C2Reading and Use of EnglishParte 6
Gapped text
You are going to read an extract. Seven paragraphs have been removed from the extract. Choose from the paragraphs A-H the one which fits each gap (1-7). There is one extra paragraph which you do not need to use.
The Quiet Craft of Making Things Last
On a wet Saturday in late November, I followed the hand-drawn arrows taped to lampposts and found the repair café in a church hall that smelled faintly of coffee and damp coats. Inside, the tables were arranged like a small clinic: triage at the door, then stations for sewing, electronics, bicycles, and “miscellaneous mysteries”. People queued with toasters, lamps, headphones, and one forlorn stuffed bear whose ear had come loose. It was not the frantic energy of a shop but the patient hum of a place where time was allowed to take its time.
Moreover, the rules were quietly radical: no money changed hands, and the owner had to sit with the fixer. This insistence on company altered everything. Instead of dropping off a kettle like a parcel, you stayed, watched, held screws, fetched tea, and answered questions you hadn’t expected to be asked. At that point I realised how much modern convenience depends on separation—between user and maker, problem and person, purchase and consequence.
However, the repair that stayed with me happened at the sewing table. A man in a supermarket uniform placed a winter coat on the cloth like an injured animal and pointed to a torn pocket. He spoke quietly, explaining that the pocket held a bus pass and a set of keys, and that losing either would cost more than the coat itself. The volunteer, a brisk woman called Lena, didn’t scold him for cheap fabric or rough use; instead, she asked how he moved at work, where the strain fell, and what would make the seam stronger next time. In that exchange, practicality and dignity were stitched together.
This is where the repair café becomes more than a hobbyist’s corner of the city. The volunteers talked about “planned obsolescence” and “right to repair” in the same breath as they discussed needle sizes and soldering tips. Yet their politics were practical: they kept jars of salvaged screws, labelled drawers of cables, and a battered notebook of common faults. In other words, their argument was made in methods, not manifestos, and it was hard to dismiss because you could watch it working.
On my way out, the clipboard volunteer asked whether I’d learned anything. I wanted to say something grand about waste streams and carbon footprints, but what came out was simpler: I’d learned to stay with the problem. Outside, the rain had eased into a mist, and the taped arrows were already curling at the edges. Still, the hall behind me held its steady hum, and I carried home a working radio and a new suspicion that durability is not a feature you buy, but a practice you share.
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