Ejercicio Grupo B - 3 · Inglés PAU Canarias Julio 2024

GRUPO B

Who should stop, Mona or her mum?

Mona likes to be unconventional. She has purple hair one week, green the next. When she was 14, she gave herself about 10 ear piercings, and she fills them all with tiny earrings now. Her mother, Kate, noticed the first face piercing at 16 immediately – it was a small ring through her nose. As she thought Mona was too young, she told her repeatedly to take it out.

5 Kate’s rule was “You can do what you want when you move out, but while you’re in my house, I’d like you to give up piercings and tattoos.” Kate considers that it is out of respect, and she doesn’t really like Mona’s tattoos because they are permanent.

Kate was quite upset with the last noticeable tattoo Mona got on her inner arm, so she told Mona: “While you’re under my roof, I don’t want to see any more.” Mona said that was fine, but she went to university, 10 and every time she came back for the holidays, there was another tattoo or piercing.

Although Kate thinks that some of the tattoos are quite pretty, she is concerned about how Mona will be perceived when applying for jobs. Kate worries about what it will look like when she’s older, but Mona just laughs at her. In Kate’s words, “she needs to focus on getting serious employment as she’s just interning at a design agency now.”

15 To Mona, her tattoos and piercings are an extension of herself, as well as an expression of her personality and individuality, so they are important to her. When her mum criticises how she looks or tells her not to get any more “body modifications”, Mona takes it personally: “Part of me wants to follow my mother’s rules just to make sure we don’t argue, but on the other hand I think I am an adult. It’s my body.”

Mona considers that telling her what to do with her body is a direct attack on her personal rights: “It’s 20 negating my autonomy just because we live under the same roof. What right does my mum have to tell me not to get another tattoo or piercing?”

Mona has 12 tattoos so far and she will undoubtedly add to that, but for now, she wants an easy life, so she guesses things are on pause. But that won’t last forever, and Mona adds: “I don’t have to obey those old-fashioned and arbitrary rules just to keep my mum happy. I love her, but she can’t tell me what to do. 25 I think it’s important for everyone to present themselves as they want. If you’re not harming anyone, who cares whether your hair is blue or if you’re covered in metal?”

Fragment adapted from The Guardian, October 2023

3. FIND a word or expression in the text that means... [1 point]

a)

b)

c)

d)