Etapa județeană/sectoarelor municipiului București a olimpiadelor naționale școlare

2022
Probă scrisă

Limba engleză

CLASA a IX-a - SECȚIUNEA B

• Toate subiectele sunt obligatorii.

• Nu se acordă puncte din oficiu.
• Timpul efectiv de lucru este de 3 ore.

SUBIECTUL A – USE OF ENGLISH (40 points)

I. Read the paragraph below and do the tasks that follow. (20 points)
The media like any big business venture today is an extremely competitive world of its own.
In providing material for its public it has constantly to make sure it serves the right diet. No public
will waste time on your paper or your TV channel otherwise. The sad truth is that there seems only
one way to catch an audience – hit them right between the eyes. What started as a mild tap has
now become a sledgehammer blow that goes by the name of sensationalism. A reporter chooses –
has to choose – a new story because of its sensation value. The young inexperienced cub reporter
rings his news editor about a car crash. He starts to explain the details to him but the experienced
editor asks the cub one question: ”Anyone killed?” and to himself he thinks, why do we offer jobs to
children?
One may accuse newsmen of cynicism but they will quickly remind you of the hard facts of
survival in the world of the media. The favourite words the newspaper placards in the streets
bombard the public with are: “Surprise”, “Sensation”, ”Drama”, “Shock”. You wonder, when the
papers batter the public with dramas and sensations day after day, that they haven’t put an end to
sensation long ago. As a regular newspaper reader you can also thank Heavens for the light relief
of the comic strips. The newspapers of course blame it all on television. “Television’s changed the
whole concept of presenting the public with news”, newspapermen and women argue. “We envy
them, their huge visual coverage. We just can’t hope to compete with them over that. They can
actually show the public one man shooting another man.” And they remind you of Vietnam, and
Oswald and Ruby at Dallas after the Kennedy assassination…

A. Answer the following questions, according to the text. 8 points

1. According to the passage, what do you have to do to appeal to public?
2. What do experienced news editors think about young reporters?
3. According to the author’s suggestion, how can newsmen keep their jobs?
4. According to newsmen, what is the television’s advantage?

B. Choose the right synonym for the words given below, according to their meaning in the
text. 6 points
1. extremely: a. effectively b. very c. enormously d. presently
2. constantly: a. continuously b. terribly c. quickly d. rapidly
3. huge: a. giant b. tiny c. enormous d. large
 C. Rephrase the following sentences so as to preserve the meaning. 6 points
1. It’s impossible that you saw John last night – he is in the USA!
John’s in the USA, so…………………………………him last night.
2. The moment I shouted he ran away.
No………………………………he ran away.
3. I don’t have any free time, so I can’t come to the theatre with you.
If I…………………………….,…………………come to the theatre with you.

II. Use the word given in brackets to form a word that fits in each gap. 10 points
Alfred Nobel, the famous 1……………..(SWEDEN) chemist who founded the Nobel Prize,
was born into a family where research and 2…………………(EXPERIMENT) were almost second
nature. His father, Immanuel, out of work and 3…………….(PENNY), tested his theories of
explosives in a laboratory set up in their house. 4………………..(FORTUNATELY), the elder Nobel
remained frustrated in his efforts to apply his natural inventive spirit to establishing a
5……………………(PROSPER) endeavour. Alfred Nobel worked alongside his father, and by
1850, when he was 17, he had acquired most of his father’s 6………….(KNOW) and enthusiasm
for chemistry. Although 7……………(NUMBER) other scientists had been intrigued by
nitroglycerine, Alfred was the one who finally managed to turn this 8…………..(DANGER)
substance into a safe and useful explosive. He succeeded in developing dynamite 9………….
(COMMERCE), which laid the foundation for many of the world’s leading chemical enterprises.
Aside from introducing the 10……………(INNOVATE) Nobel Ignitor in 1864 and dynamite in 1866,
Alfred claimed 355 patents including nitrocellulose and substitutes for leather and rubber.

III. Translate the following text into English: 10 points

Trecutul nu e o arhiva, o magazine unde gasesti si azi, si maine, si poimaine aceleasi lucruri,
mai uzate, mai pline de praf, dar in fapt aceleasi. Trecutul e viu, ia parte la prezent, il influenteaza
si se schimba in functie de ce ni se intampla. Unele amintiri scad in importanta, altele, dimpotriva,
capata intelesuri noi la care nu ne-am gandit inainte. Devin, din fleacuri, momente esentiale.
(Octavian Paler)
SUBIECTUL B – INTEGRATED SKILLS ( 60 points)
Read the text below and do the tasks that follow:
I arrived at Paddington early and had a first-class compartment to myself, but it filled before
we started. Something about those five other masked faces, buried in their evening newspapers
and magazines, at least landed me back in England: that chosen isolation, that hatred of the others
as if we were all embarrassed at having to share our means of travel with someone else. When we
drew out of the station the elderly woman opposite me glanced up at the ventilation window. It was
slightly open. A minute later she glanced again. I said, “Shall I shut it?” “Oh, well if….”
I stood and shut it; and received a frozen grimace, meant to represent gratitude, from the
lady and two or three covertly disapproving examinations from my male fellow-passengers. I had
committed the cardinal sin not of shutting the window, but of opening my mouth. No other caste in
the world are so certain that good breeding is silence…I was wearing clothes bought in California,
a polo-necked pullover and sports jacket, not a suit and tie, and perhaps they read something alien
in me – a danger, someone to be taught the English way. I didn’t really disapprove of it; I noted it
like an anthropologist, and understood it like an Englishman. Being forced to share a confined
 space with people to whom you have not been introduced was an activity dense with risk: one
might be forced to give some item of information about oneself. Perhaps it was just a matter of
accent: a terror of revealing, in even the smallest phrase, one’s class, or some dissonance
between voice and clothes…I had analysed the fear of exposure long before; once used it
successfully in a play; but its persistence baffled me…
I. For each question decide which answer (A, B, C or D) fits best according to the text.
10 points
1. The narrator was
a. a foreigner
b. an Englishman
c. an American who lived in England
d. an American living in California
2. The narrator was
a. a murderer
b. an American spy
c. an anthropologist
d. a dramatist
3. The narrator was
a. coming to England for the first time
b. coming back to England from America
c. going to leave England for America
d. coming to England to overcome his fear
4. The passengers were afraid
a. somebody might attack them
b. they might have to talk to strangers
c. the narrator might be a spy
d. the other passengers might refuse to talk to them
5. According to the narrator, what immediately reveals your social class in England is:
a. your accent
b. your clothes
c. your family
d. your money

II. Starting from the text above, write a narrative-descriptive essay about your first train
journey. Write about 180-200 words. 50 points
 OLIMPIADA DE LIMBA ENGLEZĂ
ETAPA JUDETEANA
19 MARTIE 2022
CLASA A IX-A BILINGV- BAREM

KEY:

SUBIECTUL A – USE OF ENGLISH (40 points)

I. A 4 x 2p = 8 p
1. To report violent happenings
2. Young reporters give too much detail
3. By being cynical
4. It is widespread

I. B 3 x 2 = 6 p
1. b, 2. a, 3. c

I. C 3 x 2 = 6 p
1. John’s in the USA, so you can’t have seen him last night.
2. No sooner had I shouted than he ran away.
3. If I had some free time, I would come to the theatre with you.

II.10 x 1 = 10p
1. Swedish, 2. experimentation, 3. penniless, 4. Unfortunately, 5. prosperous, 6. knowledge, 7.
numerous, 8. dangerous, 9. commercially, 10. innovative

III. Translate into English (10 p)

1. Semantic equivalence
2. Stylistic correspondence
3. Relevance of the text within its language
4. Coherence
5. Effect on the target reader
The past is not some records, a storehouse where today, tomorrow and the day after
tomorrow you find the same things – more worn-out, dustier, but actually the same. The past is
alive, participates in the present, influences it and changes according to what is happening to us.
Some memories lose their importance; others, on the contrary, get new meanings we have never
thought of before. They turn from trifles into essential moments.

SUBIECTUL B – INTEGRATED SKILLS (60 points)

I.1 b; 2 d; 3 b; 4 b; 5 a (5 x 2p= 10p)

II. 50 points
1. Content
2. Organization and cohesion
3. Structures
4. Vocabulary
5. Effect on target reader