CAE Reading and Use of English Part 7: Gapped Text

On my living-room wall I have a painting of a wildcat by John Holmes of which I am extremely fond. It depicts a snarling, spitting animal, teeth bared and back arched: a taut coiled spring ready to unleash some unknown fury.

1) 

However, the physical differences are tangible. The wildcat is a much larger animal, weighing in some cases up to seven kilos, the same as a typical male fox. The coat pattern is superficially similar to a domestic tabby cat but it is all stripes and no spots. The tail is thicker and blunter, with three to five black rings. The animal has an altogether heavier look.

The Scottish wildcat was originally distinguished as a separate subspecies in 1912, but it is now generally recognised that there is little difference between the Scottish and other European populations. According to an excellent report on the wildcat printed in 1991, the animals originally occurred in a variety of habitats throughout Europe.

2) 

It was during the nineteenth century, with the establishment of many estates used by landowners for hunting, that the wildcat became a nuisance and its rapid decline really began; 198 wildcats were killed in three years in the area of Glengarry, for example. However, things were later to improve for the species.

3) 

The future is by no means secure, though, and recent evidence suggests that the wildcat is particularly vulnerable to local eradication, especially in the remoter parts of northern and western Scotland. This is a cause for real concern, given that the animals in these areas have less contact with domestic cats and are therefore purer.

4) 

Part of the problem stems from the fact that the accepted physical description of the species originates from the selective nature of the examination process by the British Natural History Museum at the start of the century, and this has been used as the type-definition for the animal ever since. Animals that did not conform to that large blunt-tailed ‘tabby’ description were discarded as not being wildcats. In other words, an artificial collection of specimens was built up, exhibiting the features considered typical of the wildcat.

The current research aims to resolve this potential problem. It is attempting to find out whether there are any physical features which characterise the so-called wild-living cats.

5) 

But what of his lifestyle? Wildcat kittens are usually born in May/June in a secluded den, secreted in a gap amongst boulders. Another favourite location is in the roots of a tree.

6) 

Rabbits are a favourite prey, and some of the best areas to see wildcats are at rabbit warrens close to the forest and moorland edge. Mice, small birds and even insects also form a large part of the diet, and the animal may occasionally take young deer.

The wildcat is one of the Scottish Highlands’ most exciting animals. Catch a glimpse of one and the memory will linger forever.

A. The recruitment of men to the armed forces during the conflict in Europe from 1914 to 1918 meant there was very little persecution, since gamekeepers went off to fight. As the number of gamekeepers decreased, the wildcat began to increase its range, recolonising many of its former haunts. Extinction was narrowly averted.

B. The wildcat waits for a while in rapt concentration, ears twitching and eyes watching, seeing everything and hearing everything, trying to detect the tell-tale movement of a vole or a mouse. But there is nothing, and in another leap he disappears into the gloom.

C. The results, which are expected shortly, will be fascinating. But anyone who has seen a wildcat will be in little doubt that there is indeed a unique and distinctive animal living in the Scottish Highlands, whatever his background.

D. They probably used deciduous and coniferous woodland for shelter, particularly in winter, and hunted over more open areas such as forest edge, open woodland, thickets and scrub, grassy areas and marsh. The wildcat was probably driven into more mountainous areas by a combination of deforestation and persecution.

E. As the animals emerge, their curiosity is aroused by every movement and rustle in the vegetation. Later they will accompany their mother on hunting trips, learning quickly, and soon become adept hunters themselves.

F. This is what makes many people think that the wildcat is a species in its own right. Research currently being undertaken by Scottish Natural Heritage is investigating whether the wildcat really is distinct from its home- living cousin, or whether it is nothing more than a wild-living form of the domestic cat.

G. It is a typical image most folk have of the beast, but it is very much a false one, for the wildcat is little more than a bigger version of the domestic cat, and probably shows his anger as often.

Retail street theatre was all the rage in the 1920s. ‘Audiences’ would throng the pavement outside Selfridge’s store in London just to gawp at the display beyond acres of plate glass. As a show, it made any production of Chekhov seem action-packed by comparison. Yet Gordon Selfridge, who came to these shores from the US and opened on Oxford Street exactly 100 years ago, was at the cutting edge of what Dr Rebecca Scragg from the history of art department at Warwick University calls ‘a mini-revolution’ in the art of window dressing.

1)

“As Britain struggled to regain economic stability after the war, the importance of the new mass commerce to the country’s recovery was recognised,” says Rebecca. “Finally understood was the need to use the display windows to full advantage as an advertising medium to attract trade. The new style of window dressing that came into its own after the armistice took inspiration from the theatre and the fine and decorative arts. It involved flamboyant design and drew huge crowds.”

2)

In the course of her research, Scragg spent some time in the British Library studying the growing number of trade journals that sprang up between 1921 and 1924 to meet the market made up from this new breed of professional. “I saw a picture in one of them of the Annual General Meeting of the British Association of Display Men,” she says, “and there were only two women there”. The 1920s saw a big growth in major department stores in the main cities and they would all have had a budget for window dressing.

3)

An elegant mannequin is positioned at the centre of a huge garland, sporting an off-the-shoulder number and an enormous headdress that might have been worn by an empress in ancient Egypt. At her feet are swathes of ruffled material and positioned around her any number of adornments.

4)

Over eighty years on, and the economy is once again in recession. Retailers complain about falling sales. But are they doing enough to seduce the passing customer? Scragg thinks not. “There are many high street chains and independent shops whose windows are, by the standards of the 1920s, unimaginative,” she maintains. “They’re passed over for more profitable but often less aesthetically pleasing forms of advertising, such as the Internet.”

5)

“I’m not making any claims that this is great or fine art” Scragg says. “My interest is in Britain finding new ways of creating visual expression.” Scragg is about to submit a paper on her research into the aesthetics of window dressing to one of the leading journals in her field.

6)

So, although retail theatre may have been in its infancy, retail as leisure or therapy for a mass market was still a long way in the future.

Some of the photographic evidence unearthed by Scragg after her trawl through the trade journals is quite spectacular. One EJ Labussier, an employee of Selfridge’s, won the Drapers Record trophy for his imaginative use of organdie, a slightly stiff fabric that was particularly popular with the dressmakers of the day.

В

“Selfridge’s remains an exception,” she concedes, “even if it’s difficult today to imagine the store coming up with a spectacular Rococo setting to display something as mundane as a collection of white handkerchiefs.” No doubt it brought sighs, even gasps, from those with their noses almost pressed up against the window but could it really be taken too seriously?

C

Scragg describes herself as “a historian of art and visual culture with an interest in the reception of art”. “This interest in window displays evolved from my PhD on British art in the 1920s,” she says. “I started by looking at exhibitions in shops and that led on to the way that the shops themselves were moving into new forms of design.”

D

One of the illustrations she will include is a 1920s photograph of a bus proceeding towards Selfridge’s with an advertisement for ‘self-denial week’ on the side. For many of those in the crowds on the pavement, self-denial was a given. They couldn’t afford to spend.

E

The big department store continues to uphold the tradition of presenting lavish and eye-catching window displays today and uses the best artists and designers to create and dress them. Advances in technology have meant that the displays grow ever more spectacular.

F

“He was trying to aestheticise retailing,” she explains. “The Brits were so far behind the Americans, the French and the Germans in this respect that it was another decade before they fully realised its importance.”

G

“There was always a great concern for symmetry and harmony,” Scragg observes. “And a whole industry grew up around the stands and backdrops, the ironmongery and architecture, needed to display these things.” The displays were extravagant and bold, taking a great deal of time and imagination to perfect. The glamour attracted attention and lifted people’s spirits at a difficult