The Chess Player - Test 3

C2 Proficiency · Multiple Choice Reading · Proficiency Testbuilder, 4th Edition, Mark Harrison, Macmillan

You are going to read an extract from a magazine article about a chess champion. For questions 1–6, choose the answer (A, B, C or D) which you think fits best according to the text.

In the corner of the room sits the pub champion. He looks like the classic chess bum. Untidy hair. Big beard. His possessions in a white polythene bag by his feet. The chess board is also made of polythene, and the pieces of plastic. The 'table' is an up-ended keg of beer. The pub champion is playing some kid genius from out of town who has just won a London grandmaster tournament. He is called David R. Norwood. (I know. The boy wonder, all of 19, gave me his business card. It said 'David R. Norwood. International Chess Master'.) Now David R. Norwood is, as he will be the first to admit, one of the hottest properties on the international chess circuit. But something funny is happening in his games – played at the rate of about one every ten minutes – against the pub champion. David R. Norwood is not winning any. And he is not merely losing. He is being taken apart. In the argot of the chess player, he is being 'busted'. But David R. does not seem too worried about this denouement. Occasionally he will say, with a smile, 'Hey, you're not such a bad player.' His opponent, Jonathan Speelman, the pub champion, only laughs and sets up the pieces for the next act of slaughter. It is a joke, of course. He is not merely 'not a bad player'. He is possibly the best player in the Western world. After Jon had finally exhausted David R. Norwood's enthusiasm, I asked whether he would mind playing me. Not at all, he said, and played game after game against me until I became more bored by losing than he did by winning. 'Why,' I asked, 'do you put up with playing chess jerks like me?' 'Because I like to play with the pieces,' was the instant and unanswerable reply. My impression while playing Jon was slightly different, namely that the pieces enjoyed playing with him. He gives them the time of their life. These plastic pieces, property of the pub, had probably never before experienced more than the intellectual equivalent of being cooped up in a shed. With Jon, they were roaming free across vast expanses. His friends, incidentally, do not call him Jon. They do not call him Speelman either. They call him 'Spess'. This stems from a report in The Times about ten years ago of a tournament in which Speelman was taking part. But, Times sub-editors being Times sub-editors, his name inadvertently came out as 'Specimen'. In view of his rather weird appearance, fellow chess players decided that this was, if not his real name, at least descriptively accurate, and so Specimen, and then later Spess, he became. On many personal matters, Jon Speelman is difficult to interview. He is very self-conscious, a keen practitioner of self-psychoanalysis. The result is that he is only too aware of the implications which might be drawn from anything he might say. Worse, he was so concerned about what I was writing down that he would stare at my pad when I noted anything, attempting to read my scribble upside-down. In an effort to counter this awkward turning of the tables, I began deliberately to write in messier and messier scrawl. Afterwards I was quite unable to read many of my own notes. Later I surmised that the chess player in Speelman had calculated that his scrutiny of my notepad would have this effect, and that it was a deliberate attempt to reduce the number of personal details I would be able to decipher. If that sounds convoluted, it is quite in character with Speelman's way of playing chess. Some great players reveal their greatness through the simplicity of their methods. Others, more unusually, have a genius to confuse, an ability to generate chaos, out of which only they can perceive a clear path to victory. This is Speelman's method. But such a style is one which makes enormous demands on the exponent's nervous system. When he plays, Speelman is all nervous, twitchy movement. His hands play with his beard, his glasses, anything he can reach. He makes strange clicking noises. He will get up from the board and stand over it and his opponent, nodding his head as if checking through the variations. ('He goes there, I go there, he goes there …') I asked him how many moves he can see ahead. 'It's a silly question,' he replied, 'but it's not too difficult to imagine a position in which one could calculate 25 moves ahead.' 25 moves on each side, he means. That is 50 moves in total. Try saying 'he goes there, I go there' 25 times. Now you get the picture.

he found David R. Norwood rather arrogant.

it is strange for chess players to have business cards.

the best chess players tend to be scruffy in appearance.

he likes to see chess played in informal surroundings.

In the first paragraph, the writer implies that

They might have different outcomes if they were being played in a real tournament.

They indicate that Jonathan Speelman does not have a high regard for David R. Norwood.

They involve David R. Norwood making jokes to cover his embarrassment.

They indicate that there is a huge gulf between the standard of the two players.

What does the writer say about the games between David R. Norwood and Jonathan Speelman?

preferred to play than to indulge in polite conversation as well.

had an approach to the game that made other approaches seem limited in comparison.

was doing his best not to let the games bore him.

was adopting an approach he would not use if he was playing in a serious game.

When the writer played Jonathan Speelman, he felt that Speelman

It indicates that he is regarded as a rather distant figure.

It is not very flattering.

It is connected with his style of playing.

It was first used as a joke.

What does the writer say about Speelman's nickname?

he saw it as the kind of thing the writer would expect of him.

he felt that he could get a clear picture of a person from the way they wrote.

he was aware that this would put the writer off while he was making them.

he wanted to make sure that certain complex points he had made were correctly understood.

The writer says that Speelman tried to read the notes he was making because

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