Examen de Inglés Selectividad Cataluña 2021 · Juny Serie 2

Part 1: Listening comprehension

GOALBALL, A UNIQUE SPORT

In this radio programme you are going to hear some new words. Read and listen to them. Make sure you know what they mean.

goalball: golbol

low vision: baixa visió / baja visión

eyeshade: antifaç / antifaz

Ready?

Now read the questions on the following page. Read them carefully before listening to the radio programme.

[Now listen to the interview.]

QUESTIONS

Choose the best answer according to the recording. Only ONE answer is correct.

[3 points: 0.375 points for each correct answer. Wrong answers will be penalized by deducting 0.125 points. There is no penalty for unanswered questions.]

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Part 2: Reading comprehension

THE WOMAN WHO SAVED MILLIONS OF LIVES WITHOUT KNOWING

One young black woman made one of the greatest contributions of all time to modern medicine, even though she never knew the important role she has played.

Henrietta Lacks was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 1951 at the age of 31, shortly after giving birth to her fifth child. At the time, segregation was widespread in the US, so she turned to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, as it was one of the few which provided medical care to black people.

The ward where she ended up was down the hall from George Gey, a researcher who had been trying to grow human cells in his lab for decades. During the treatment to remove her tumour, her doctor sent a small sample of tissue without her knowing to Gey. Up to this point, attempts to grow human cells outside the body had failed. But something about Lacks's cells was about to change that.

In most people a natural process called senescence puts a limit on the lifespan of cells. Senescence is linked to aging: as cells divide and multiply over time, the accuracy of each accompanying replication of DNA decreases. The protective caps on the end of each strand of DNA, which are called telomeres, shorten. Eventually the DNA strands become unprotected and mutations associated with cancers and other age-related diseases arise.

Typically human cells are able to divide around 50 times before they reach senescence. But Lacks's cells were different. In the laboratory, her cells were able to divide and replicate indefinitely. They were, in essence, immortal. It made them perfect for medical research as a culture of identical cells could be grown quickly. Gey shared them widely with other scientists, and they became a workhorse of biological research.

Her cell line, which came to be known as "HeLa" in honour of Lacks, is the first and most commonly used immortalised cell line in medicine. Today, work done with HeLa cells underpins much of modern medicine. Millions of people owe their lives to the tissue taken from her—the cell line it generated was used to create the first polio vaccine, cancer medicines and in vitro fertilisation. Her cells even made it into space before any living human. One of the most recent applications has been in research for vaccines against COVID-19.

But the story of Henrietta Lacks also illustrates the racial inequities that are embedded in American medical research and health-care systems. Lacks was a black woman. Doctors and scientists revealed Lacks's name publicly, gave her medical records to the media and even published her cells' genome online, repeatedly failing to ask her family for consent. None of the biotechnology or other companies that profited from her cells passed any money back to her family, either.

Now, the extraordinary events of 2020—the #BlackLivesMatter movement for racial justice, and the unequal death toll of COVID-19 on communities of colour—are forcing scientists to reconsider past injustices. Some have called for a reduction, or even an end, in the use of HeLa cells in research. The argument is that, because the cells were obtained without Lacks's knowledge or consent (even though this was legal at the time), any use of them is unethical and perpetuates an injustice.

But that is not what many Lacks family members want. Henrietta Lacks has dozens of descendants, several of whom are calling for people to celebrate her life and legacy in her centennial year, #HELA100. To her grandson Alfred Lacks Carter, the most important thing about HeLa cells is how they have advanced cancer research—an adequate tribute, given that Lacks died of the disease at the young age of 31. "The cells were taken in a bad way but they are doing good for the world," he says. And they do so for people of all ethnicities.

Text adapted from an article on BBC.com (November 20, 2020)

Glossary

ward: sala d'hospital / sala de hospital

tissue: teixit / tejido

strand: cadena

culture: cultiu / cultivo

underpins: forma la base de

death toll: nombre de víctimes / número de víctimes

Choose the best answer according to the text. Only ONE answer is correct. [3 points: 0.375 points for each correct answer. Wrong answers will be penalized by deducting 0.125 points. There is no penalty for unanswered questions.]

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Part 3: Writing

Choose ONE topic. Your answer should be 125-150 words in length. There is no specific penalty for exceeding 150 words in length. Extra points are not given for exceeding 150 words.

[4 points]

1. “Medical research is subject to ethical standards that promote and ensure respect for all human subjects and protect their health and rights. While the primary purpose of medical research is to generate new knowledge, this goal can never take precedence over the rights and interests of individual research subjects.” Write a for-and-against essay about the rights and interests of individuals vs. the goal of advancing medical knowledge.

Part 3: Writing

Choose ONE topic. Your answer should be 125-150 words in length. There is no specific penalty for exceeding 150 words in length. Extra points are not given for exceeding 150 words. [4 points]

2.

The #BlackLivesMatter movement is dedicated to fighting racism and anti-black violence, especially in the form of police brutality, and demands that society value the lives and humanity of black people as much as it values the lives and humanity of white people. Do you think such a movement is necessary today? Write an opinion essay.

Part 3: Writing

Choose ONE topic. Your answer should be 125-150 words in length. There is no specific penalty for exceeding 150 words in length. Extra points are not given for exceeding 150 words.

[4 points]

3. Imagine that you have a friend who doesn’t know if they want to study at university after high school or if they want to enroll in a program of vocational or professional training for 1 or 2 years. Write an email to them giving advice on their future studies.