MAP-TP motorist drives to work as usual. Trains and buses run on time and get businessmen, office workers and schoolchildren to work at 8.30 a.m. A business day ends at 4 p.m.the children start home at 2.30 after only the briefest of lunch-breaks The dryness of the climate means that light, warm clothing keeps the cold out, and if you kick the snow you see it rise in a flurry of rice-like grains. In December Oslo has a mean temperature of -3-C falling to -40 C in January and February and rising to zero in March. From early December the Christmas trees-always hung with white lights-appear in the streets of towns and villages giving off an almost ethereal glow in the snow. A particularly tall one is set up in the forecourt of Oslo University, and as the holiday season draws near every Norwegian ship and fishing boat-sailing in home waters or far a field-will have a Christmas tree on its mast. American-style designs have recently captured the Christmas card markets, but fortunately it is still possible to send and to receive the old Norwegian postcard-type. These have pictures of the Julenisse (Christmas gnomes in scarlet caps with white beards), snowy farmsteads with horses, sleighs and brightly feathered winter birds that perch like coloured decorations on the snowy trees and feast on the sheaf of corn saved for them from the summer harvest and set up outside every farmhouse on Christmas Eve. This custom of giving not only the birds but every animal on the farm a special tit bit on Christmas Eve (the cows often get salted herring, which they likel)originates from the old belief that "they were in the stable too' 1. When does the snow first fall in Norway? D. Before the Christmas period is over A. Before Christmas. B. At Christmas. C. Around Christmas. 2. The silence that follows the falling of the snow __ B. has a different quality to it. A. is deeper than before. D. is the silence normally experienced in snow-covered mountains. C. is associated with the quietness of the falling snow. 3. What impression is given of the Northern Lights? A. The colours keep changing to other colours. B. They appear as stripes of colour. C. They cast a hard and brilliant light. D. There is a smooth floating effect of colour. 4. The trains run __ a . exactly D. every hour A. punctually B. frequently 5. What impression is given of the Christmas trees with their lights in Norway? A. They can be seen almost everywhere. B. They cast a faint but beautiful light. C. They illuminate the falling snow. D. They glitter againsi the surrounding whiteness What is the writer's attitude towards the typical Norwegian Christmas card? 6 A. She regards them as far more beautiful than American-style ones. B. She considers they give a true picture of Norway. C. She is glad they are still produced. D. She feels angry about their gradual disappearance. The fact that the Christmas feeding of the birds is a national tradition is suggested by __ A. the places in which the corn is put. B. the saving of the sheaf of corn at harvest-time. C. the fact that it is corn that is given. D. the idea of feeding all the farm animals at Christmas time.