Question 13 - Reading Practice Test for the CBEST

(1) You must try to understand that when I finished school I was as raw as raw could be. (2) I had never travelled anywhere on my own, never purchased a train ticket, since like most kids my age I had only travelled with my parents or relatives and they made all the decisions. (3) I had no experience of how to handle money (my knowledge being limited to spending the 50 paise or one rupee I would receive as pocket money now and then). (4) So while I had set my sights on traveling far and wide my parents wisely thought that I should begin by learning to manage on my own within Goa itself. ______________________ (5) It was also the rainy season and traveling around the country would be much more difficult they explained.

(6) So I started out by helping at an aquarium shop in Mapusa, the town nearest my village. (7) The proprietor of the shop is Ashok D’Cruz, a college friend of my father’s. (8) I must tell you about Ashok. (9) He is no ordinary businessman: keeping fish is a passion with him. (10) He is far more interested in chatting with his customers about fish than making money selling them. (11) I have never seen him forcing any of his customers to buy from his stock of aquarium fish.