* 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 43 to 50. All over the country, young people are entering a world of homelessness and poverty, according to a recent report by the housing group, Shelter. Nearly 150,000 young people aged between sixteen and twenty-five will become homeless this year, says Shelter. Some of the young homeless may sleep out in the open in such places as the “cardboard ...

* 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 43 to 50.

All over the country, young people are entering a world of homelessness and poverty, according to a recent report by the housing group, Shelter.

Nearly 150,000 young people aged between sixteen and twenty-five will become homeless this year, says Shelter. Some of the young homeless may sleep out in the open in such places as the “cardboard city” in London, where people of all ages sleep in the open air in their only home - cardboard boxes. Others may find accommodation in shelters run by voluntary organisations or get a place in a hostel, which gives them board up to ten weeks.

But who are these people? Those who are seeking a roof over their heads are mostly not runaways but “throwaways” — people who have been thrown out of their homes or forced to leave because of parental divorce, an unsympathetic step-parent or one of many other reasons.

Take the case of one six teen-year-old schoolgirl, Alice. She did not come from a poor home and had just passed her exams with good results. The Shelter team met her in a hostel where she was doing her physics homework. Her parents had thrown her out of her home for no other reason that she wanted to do Science Advanced Level Exams - which her parents refused her permissionjo do, saying that studying sciences was unladylike!

Shelter says that the government’s laws do nothing to help these youngsters. Rising rents, the shortage of cheap housing and the cut in benefits for young people under the age of twenty-five are causing a national problem, according to Shelter. The recent changes in the benefit laws mean that someone aged between sixteen and twenty-five gets less than older people and they can only claim state help if they prove that they left home for a good reason.

Shelter believes that because of the major cuts in benefits to young people, more and more are being forced to sleep on the streets. Shelter also points out that if you are homeless, you can’t get a job because employers will not hire someone without a permanent address; and if you can’t get a job, you are homeless because you don’t have any money to pay for accommodation. It’s an impossible situation.

(Source: FCE success workbook)

According to the passage, “benefits” are____________.