Questions 1-10 are based on the following passage.
Here they are,. two North Americans, a man and a
PROSE FICTION: This passage is adapted from the novel Stones for Ibarra by Harriet Doerr (©1984 by Harriet Doerr).
woman just over and just under forty, come to spend
their lives in Mexico and already lost as they travel
cross-country over the central plateau. The driver of the
5 station wagon is Richard Everton, a blue-eyed, black-
haired stubborn man. On the seat beside him is his wife,
Sara. She pictures the adobe house where they intend to
sleep tonight. It is a mile and a half high on the out-
skirts of Ibarra, a declining village of one thousand
10 souls. Tunneled into the mountain is the copper mine
Richard's grandfather abandoned fifty years ago
during the Revolution of 1910.
Dark is coming on and, unless they find a road,
night wiB trap at this desolate spot both the future oper-
15 ator of the Malaguefia mine and the fair-haired unsus-
pecting future mistress of the adobe house. Sara
Everton is anticipating their arrival at a place curtained
and warm, though she knows the house has neither
electricity nor furniture and, least of all, kindling beside
20 the hearth. There is some doubt about running water in
the pipes. The Malaguefia mine, on the other hand, is
flooded up to the second level.
"Let's stop and ask the way," says Sara. And they
take a diagonal course across a cleared space of land.
25 But the owner of this field is nowhere in sight.
"We won't get to Ibarra before dark," says Sara.
"Do you think we'll recognize the house?"
"Yes," he says, and without speaking they sepa-
rately recall a faded photograph of a wide, low struc-
30 ture with a long veranda in front. On the veranda is a
hammock, and in the hammock is Rich,flrd's grand-
mother, dressed in eyelet embroidery ankl holding a
fluted fan.
Five days ago the Evertons left San Francisco in
35 order to extend the family's Mexican history .and patch
the present onto the past. To find out if there was still
copper underground and how much of the rest of it was
true, the width of the sky, the depth of the stars, the air
like new wine. -To weave chance and hope into a fabric
40 that would clothe them as long as they lived
Even their closest friends have failed to under-
stand. "Call us when you get there," they said. "Send a
telegram." But Ibarra lacks these services. "What will
you do for light?" they were asked. And, "How long
45 since someone lived in the house?" But this question
collapsed of its own weight before a reply could be
composed.
Every day for a month Richard has reminded Sara,
"We mustn't expect too much." And each time his wife
50 answered, "no." But the Evertons expect too much.
They have experienced the teuible persuasion of a
great-aunt's recollections and adopted them as their
own. They have not considered that memories are like
corks left out of bottles. They swell. They no longer fit.
55 Now here, lost in the Mexican interior, Richard
and Sara remember the rock pick Richard's grandfather
gave him when he was six. His grandfather had used
the pick himself to chip away copper ore from extru-
sions that coursed like exposed arteries down the slopes
60 of the mountains
"What does he know about mining?" Richard's
friends have asked one another. "What does she know
about gasoline stoves? In case of burns, where will they
find a doctor?" The friends learn that the Evertons are
65 taking a first aid manual, antibiotics for dysentery, and
a snakebite kit. There are other questions relating to
symphony season tickets, Christmas, golf, sailing. To
these, the answers are evasive.
A farmer, leading a burro, approaches the car from
70 behind. He regards the two Americans. "You are not on
the road to Ibarra," he says. "Permit me a moment."
And he gazes first at his feet, then at the mountains,
then at their luggage. "You must drive north on that dry
arroyo for two kilometers and turn left when you reach
75 a road. You will recognize it by the tire tracks of the
morning bus unless rain has fallen. But this is the dry
season."
"Without a tail wind we won't be bothered by the
dust," says Richard, and turns north.
80 He is mistaken. The arroyo is smooth and soft with
dust that, even in still air, spins from the car's wheels
and sifts through sealed surfaces, the flooring, the dash-
board, the factory-tested weather stripping. It etches
black lines on their palms, sands their skin, powders
85 their lashes, and deposits a bitter taste on their tongues.
"This must be the wrong way," says Sara, from
under the sweater she has pulled over her head.
Richard says nothing. He knows it is the right way,
as right as a way to Iba,rra can be, as right as his deci-
90 sion to reopen an idle mine and bring his wife to a
house built half of nostalgia and half of clay.