet him. I was warm with cognac and felt no fear. Then the bull turned in a flurry of sand, pulled up, and looked at me. It was only then that l realized that I was alone in the ring. The boys of the village, on whom I had built my pride, not one was there, all were behind the rails, waiting and watching, and here I was alone. The watching bull had lowered his head right down. His two red eyes smoked with moving fires, his tail switched slowly, his black horns stroked the 109 Reading and Comprehension: An African Perspective air. Keep still, I said, and move your jacket thus; for bulls are simpletons, they never charge the man, only the moving cape. Suddenly I felt the glamour of being there, with the encircling crowd, electric and still, and we drawing their eyes like two poles in a magnetic field. So I stood my ground and moved the jacket slowly, inviting the bull to charge. He watched slyly, lowered his head still further, blew with his rosy nostrils in the sand and pawed the ground delicately with his hoof. Then, in a rush, he made up his mind. With a snort of pleasurable anger he charged me across the ring, jauntily as a tug in bucking water. Nearer and nearer he came, kicking up the sand like spray. I kept my feet together and moved the jacket slowly to the right. Then something terrible went wrong. For at the last moment, instead of following the cape, he turned sharply, rolling his eyes, and caught me head-on with his hard, black skull. I remember being conscious of no pain at all, only of the high, excited screams of the women and of a sense of utter surprise and letdown . This was not at all what was supposed to have happened. Somebody wasn’t playing the game. Instinctively I grasped his horns, like the handle-bars of a cycle, and hung there grimly, while he carried me across the ring, bounced me a couple of times on his cranium, and then dropped me in a heap on the sand. He left me where I fell and trotted arrogantly away. So I picked myself up, retrieved my tattered jacket, and turned to face him again. The sun shone blue on his steaming flanks. I heard the dry, excited chatter of the crowd. I heard the cries of my two companions urging me to get out of it quick. But I could not, there were faces to be saved. Besides I was feeling cross; that first toss had been a mistake, a miscalculation, but it would not happen again. So, I stamped my foot and shouted (though not very loud) and the bull turned and looked at me again, rather disdainfully, and flicked his tail, and did nothing. This was even more embarrassing. So, croaking, I raised my voice and began to jump up and down; and at last the beast obliged. It was all over very quickly. He came at me head down, very fast: I made great play with my cape; but this time with impudent humour, he ignored it altogether, caught me fair and square between the horns and tossed me right across the ring. 110 Fortunately he was a pacific bull, content to teach his own wry lessons in his own way, so again he...