Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions from 29 to 33. Captain Matthew Webb is fortunate in being remembered as the first man to swim the English Channel, rather than the one who later tried, and failed, to plunge through the Niagara Falls. If ever a man possessed an abundance of self-confidence, it was Webb; but it was his stubborn refusal to give up that eventually proved his undoing. ...

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions from 29 to 33.

Captain Matthew Webb is fortunate in being remembered as the first man to swim the English Channel, rather than the one who later tried, and failed, to plunge through the Niagara Falls. If ever a man possessed an abundance of self-confidence, it was Webb; but it was his stubborn refusal to give up that eventually proved his undoing. Unwilling to recognise the Channel crossing as the peak of his career, he went on and on, addicted to glory, literally swimming himself to death.

Webb astonished the British nation on August 25, 1875, with a Channel crossing that took a mammoth 21 hours and 45 minutes. He had entered the sea a merchant-ship captain living in obscurity, but he emerged in France, stung by jellyfish and half-dead with exhaustion, a national hero. He was feted, mobbed and cheered wherever he went. But all this stardom was too much for him, and he made the fatal error of many a pop star in later years. Craving applause, he very nearly dissolved himself in a series of marathon swims for money, including a six-day endurance contest. Then he sailed for America, and he had a punishing schedule of long swims there. It was America that lured Webb to the final act in his tragedy; his crazed attempt to swim the Niagara River beneath the Falls in June 1883. Regardless of all advice, he dived in from a boat and subsided forever into the boiling rapids.