TEXT
 
Mary was tired from the long train ride. She was also full of fear on finding herself
in a new place for the first time. She stepped from the train in Concord, North Carolina,
and stood beside her bags. The only person there was a pleasant white woman who was
walking toward her, smiling as though she knew her. "Are you Mary Jane Mc Leod ? " the
white lady asked the question. Why should a white person be interested in her ? " I have
come to meet you and take you to Scotia", she explained. At Scotia, she was to find a
different kind of white person, the kind who wanted the Negro to have an education.

The school was not far away. With every step she felt firmer and firmer in her desire
to learn. The 12-year-old girl looked in wonder and surprise at the clean, beautiful room.
Mary was surprised to see that the Negro and white teachers were eating together.
Watching the Negro and white teachers working together as equals was the best
experience that Mary had at Scotia. She had never met educated Negroes before, and she
wondered if she could ever be like them. She began to feel like a full citizen instead of a
half citizen.

She began to realize that her own people had a long history and she read many books
about the Negroes of America. Why had there been slavery ? Why had it been necessary to
fight a war about it ? Now Mary was almost grown and wanted to go to darkest Africa as a
missionary. That would be her life of service.

Mary Mc Leod Bethune
By Catherine Owens Peare

 
I. READING COMPREHENSION
 

1.  Underline the correct alternative and justify your answer with reference to the text

  1. The text is an extract from
  • a  history book
  • a biographical novel
  • a professional journal.

JUSTIFICATION :
.........................................................................................................................................................
.........................................................................................................................................................
 

 
  1. The events took place in the north of America
  • during the Civil War
  • after the Civil War
 

JUSTIFICATION :
........................................................................................................................................................
.........................................................................................................................................................

   

2.  Complete with information from the text

Mary Jane Mc Leod was a ........... girl from the south of the U.S.A. At ................, she moved to the ............... in order to .................... When she first reached her destination, she felt .............. because she was not used to ....................... her native place.

3.  Mary noticed 2 major differences between the people in her native place and in the new one. What are they ? Complete the table.

IN HER NATIVE PLACE

IN THE NEW PLACE
  1. ............................................
    ............................................
  2. ............................................
    ............................................

..............................................
.............................................
.............................................
.............................................

4.  Pick out 2 sentences showing the effect of those differences on Mary.

    a - ..............................................................................................................................................
    b - .............................................................................................................................................

5.  Complete the statements below with reference to the text.

    a - As a child, Mary was determined to ............................................................................
    b - As an adult, she was determined to ............................................................................

   
II. LANGUAGE
 
Task 1 : Fill in each blank with one word from the box below.
 

essential - attend - intense - career - recent - scholarships - such - graduates - highest - extremely.
       
     In ................. years, competition for the ................... paying jobs in America has become so ............ that it is necessary to have a graduate degree to apply for ............ jobs. Americans consider a college education absolutely ....................... for a successful .............. in almost any field. Education is .................. expensive in many colleges, but most students receive government loans or ................. from the university they .............. . Even so, a typical student who ................ with a Bachelor's degree may take ten or even twenty years to pay back his college loans.

Task 2 : Supply the correct form of the bracketed words to complete this paragraph about Einstein.

    He was the best-known (science) ................. in the world, the man whose (fame) ............. equation, E=mc2, changed the way we think about the universe. To his (greatness) ................ regret, Einstein was also one of the physicists who made the  (develop) ................ of the (atom) .................. bomb possible. He was a man of immense (contradict) .................. .

Task 3 : Circle the alternative that best completes each sentence :

More { than
over
often		 2.300 years ago, Hippocrates { has told
tells
told		 his disciples { if
that
when		 chewing
Willow leaves { did
made
caused		 the pain { more
less
most

severe, especially for women. Much
{ earlier
later
sooner		 , chemists synthesized the active ingredient { whom
that
who		 produced this analgesic
{ affect
effect ,
effective		 and Aspirin { was
be
were		 launched. It { was
has
would		 soon heralded as one
of the { safest
safer
safe		 and most useful medications of { every
all
the whole		 time.

  
III. WRITING


Task 1 : The 8 words in the box have been taken out of the paragraph below. Reinsert them where appropriate. Just rewrite the completed phrases in the space provided below the paragraph.

  up - at - for - not - off -his - in - now
 
   Brian Keating earned a Bachelor's degree journalism the University of Colorado in 1980 and worked a short period a Colorado weekly. But he was laid when hard times hit, and he labors for a construction company. Brian blames himself for taking the wrong career and blames the school for informing the students that field is overcrowded.
 
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  2. ...................................................................................................................................................................
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  4. ...................................................................................................................................................................
  5. ...................................................................................................................................................................
  6. ...................................................................................................................................................................
  7. ...................................................................................................................................................................
  8. .................................................................................................................................................................. 

Task 2 : Punctuate and capitalize where necessary. some punctuation marks have been provided. Others are missing. Use 3 full stops, 2 commas, 2 quotation marks and two dashes.

  he loved to laugh for lincoln, laughter was a life preserver laughter was - as he once described  it - the joyous beautiful universal evergreen of life. without laughter he could not have lived. His stories and he always had dozens of them ready were used to make a thought more easily understood.

Task 3 : Write a biography of Robert Lee Frost out of the following notes.

Birth : 1874 - San Francisco
Childhood : 11 years / San Francisco
Parents : from New England. Father died 1885. Mother and 2 children back to Massachusetts
Education : Harvard College
Work : farmer - editor - school teacher (New England)
Prizes : Pulitzer in 1924, 1931, 1937, 1943
Death : 1963

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