Passage 2: Questions 24-27 refer to the following advertisement.
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Passage 3
        Of all the accessories and adornments to garments one perhaps pays least of all attention to buttons. Functional and often unexciting, replaced by zip fasteners or hooks and eyes there is, one would think, nothing much to be said about the humble button.
        Yet it is very probable that buttons started life as ornaments; certainly it is not known that they had any practical function until the 13th century. By the 14th century buttons were once again ornamental, often lavishly so, to such an extent that it was by no means uncommon for a person of wealth and consequence to have as many as 300 buttons on a single article of dress. Unimaginable as it seems today, sewing superfluous buttons on clothes became a craze—not one that seems harmful to us though some Italians took a different view and a law against buttons was enforced in Florence. No buttons were to be worn on the upper arms; penalty for disobedience—a sound whipping. (How often this had to be carried out, history does not relate!)
        Most of the buttons on modern clothes which could be called decorative once did in fact serve a useful purpose. Buttons on boots are one good example. Sleeve buttons on men's coats are a reminder of the days when the fashion was for wearing shirts with frilly lace cuffs.
        On the tails of a modern tail coat there are indeed buttons which are purely ornamental but in earlier days horsemen used these buttons to keep the tails out of harm's way.
        With regard to the side on which clothes are buttoned, originally both male and female dress was buttoned on the left hand side. Changes came when men had to have access to their swords.
        So perhaps it is worth taking a look at buttons.

Passage 4
        The small platform became increasingly crowded and by quarter to nine (half an hour after the train was due) there was hardly space to move. Mostly the people were farmers and their wives going in to the local market town for market day. The elderly taxi which was all that the district boasted rattled and screeched its way into the station yard and shuddered to a halt just as the train finally rumbled into the station. Mrs. Smith, a stout elderly woman whom I knew well by sight, tumbled out clutching a shabby bag, a mackintosh and various parcels. Puffing and panting, she shoved her way through the crowd till she reached the engine, and, to my intense amusement, climbed up into the cab.
        "Bill,"she bellowed above the noise of the train."Sarah's had the baby—it's a boy!"
        All the would-be passengers let out a cheer and I realized that of course Mrs. Smith was the engine driver's aunt.
        "Thanks!"said Bill. The engine gave out an ear-splitting whistle and we hastily climbed in.
        Bill's delight in his fatherhood expressed itself by the speed at which he drove the train and never have I had such a terrifying journey by rail.