Read two texts about human memory. For questions 1–4, choose the answer that best matches the text and circle the appropriate letter (A, B, C or D).

MEMORY MAN

Amos Decker, finally back on duty, sat on a bench, waiting. A sparrow zipped across in front of him, narrowly dodged a passing car before soaring upward, catching a breeze, and drifting away. He noted the make, model, plate number, and physical descriptions of all the passengers in the car before it passed him by. Then a bus rolled to a stop nearby. He ran his gaze over it, making the same observations. A plane soared overhead, low enough for him to recognize it as a United 737, a later model because of the winglets. Sleek, silver, fast, bullet-like. Two young men walked past. Observed, recorded. Next, a woman with a dog. A German shepherd. Not that old but with bad hips. Probably dysplasia, common in the breed. Recorded. A man jabbering away on his smartphone. Dressed far too nicely. Maybe a hedge fund manager, malpractice lawyer, or real estate developer. Memory stored. On the other side of the street an old woman in a wheelchair was being rolled out of a medical transport van. Imprinted.
Cataloguing observations has become habitual though unintentional for him. Amos Decker noted all of this and more as his mind sorted through everything that was in front of him. Deducing here and there. Speculating sometimes. Guessing other times. He closed his eyes to block out his recent street observations, though it was all still there, like a cinema screen on the inside of his eyeballs. It would always be there. He often wanted to forget what he had just seen. But everything in his head was recorded in permanent marker. He either dialled it up when needed or it popped up of its own accord. The former was helpful, the latter infinitely frustrating.
A few long months earlier, tormented by compulsive memories of his wife prematurely passing away, he had hit rock bottom. He ceased to see his clients and gave up all his cases. He lost the house to foreclosure, and “downsized” to a sleeping bag in the park. Bloated, dirty, wild-haired, bushy-bearded, he looked as if he was living in a cave somewhere, attempting to conspire with aliens. And he pretty much was, until he woke up in a Walmart parking lot one morning not long ago, staring at a Georgia-Pacific logo on the inside of his corrugated box and had the churning epiphany that Cassie would have been deeply ashamed of what he had become. So he cleaned himself up, worked a bunch of odd jobs and saved some dollars to temporarily move into a room in the suburbs. He hung out his Private Investigator shingle and took whatever cases came his way. They were mostly lowball, low pay, but they were something. His beard was still bushy, his hair still pretty wild, but his clothes were reasonably clean. Progress was always to be measured in inches, especially when you didn’t have yards or even feet of success to show off.
Suddenly, a loud bang brought him back to reality. As he looked to his left, he saw it was time to get to the next stage of his surveillance. He rose and headed after the two people he’d been waiting for.

adapted from Memory Man by David Baldacci