2.B.        

Read the text and choose the right answer to the questions that follow the text.

Guy Fawkes Night.

A tradition which is observed in England today is to celebrate the 5^th of November, Guy Fawkes Night or Bonfire Night. On this evening people remember the Gunpowder Plot which was discovered on the 5^th of November 1605. at that time there were political and religious difficulties in England and there was a plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament and so to kill the king who was going to open Parliament that evening. Guy Fawkes was one of the men who took part in this plot and it was he, who was found in the cellars with the gunpowder on the evening of November, 5^th. Of course, he was executed for his part in such a plot.

Nowadays it’s a custom that in the weeks before the 5^th of November children make "a guy”, named after Guy Fawkes. The word "guy” in English now means a sort of a doll made of straw, pieces of material and old clothes which is usually as big as a man. The children paint a face on their guy, then in two weeks before the 5^th of November they wheel the guy on a wheelbarrow or a trolley around the streets and stop passers-by. "A penny for the guy, a penny for the guy”, they shout. What they want is to get money from the passers-by and to spend it for fireworks.

On November, 5^th when it is dark the guy is placed on the top of the bonfire and it’s lit. However there is one place in England where the guy is never burnt. In St. Peter’s School in York the boys make no guys. They explain this in the following way: "Guy Fawkes was a pupil of our school and it is our school policy never to burn any of our old pupils”.

There are four things which are associated with Bonfire Night. The first of these is Bonfire toffee. The toffee is made at home by the mothers during the day time and pieces of it are handed out to the children as they stand watching the fireworks and warming themselves at the bonfire. They also eat toffee apples, apples which are placed on sticks and covered with toffee.

In the fire the children also bake potatoes. They bake them whole in their skins and eat them with butter and salt. And they roast sweet chestnuts. There are plenty of them at this time of a year.

Bonfire Night is the most enjoyable tradition when children have a lot of fun. English children in a rhyme say that they always continue to observe the custom. It sounds like this:

Remember, remember

The 5^th of November.

Gunpowder, treason and plot,

For I see no reason

Why gunpowder treason

Should ever be forgot.