CELPIP Reading Part 3 Practice Test: Ottawa’s Tulips: A Gift of Thanks

Paragraph A

Every May, Ottawa bursts into colour as hundreds of thousands of tulips bloom across the city. They line the banks of the Rideau Canal and fill flower beds in parks and in front of government buildings, and the largest displays are found at Commissioners Park, beside Dow’s Lake. The flowers appear in a wide range of colours, from deep reds to nearly white. Residents and tourists come to photograph them, and the Canadian Tulip Festival draws large crowds each spring. Yet many of the people who stroll past the flower beds have no idea why the capital is so devoted to this particular flower. The answer lies in the Second World War and in a friendship between Canada and the Netherlands.

Paragraph B

When German forces invaded the Netherlands in May 1940, the Dutch royal family was forced to flee. Princess Juliana, the heir to the throne, came to Ottawa with her two young daughters and spent most of the war years there, living quietly in the capital. In 1943, she gave birth to a third daughter, Princess Margriet, at the Ottawa Civic Hospital. Because a child born on Canadian soil would normally be a Canadian citizen, the Canadian government took the unusual step of declaring the hospital rooms temporarily outside Canada, so that the baby would be Dutch only. On the day she was born, the Dutch flag was flown from the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill.

Paragraph C

Meanwhile, Canadian soldiers played a major part in freeing the Netherlands. In the autumn of 1944 and the spring of 1945, they fought through the flooded fields and towns of the country, and many lost their lives there. The fighting was slow and costly, since the low, wet ground made it hard for vehicles to move. By then, the population in the west of the country was in desperate need. During the bitter “Hunger Winter” of 1944–45, food supplies were cut off, and some families were reduced to eating tulip bulbs to survive. When Canadian troops arrived, they were greeted as heroes. Even today, Dutch schoolchildren and families look after the graves of Canadian soldiers buried in the Netherlands.

Paragraph D

In the autumn of 1945, the Netherlands sent 100,000 tulip bulbs to Ottawa to thank Canadians for their help. Princess Juliana, who became queen in 1948, continued to send bulbs to the city every year. The flowers became such a feature of the capital that a festival was organized around them in the early 1950s, and it grew into one of Ottawa’s best-known events. Each autumn, gardeners plant fresh bulbs so that the beds are ready when the snow melts. Bulbs still arrive from the Netherlands every year, and for many Canadians and Dutch people, the tulips remain a living symbol of the bond formed between the two countries during the war.