金鐘教育中心 · Echo Academy

DSE-ENG-P1-A · READING NOTES

Part A notes · Keeping the Glow

甲部筆記

Part A is compulsory and is worth 42 marks. This practice paper has one text, Text 1. Read the paragraph map before you answer. Words in the summary and vocabulary questions must be copied from the text, with the spelling unchanged.

先讀筆記，再做試卷甲部。乙部一的筆記在另一頁。這不是考評局的過去試卷。

甲部筆記 PDF乙部一筆記

What this part is testing這一部分考甚麼

  • Literal points sit in one sentence. Inference points need two sentences: what the words say, and what they suggest.
  • True / False / Not Given: True and False must be decided by the paragraph named in the question. If the paragraph never makes the comparison, the answer is NG, even when the idea sounds likely.
  • A reference word such as It refers to the noun just before it, not to the whole paragraph.
  • A one-word answer must be a word that is already printed in the named paragraph.

Paragraph map分段大意

  • Paragraph 1. The shutter is half down and the goldfish is a neon tube, not a pet. Visitors must stand by the wall because the floor is for working. Mr Leung has bent neon in Sham Shui Po for forty-one years.
  • Paragraph 2. A sign-maker heats glass and bends it freehand, then fills the tube with gas. Leung mixes the gases and keeps the recipes in a notebook with no cover. A machine can copy a shape. It cannot decide when the glass is about to break. It means a machine.
  • Paragraph 3. The shop used to supply restaurants. In 2012 he employed five people. Rents rose, and restaurants chose printed light boxes because they are cheaper to hang and easier to repair. By 2019 only Leung and one assistant remained. The assistant left for a delivery job that paid more. The text does not say whether that pay is higher than Leung’s. Leung worked alone for two years and thought of locking the door if his hands became too stiff.
  • Paragraph 4. Mei Wong, a design student, wanted a typeface that did not look computer-drawn. Leung refused a two-week placement, then let her stay after she swept the floor, on condition she did not touch the burner. She touched it on the fourth day. He shouted. She returned the next morning. That was three years ago. She is his only apprentice. She adds café shifts to a trainee wage.
  • Paragraph 5. Tour groups stay for twelve minutes and call the work a dying art. Leung rejects that phrase: he is working, not dying. Mei accepts the cameras because the videos sometimes bring a real order: a cha chaan teng in Tai Po, a bookstore in Central, and a clinic that wanted a bilingual name. Those orders pay for the gas bottles. Leung admits they do not replace the restaurant contracts. Admits means he says, unwillingly, that something is true.
  • Paragraph 6. The landlord wants to redevelop the block. A residents’ group wants the workshop listed as a place of cultural interest. Leung has not joined. Saving the shop without saving the rent is, in his words, only saving a room. Mei has joined. She thinks a listing could buy time to train two more apprentices. He thinks time without orders is a slower way to close.
  • Paragraph 7. On a Tuesday in March a wire cracked and the goldfish went dark. Mei climbed the ladder. Leung stayed on the pavement because his knee would not take the climb. He wrote the repair in the notebook. Mei numbered the page, because you number things when you expect someone else to read them. He did not answer, and he did not rub the number out.
  • Paragraph 8. The redevelopment decision is due in June. An evening class of six, paid for by a design museum, bends plastic tubes because Leung will not let them use the burner. Plastic does not glow. They can learn the shape; the fire can wait. Mei has priced a smaller unit in Kwai Chung. The rent is lower, and a bus would not see the goldfish. He has not said yes. He has started leaving the notebook on her side of the bench.

Leung or Mei誰的看法

  • Mei: a cultural listing might buy time to train two more apprentices. A cheaper unit is worth pricing, even if the goldfish cannot be seen from a bus.
  • Leung: time without orders is only a slower way to close. Learners can start with shapes; the fire can wait. He has not joined the residents’ group.
  • Leaving the notebook on Mei’s side suggests he expects her to read the recipes and carry the work on. It is a step towards her continuing the workshop. He still has not said yes. “He trusts her”, with no second point, is only half of the mark.

Words to copy要從原文抄的字

  • freehand — bent by hand, with no machine guiding the shape.
  • typeface — what Mei was looking for.
  • admits — says unwillingly that something is true.
  • lower — the Kwai Chung rent compared with the present shop.
  • Summary gaps, in order: forty-one, boxes, café, interest, wire, June. Copy the spelling from the text. Forty-one is hyphenated. Café keeps the accent if that is how the text prints it.

Traps容易失分

  • Printed light boxes are easier to repair, not harder. That statement is False.
  • The assistant’s new job paid more than the assistant’s old job. It is Not Given whether the assistant now earns more than Leung.
  • “They have saved a room” does not mean the residents have already won. It means a listing that leaves the rent unsolved does not keep the workshop alive.
  • Do not write that Leung climbed the ladder. Mei climbed. His knee kept him on the pavement.
  • The evening class uses plastic because Leung refused the burner, not because plastic glows or because the museum cannot buy glass.