### Text 1: from Chivalry (1992)

**[1] Mrs. Whitaker found the Holy Grail; it was under a fur coat.**

Every Thursday afternoon Mrs. Whitaker walked down to the post office to collect her pension, even though her legs were no longer what they were, and on the way back home she would stop in at the Oxfam Shop and buy herself a little something.

The Oxfam Shop sold old clothes, knickknacks, oddments, bits and bobs, and large quantities of old paperbacks, all of them donations: secondhand flotsam, often the house clearances of the dead. All the profits went to charity.

Mrs. Whitaker puttered around the shop.

**[5]** They still hadn't sold the stuffed cobra, she noted. It had been there for six months now, gathering dust, glass eyes gazing balefully at the clothes racks and the cabinet filled with chipped porcelain and chewed toys. Mrs. Whitaker patted its head as she went past.

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1. What is the most likely synonym of the word "puttered" used in paragraph 4?

A. performed

B. tinkered

C. dawdled

D. hindered

2. Read paragraph 2. Which sentence describes an inference that can clearly be made?

A. Mrs. Whitaker is a senior citizen.

B. Mrs. Whitaker needs leg surgery.

C. Mrs. Whitaker is addicted to shopping.

D. Mrs. Whitaker must stop at the shop because she is tired from the walk.

3. The author's purpose for including descriptive language in paragraph 5 is to create a sense of:

A. Calmness

B. Anger

C. Loneliness

D. Disorderliness