�©BBA Educational Resources 2008

BBA PRACTICE MODEL EXAMINATION 2008

ENGLISHLevel Two

RESOURCE BOOKLET

90380

Read unfamiliar texts and analyse the ideas and language features.

Refer to this booklet to answer the questions for Practice Exam English 90380.

Check that this booklet has pages 2-5 in the correct order and that none of these pages is blank.

YOU MUST HAND THIS BOOKLET TO THE SUPERVISOR AT THE END OF THE ASSESSMENT.

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READING WRITTEN TEXTS-PROSE

TEXT A: Breaking the Silence (magazine editorial)

Read Text A below, then answer questions 1-3 in the 90380 Answer Booklet.

TEXT A

New Zealand has come to be known as a nation that likes to lop its tall poppies; to take its heroes down a notch or two. Do not believe it. The growing power of Anzac Day, Poppy Day, is testament to the very contrary. The hunger for heritage is fuelled by a growing urgency to acknowledge and honour the sacrifice of New Zealanders at war.

That is not to say that the deep Kiwi reluctance to highlight individual feats of bravery does not persist. New Zealand has won a greater number of Victoria Crosses, as a proportion of its population, than any other country in the world. And yet Charles Upham – the only combat soldier in history ever to have won two Victoria Crosses – refused always to do anything other than epitomise the modesty of all New Zealand’s combatants in both world wars. The deep reticence of those returning soldiers is understandable: this country suffered extraordinary losses – historian Jock Phillips tells of his awed realisation, for example, that “about every 50 yards” in Invercargill there was a home that had lost a soldier in the First World War. The only way to deal with heartbreak on such a horrific scale was to suppress our emotions. New Zealand simply “anaesthetised” itself.

My own family in our small way is retelling its stories: that of the great uncle who came home paralysed; another so damaged by his experiences that he never married. But it is the impact of the great New Zealand silence that somehow resonates: my father as a young fighter pilot serving on an aircraft carrier off Japan wrote home to “dear Mum and Dad” exactly the kind of letters Jock Phillips talks about. What he was not to know, however, was that his father had been killed. It was thought best not to tell him, a young pilot engaged in risky manoeuvres. And so it was that he found out in the worst possible way; a well-intentioned letter from someone who assumed he knew.

But we are now emerging from that deep silence. We now understand that the battles on which we have most concentrated our thoughts – Gallipoli, Crete, Cassino – were not glorious victories. Indeed, part of what makes Anzac Day so special is the sense of shared occasion between the Anzacs and the Turks; their bones inseparable on the ground. Anzac Day, quite simply, embodies a spiritual touchstone so clearly missing from our Waitangi Day celebrations. It is telling that what has become our most sacred site, the one to which young New Zealanders travel across the world in pilgrimage, is one over which none of us has ever held legal title. And from which none therefore feels dispossessed. Anzac Day thus has been free to become the chosen day on which to observe our shared affections and loyalties; our universal pride in such things as the distinguished record of the Maori Battalion; our heartfelt sense of what it is to be a New Zealander.

The voices in so many of the letters from the 100,000 Kiwis overseas in WWI and the 70,000 abroad in WWII now resonate very clearly. And most especially, the voices of men like Colonel William Malone, whose letters tell of the bravery of New Zealand’s troops at Gallipoli. His words, written days before his heroic death at Chunuk Bair in 1915, echo down the years and will forever shape our attitude to true tall poppies:

“I know you will never forget…”

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Breaking the silence

Pamela Stirling, Editorial, The New Zealand Listener, April 29-May 4, 2007.

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READING WRITTEN TEXTS-POETRY

TEXT B: In the Wintry Gloom (poem)

Read Text B below, then answer questions 4-6 in the 90380 Answer Booklet.

TEXT B

Source: Tommy Gorden: http://www.booksellers.co.nz/mpd_poems.htm. 2007

In the cemetery great mossy trees stand naked in the wintry gloom

Their branches twisted and tangled like Medusa’s hair

They watch the temporary residents pouring out of the city

In angry buses that bully their way through the traffic

Traffic lights shining bright in the half-light create waves of noise

As cars cut the road’s wet veneer redistributing the watery film

They race to catch the light cutting deep into the road ahead

Red light reflected onto the wet greasy road struggles to keep up

Wind and rain arrive together turning umbrellas and collars upward

The eyes of those crowded together beneath inadequate shelter do not meet

Uncomfortable with forced intimacy some stand in the rain

Raised hands fall in frustration as already full buses pass without stopping

Later the gloom becomes the dark of night and lamps are haloed by the rain

The noise of people and traffic recedes and the traffic lights signal to nobody

Leaves with membranes like cobwebs have blown into the gutter in great drifts

In the cemetery the city’s permanent residents settle in for another night’s sleep.

In The Wintry Gloom

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READING VISUAL TEXTS

TEXT C: Kiwi conservation (poster)Read Text C below, then answer questions 7-9 in the 90380 Answer Booklet.

TEXT C

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READING ORAL TEXTS

TEXT D: ‘Climate Crisis’: 2007 Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance speech by Al Gore

Read Text D below, then answer questions 10-12 in the 90380 Answer Booklet.

So today, we dumped another 70 million tons of global-warming pollution into the thin shell of atmosphere surrounding our planet, as if it were an open sewer. And tomorrow, we will dump a slightly larger amount, with the cumulative concentrations now trapping more and more heat from the sun. As a result, the earth has a fever. And the fever is rising.

Last September 21, as the Northern Hemisphere tilted away from the sun, scientists reported with unprecedented distress that the North Polar ice cap is “falling off a cliff.” In the last few months, it has been harder and harder to misinterpret the signs that our world is spinning out of kilter. Major cities in North and South America, Asia and Australia are nearly out of water due to massive droughts and melting glaciers. Desperate farmers are losing their livelihoods. Millions have been displaced by massive flooding in South Asia, Mexico, and 18 countries in Africa. We are recklessly burning and clearing our forests and driving more and more species into extinction. The very web of life on which we depend is being ripped and frayed. Indeed, without realizing it, we have begun to wage war on the earth itself. It is time to make peace with the planet.

We must quickly mobilize our civilization with the urgency and resolve that has previously been seen only when nations mobilized for war. These prior struggles for survival were won when leaders found words at the 11th hour that released a mighty surge of courage, hope and readiness to sacrifice for a protracted and mortal challenge. They were calls upon the courage, generosity and strength of entire peoples, citizens of every class and condition who were ready to stand against the threat once asked to do so. Now comes the threat of climate crisis — a threat that is real, rising, imminent, and universal. Once again, it is the 11th hour.

There is an African proverb that says, “If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” We need to go far, quickly. The way ahead is difficult. The outer boundary of what we currently believe is feasible is still far short of what we actually must do. Moreover, between here and there, across the unknown, falls the shadow. That is just another way of saying that we have to expand the boundaries of what is possible. In the words of the Spanish poet, Antonio Machado, “Pathwalker, there is no path. You must make the path as you walk.” We are standing at the most fateful fork in that path.

We have everything we need to get started, save perhaps political will, but political will is a renewable resource. So let us renew it, and say together: “We have a purpose. We are many. For this purpose we will rise, and we will act.”

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©BBA Educational Resources 2008

Source (adapted): http://blog.algore.com/2007/�2/nobel_prize_acceptance_speech.html

Climate Crisis

TEXT D