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PART III. TESTS ON READING
Text 1
All her life Mrs. Foster had had an almost pathological fear o f missing a train, a plane, a 
boat or even a theatre curtain. In other respects, she was not a particularly nervous woman, but the 
mere thought o f being late on occasions like these would throw her into such a state o f nerves that 
she would begin to twitch. It was nothing much - just a tiny muscle in the comer o f the left eye, like 
a secret wink - but the annoying thing was that it refused to disappear until an hour or so after the 
train or plane or whatever it was had been safely caught.
It was really extraordinary how in certain people a simple apprehension about a thing like 
catching a train can grow into a serious obsession. At least half an hour before it was time to leave 
the house for the station, Mrs. Foster would step out o f the elevator all ready to go, with hat and 
coat and gloves, and then, being quite unable to sit down, she would flutter and fidget about from 
room to room until her husband, who must have been well aware o f her state, finally emerged from 
his privacy and suggested in a cool dry voice that perhaps they had better get going now, had they 
not?
Mr. Foster may possibly have had a right to be irritated by this foolishness o f his wife, but 
he could have had no excuse for increasing her misery by keeping her waiting unnecessarily. Mind 
you, it is by no means certain that this is what he did, yet whenever they were to go somewhere, his 
timing was so accurate - ju st a minute or two late, you understand - and his manner so bland that it 
was hard to believe he wasn't purposely indicting a nasty private little torture o f his own on the 
unhappy lady. And one thing he must have known - that she would never dare to call out and tell 
him to hurry. He had disciplined her too well for that. He must also have known that if he was 
prepared to wait even beyond the last moment o f safety, he could drive her nearly into hysterics. On 
one or two special occasions in the later years o f their married life, it seemed almost as though he 
had wanted to miss the train simply in order to intensify the poor woman's suffering

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