Examen de Inglés Selectividad Cataluña 2021 · Juny Serie 5

Part 1: Listening comprehension

THE MYSTERY OF JIM THOMPSON

In the following conversation you are going to hear some new words. Read and listen to them. Make sure you know what they mean.

silk: seda

guild: gremi / gremio

spinner: filador / hilandero

fabrics: roba, tela / ropa, tela

legacy: llegat / legado

teakwood: teca (tipus de fusta / tipo de madera)

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

IS PLASTIC A DEADLY THREAT TO WILDLIFE?

On a boat off Costa Rica, a biologist uses a Swiss army knife to try to extract a plastic straw from a sea turtle. The turtle seems to be dying, bleeding profusely. For eight painful minutes a video on YouTube—which has registered more than 20 million views—shows horrifying images that are hard to watch. In the end, the desperate biologists manage to remove a four-inch-long straw from the creature’s nose.

These shocking scenes show the dangers of plastic on wildlife: images of a dead bird covered in oil or a flatback turtle stuck in a fishing net have spread widely in the media. But most of the time, the harm is not so noticeable. Seagulls that nest on islands off the coast of Australia and New Zealand eat more plastic as a proportion of their body mass than any other marine animal. Researchers say that in one large population, 90 % of the baby birds had already ingested some. A plastic piece piercing an intestine can kill any bird quickly. And what’s worse, the consumption of plastic usually leads marine birds to suffer from chronic, permanent hunger.

Matthew Savoca, a marine biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the U.S., complains, “the really sad thing about this is that birds are eating plastic thinking that it is food.” He goes on to add, “imagine you ate lunch and then just felt weak and lethargic and hungry all day, which would be very confusing.” Seabirds use energy that their malnourished bodies cannot provide. That is why they roam farther in search of real food, but only to take back plastic waste to feed their young. Savoca has also come to the conclusion that fish such as anchovies eat plastic because it smells like food once it is covered with algae.

What makes plastic useful for people—it’s durable, light, and easy to throw out—increases the threat to animals. Plastic lasts a very long time, perhaps for more than 400 years and besides, most of it floats. Scientists suggest that single-use plastic is the worst offender: straws, water bottles, and plastic bags have been proved to be the most serious danger to marine species. For instance, 700 marine species have been reported—so far—to have eaten or become entangled in plastic.

Society does not fully understand the long-term impact of plastic on wildlife, nor its impact on us. In an historical perspective, humans are not used to the massive use of this material. The first documented cases of seabirds ingesting plastic referred to 74 albatrosses found on a Pacific atoll in 1966, when plastic production was roughly 5 % of what it is today.

The widespread use of plastic in millions of products and the very nature of plastic waste mean that science is unlikely to be able to solve this huge problem any time soon. It is preferable to take policy action now before waiting for the situation to become even worse. The first step would be identifying places where plastic has been shown to be harmful for birds and then take forceful measures there. Passing a law banning the sale of plastic products in those places would be a significant step forward, for instance. In the end, people currently use plastics because they are easy to use and cheap, but increasingly we are realizing that in the long term, plastics are expensive and a serious threat to the environment.

Text adapted from an article in National Geographic Magazine (June 2018)

seagull: gavina / gaviota

to pierce: perforar

to roam: vagar

atoll: atol / atolón

QUESTIONS

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.

Last summer you went rock climbing in the Pyrenees and realized that all the surroundings were full of plastic waste. Write an informal letter to a friend of yours describing your feelings.

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. Imagine that you are the chief editor of an important newspaper and you decide to write an editorial about the environment and global warming. Write a formal essay arguing for strong, efficient measures to protect the environment.

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. You have recently finished high school. A few years from now, when you look back on your time in high school, what part will you remember fondly? And which part will you wish you could forget? Write an essay describing how you think you will view your high school experience.