(PUC - RS -1999)TEXTSylvia, a plump, pint-sized se

(PUC - RS - 1999)

TEXT

Sylvia, a plump, pint-sized sexagenarian who ¹may even be ²slightly septuagenarian, was indignant, "Hay-on-Wye is a town, not a village!," she says. Sylvia claims to have a "typical Welsh face". In other words, the features of a ³rather special ethnic group that looks upon the nearby English with scornful disdain. ⁴This town of 1,500 has acquired a unique status because of the 500,000 people who visit the place each year.

⁵Local tourist brochures say that Hay, located at the foot of the verdant Radnorshire Hills, is ⁶the northernmost point in Brecon Beacons National Park south of the Wye river and has the Black Mountains to ⁷its south and west. But ¹⁰neither the park nor the mountains are enough to explain why Hay attracts so many visitors. Even Golden Valley, which ⁸stretches eastward into English - in other words, foreign - territory is not sufficient. The exotic Welsh language - strings of consonants with an occasional stray vowel tossed in here and there - can also be ⁹ruled out.

No, the real reason is that Hay has 31 bookstores for a population of 1,500. Thirty-two if you count the beekeeper's shop located on the edge of town, where a hundred or so books on bees stand next to jars of honey.

(Air France Magazine, March 99.)

The correct passive form of "This town of 1,500 has acquired a unique status" (ref.4) is "A unique status...