Public reading rooms

Source A: a newly written contemporary non-fiction-style account.

“On Monday evening I entered our new library at six. It stays open until nine on weekdays, and membership is free. I had booked a computer for half an hour because my own had broken. Upstairs there are meeting rooms and a small recording studio. Downstairs, a volunteer helped a man fill in an online form. I had expected to borrow time on a machine; instead I found a building patiently translating the modern world for its visitors.

Screens glowed along the wall like a row of open windows. At one, a woman spoke softly to a relative overseas; at another, a boy revised while his little sister coloured beside him. The room was not silent, but its sounds were purposeful: a question, an explanation, a relieved laugh. Outside, the shops were closing. Here the evening was still opening. For once, a warm public room asked for neither a purchase nor an explanation of why I needed to be there.

I do miss the long tables of the old reading room. There are evenings when concentration would be easier without a conversation nearby. Yet it would be a poor victory to gain perfect quiet by excluding people with urgent, noisy problems. The answer must be enough space for both. A library should not have to choose between a reader escaping the world and a visitor trying to navigate it.”

Source B: a newly written letter in a nineteenth-century voice. This is a period-voice simulation, not an archival document.

“Sir, I write to commend the recent opening of the public reading room, while expressing a concern about the hours of admission. I work in a warehouse until seven in the evening. The room closes at eight, and the walk there occupies nearly half an hour. Thus a privilege announced for the benefit of working people allows some of us scarcely time to find a book before we must return it to its place.

On my first visit I found the tables clean, the lamps well tended and a collection of books far beyond anything I could purchase. To sit among them was to discover that my street was not the boundary of the world. I read an account of distant mountains and was transported without the loss of a day's wages. The attendant was courteous, though obliged to remind me that the closing bell had already sounded.

I ask for no alteration that would deny the staff their proper rest. Might the room open later on two evenings, with other hours adjusted accordingly? It would be unfortunate if so admirable an institution became chiefly useful to those already possessing the leisure and means to read at home. A door may be publicly opened and remain, in practice, difficult to enter.”

Refer only to the first paragraph of Source A. Select exactly FOUR true statements. Write their four letters in the answer box.

A. Computer use was booked for two hours.

B. The writer’s own computer has broken.

C. The recording studio is downstairs.

D. The writer arrives at nine.

E. Weekday closing time is nine.

F. The writer arrives on Monday evening.

G. Membership is free.

H. The volunteer is repairing the writer’s computer.