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ENGLISH A2 – HIGHER LEVEL – PAPER 1
anglais A2 – NIVEAU SUPÉRIEUR – ÉPREUVE 1
inglés A2 – NIVEL SUPERIOR – PRUEBA 1
Wednesday 11 November 2009 (afternoon)
Mercredi 11 novembre 2009 (après-midi)
Miércoles 11 de noviembre de 2009 (tarde)
2 hours / 2 heures / 2 horas
INSTRUCTIONS TO CANDIDATES
Do not open this examination paper until instructed to do so.
Section A consists of two passages for comparative commentary.
Section B consists of two passages for comparative commentary.
Choose either Section A or Section B. Write one comparative commentary.
INSTRUCTIONS DESTINÉES AUX CANDIDATS
N’ouvrez pas cette épreuve avant d’y être autorisé(e).
La section A comporte deux passages à commenter.
La section B comporte deux passages à commenter.
Choisissez soit la section A, soit la section B. Écrivez un commentaire comparatif.
INSTRUCCIONES PARA LOS ALUMNOS
No abra esta prueba hasta que se lo autoricen.
En la Sección A hay dos fragmentos para comentar.
En la Sección B hay dos fragmentos para comentar.
Elija la Sección A o la Sección B. Escriba un comentario comparativo.
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© International Baccalaureate Organization 2009
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Choose either Section A or Section B.
SECTION A
Analyse and compare the following two texts.
Discuss the similarities and differences between the texts and their theme(s). Include comments on the
ways the authors use elements such as structure, tone, images and other stylistic devices to communicate
their purposes.
Text 1
Each year, all the men in the village waited in a big group outside the tea shop. When the
buses came, they got on – packing the inside, hanging from the railings, climbing onto the roofs
– and went to Gaya; there they went to the station and rushed into the trains – packing the inside,
hanging from the railings, climbing onto the roofs – and went to Delhi, Calcutta, and Dhanbad to
5 find work.
A rich man’s body is like a premium cotton pillow, white and soft and blank. Ours are
different. My father’s spine was a knotted rope, the kind that women use in villages to pull water
from wells; the clavicle1 curved around his neck in high relief 2, like a dog’s collar; cuts and nicks
and scars, like little whip marks in his flesh, ran down his chest and waist, reaching down below his
10 hipbones into his buttocks. The story of a poor man’s life is written on his body, in a sharp pen.
My uncles also did backbreaking work, but they did what everyone else did. Each year,
as soon as it began raining, they would go out to the fields with blackened sickles3,
begging one landlord or the other for some work. Then they cast seed, cut weeds, and harvested
corn and paddy4. My father could have worked with them; he could have worked with the
15 landlords’ mud, but he chose not to.
He chose to fight it.
Now, since I doubt that you have rickshaw-pullers in China5 – or in any other civilized nation
on earth – you will have to see one for yourself. Rickshaws are not allowed inside the posh parts
of Delhi, where foreigners might see them and gape6. Insist on going to Old Delhi, or Nizamuddin
20 – there you’ll see the road full of them – thin, sticklike men, leaning forward from the seat of
a bicycle, as they pedal along a carriage bearing a pyramid of middle-class flesh – some fat man
with his fat wife and all their shopping bags and groceries.
And when you see these stick-men, think of my father.
Rickshaw-puller he may have been – a human beast of burden – but my father was a man
25 with a plan.
I was his plan.
Extract from Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger, (Atlantic Books, 2008) Reproduced by permission
of Atlantic Books. Every effort has been made to contact the Canadian rights holders for this extract.
Canadian rights are held by The Free Press, an imprint of Simon&Schuster.
Please check the “Updates” page for full acknowledgments.
1
clavicle: collar-bone
2
high relief: raised
3
sickles: tools used for cutting tall grass or harvesting grain
4
paddy: rice
5
The novel is made up of a series of letters that the narrator or “I” is writing to the Premier of China
during his visit to India
6
gape: stare
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Text 2
The Old Workman
‘Why are you so bent down before your time,
Old mason1? Many have not left their prime
So far behind at your age, and can still
Stand full upright at will2.’
5 He pointed to the mansion-front nearby,
And to the stones of the quoin3 against the sky;
‘Those upper blocks,’ he said, ‘that there you see,
It was that ruined me.
‘I carried them up,’ he said, ‘by a ladder there;
10 The last was as big a load as I could bear;
But on I heaved; and something in my back
Moved, as ‘twere4 with a crack.
‘So I got crookt5. I never lost that sprain;
And those who live there, walled from wind and rain
15 By freestone that I lifted, do not know
That my life’s ache came so.
‘They don’t know me, or even know my name,
But good I think it, somehow, all the same
To have kept ’em safe from harm, and right and tight,
20 Though it has broke me quite.
‘Yes; that I fixed it firm up there I am proud,
Facing the hail and snow and sun and cloud,
And to stand storms for ages, beating round
When I lie underground.’
Thomas Hardy (1922)
1
mason: a person who works with bricks and stone
2
Many people your age are still in the prime of life and can stand straight and tall.
3
quoin: the cornerstone of an arch or the angle of a wall
4
as ‘twere: as if it were
5
crookt: crooked
8809-2013 Turn over / Tournez la page / Véase al dorso
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SECTION B
Analyse and compare the following two texts.
Discuss the similarities and differences between the texts and their theme(s). Include comments on the
ways the authors use elements such as structure, tone, images and other stylistic devices to communicate
their purposes.
Text 3
Mission to Mars
Bringing back life from the Red Planet will require a global effort and may well
prove dangerous.
It would be the most technologically challenging space mission since the Apollo programme
landed astronauts on the moon in 1969. An international team of scientists has put together detailed
plans for a mission to bring back samples of rock, and possibly microscopic life, from the surface
of Mars.
5 To be successful the mission, which is proposed for launch between 2018 and 2023 and could
cost up to $8bn, would require expertise and funding from both Nasa and the European Space
Agency. “This is going to be extremely expensive and no one space agency can afford it,” said
Professor Monica Grady, at the Open University. Grady, who co-chaired the expert panel that wrote
the mission proposal, said it was a vital next step before a possible crewed mission to the Red Planet.
10 “If you can’t bring a rock back you are not going to be able to bring people back. There’s a real
feeling that bringing samples back from Mars is essential if we are going to continue our Martian
exploration programme.”
Sending people to Mars will probably not be possible before 2050, but if a crewed mission
were ever to go ahead, scientists and engineers would need to prove that it is possible to land a craft
15 on the surface of Mars and bring it back to Earth safely. There have been seven successful landings
on the Red Planet since the US spacecraft Mariner 4 flew past Mars for the first time in 1965,
but no spacecraft has ever taken off from the surface again or brought anything back to Earth.
The proposal is the result of an eight-month study by 31 scientists from around the world. To hit the
proposed timescale, technology development for the mission will need to begin by 2011.
20 Professor Colin Pillinger, at the Open University, said returning samples from the Red Planet
would allow scientists to carry out much more sophisticated analyses on the rocks and permit a more
detailed search for simple Martian life forms. Pillinger added, “Avoiding contamination would be
extremely difficult. You have to be very careful not to bring anything back that might be harmful
to Earth. Your mission has to be guaranteed, and I really mean guaranteed, to get into the Earth’s
25 atmosphere without damaging itself.”
If Martian microbes do exist they must be extremely hardy, having survived the
planet’s freezing, desiccated* surface and bombardment with UV radiation, so if the returning
spacecraft blew up on re-entry scientists could not be sure that Martian life forms on board
would be destroyed in the blast. It would also be impossible to know what they would do to life
30 on Earth.
James Randerson, “Mission to Mars”, Guardian Weekly (25 July 2008).
Copyright Guardian News & Media Ltd 2008
* desiccated: dry
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Text 4
The new exhibition FACING MARS: Would you survive the journey? challenges visitors to
consider the implications of a human mission to Mars.
On June 9, 2008 visitors will be asked the simple question, “Would you go to Mars?” The Ontario
Science Centre’s new exhibition FACING MARS: Would you survive the journey? takes visitors
on an inspiring personal and practical voyage of discovery. In one visit, participants will be
able to become an astronaut-in-training, a planetary geologist or a spacecraft technician through
5 this new interactive exhibition that focuses on the real-life obstacles of sending humans to Mars.
The exhibition will run at the Science Centre until January 4, 2009, and will then begin a tour of
North America.
This groundbreaking exhibition, developed and designed by the Ontario Science Centre staff in
consultation with top space exploration experts, shows visitors how the challenges of a Mars
10 mission aren’t limited to technology or money. It asks questions associated with traveling to Mars
for which there are no known answers. It also engages participants in the physical, psychological
and scientific challenges that come with interplanetary space travel.
“From the start, our team of scientists and designers set out to create an exhibition focused
not solely on what we know, but on what we don’t know – yet,” says Dr. Devon Hamilton,
15 Senior Scientist and Exhibit Developer, Ontario Science Centre. “We are showcasing problems
with no set solutions, because to get to Mars we have to develop entirely new ways of thinking.”
This exhibition offers 30 interactive stations with four broad themes:
• Supporting Human Life: Explore the challenges of keeping a crew alive during a long spaceflight,
from determining a sustainable and healthy menu to dealing with the realities of the prolonged
20 microgravity exposure on astronauts’ bones.
• Interpersonal and Psychological Experience: How do you select a crew for what may be a
lethal adventure? How are crew members affected by crowding and isolation?
• Technology of Exploration: Explore some of the aspects of the technology needed for
Mars exploration, from puzzle solving robotic rovers to testing space gloves, to experimenting
25 with glider designs.
• Nature of Mars and Space Travel Exploration: Design, test and launch a model rocket; get a
flyover view of the Martian landscape; examine the puzzle of protecting astronauts from lethal
radiation and explore the challenges posed by dust.
“Unlike other space exhibitions, FACING MARS isn’t just about visiting another planet; it’s about
30 exploring whether humans have the ingenuity* to solve the fundamental challenges of the next
phase of space travel and exploration,” says Lesley Lewis, CEO of the Ontario Science Centre.
Ticket prices: $20.00 for adults, $15.00 for seniors & youths, $12.00 for children.
For further information and hours for the FACING MARS exhibition visit
www.ontariosciencecentre.ca.
The new exhibition FACING MARS, from the Ontario Science Centre website (2008)
(www.ontariosciencecentre.ca)
* ingenuity: inventiveness and imagination
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