Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer 10 each of the questions from 15 to 19.
Action sports have always appealed to adventurous minds. The best cure for a stressful working life may not be a week flat-out on a beach; emptying the mind merely leaves it open for the home stresses which you brought with you. Pick up a new challenge, something that is exciting, stretching, new, and you not only escape entirely from that other life, but return to it on a wave of confidence and strength that carries you over the problems which once seemed part of everyday life.
Action sports offer an escape, one where you learn very quickly: in one week or even in one weekend - you can learn more about yourself than you did all year. All inner fears disappear in the burn of concentration demanded by learning to fly, dive, or climb. The pride earned through jumping from an aeroplane at 12,000 feet, or learning to roll a canoe, will stay with you for life. Then there are the other spin-offs; the mental calm which comes with rock-climbing; the moment of freedom felt during that first flight beneath the wing of a glider. All these sports cause a wonderful thrill - be it dashing waves or freefalling through the air at 120 miles per hour - but thrills are just part of the story. Many of these sports double as types of travel. Horses, bicycles, skis, hot-air balloons can be used as vehicles for truly exotic journeys; journeys on which you can look at landscapes (and yourself) from a new angle. And all of these are 'soft' vehicles; ones which allow you to move through, and feel for, the countryside, the mountains and deserts.