Ejercicio 1.2 · Inglés PAU Galicia Ordinaria 2025

Read the following text:

Telling the truth may be a virtue, but isn’t it more important to know how to tell lies? Any idiot can tell the truth, but lying is a skill, a science, an art. Fortunately, schools, with the unrealistic expectations that they have of young people, provide early training in the art of lying. For example, is it realistic to expect a 15-year-old to write a 250-word composition and spend six hours watching television in the same evening? So we watch television and tell the teacher we did our homework but that the dog/ cat/ baby ate it. Then, later in life, when the really uncomfortable questions come, like “I know you’re 18 years old now, but wouldn’t it be nice if we all went on a family holiday together, with grandma and grandpa?”, we know better than to say that would be our idea of hell. Instead, we say we’re really sorry we can’t come, but we’ve got that project to finish for school, plus football training, piano practice, or even English grammar exercises.

Obviously, modern civilized societies couldn’t exist if everybody lied all the time. But wouldn’t it be equally disastrous if everyone always told the truth? How many families depend for their stability on the little white lie? How much unhappiness and conflict is avoided simply because people have the good taste to hide the dislike or contempt they feel for other people? It seems to me that lying is an essential skill, so schools are quite right to teach it. And if my editor wonders why this article reached her so late this week, please note that I did in fact write it on time, but unfortunately the dog, the cat and the baby gathered together, stole it and hid it in the garden.

1.2. Find a synonym for each of the following words. [1 point; 0.20 each]

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