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ДЗИ по английски език


МИНИСТЕРСТВО НА ОБРАЗОВАНИЕТО И НАУКАТА

ДЪРЖАВЕН ЗРЕЛОСТЕН ИЗПИТ ПО АНГЛИЙСКИ ЕЗИК
29 август 2017 г. – Вариант 1

 


12и клас - Английски език - Външно оценяване
Read the following text and mark the correct answer for questions 1. to 5.

A SEASON FOR MERCY

Polly, my stepmom, suggested the sweetest name: Mercy. We soon learned it was just what this new puppy would need.
She would jump out of bed and go-go-go all day long. So when my Dad and Polly brought home a Christmas tree, they expected chaos. To their astonishment, Mercy didn’t seem to care. She paid zero attention to the tree suddenly growing in her living room. She didn’t react when they placed fancy presents under it, including a wrapped box of dog biscuits.
Dad and Polly were suspicious; they’d never had a dog that didn’t force them to move everything to higher ground, as if expecting a flood.
A few days before Christmas, Polly woke early. She passed the dark living room. Then suddenly she stopped cold. Glancing back into the room, she saw that all the presents were gone. Only the tree was still there.
Had they been robbed? Why hadn’t Mercy barked? Mercy! Where was she? Had the burglars taken her? Just then, Polly noticed a piece of ribbon on the floor. Then a bit of torn wrapping paper a few feet away. The trail led toward the back door.
Polly took a torch and stepped out into the backyard. A head lifted and froze, caught in the spotlight. Alarm and guilt made her eyes wide. Oh, yes, it was Mercy.
Mercy lay under her favourite tree in a nest of torn paper, chewed-up boxes and bits of ribbon.Fragments of paper mixed with the last remaining evidence of gifts.
Clearly Mercy’s self-control had failed. She’d silently carried one package after another through the house and out the doggy door.
Anything edible was gone, including cookies, fancy breads, chocolates, candy canes and a kilo of dog biscuits. Fortunately, Mercy survived her massive midnight snack. My parents were so grateful she was OK that she didn’t even get a scolding from them, they just laughed about the ruined presents. Only one problem remained. With all the gift tags destroyed, how could they send out thank-you cards?
Well, Mercy provided the problem, so Mercy provided the answer. A few days later, Polly returned to her easy chair to find Mercy guiltily licking a plate where a donut had just been.
Polly took a picture of the shamefaced dog and used it to make thank-you cards. In them she explained the whole story. It was embarrassing, but Christmas is a season for mercy.

1. Mercy was a very energetic and playful dog.




2. Dad and Polly were not entirely convinced that Mercy was not interested in the Christmas preparations.




3. Before Christmas the speaker received many presents from all his friends and relatives.




4. Polly always woke before the rest of the family, just as on the day of the incident.






5. Dad and Polly punished Mercy for ruining the gifts.




Read the following text and mark the correct answer for questions 6. to 10.

Mrs. Selfridge – a self-important elderly lady, who was quite overweight, liked to travel in comfort, so whenever she got on a train, she always put her suitcase on the seat beside her, pretending it belonged to another passenger who had gone to buy something in the station. In this way she would have more space to herself during the journey.
One day she did this when the train was very crowded. Other passengers came and sat down in all other seats except the one which her suitcase was lying on. Then a gentleman arrived, looked at Mrs. Selfridge’s case and said: “Is this anybody’s seat?”
“Yes,” answered Mrs. Selfridge. “A friend of mine is travelling with me, and she has gone to buy some snacks from the kiosk on the platform. She’ll return soon.”
“All right,” said the gentleman and calmly removed the suitcase from the seat. “I’ll sit here until your friend comes back, and then I’ll stand somewhere.” Mrs. Selfridge did not feel happy about this, but there was nothing she could do or say because all the other passengers were watching.
Several minutes passed and then the train began to move. It was pulling out of the station, slowly gathering speed, when the gentleman jumped up suddenly and shouted, “I’m sorry but it seems your friend has missed the train! We don’t want her to be left without her suitcase, do we? I don’t believe she would like that at all!” And before Mrs. Selfridge could do anything to stop him, he took the suitcase and threw it out of the open window.
You can be sure that Mrs. Selfridge never tried to play the same trick again.



6. Mrs. Selfridge used to put her suitcase on the seat beside hers to





7. The gentleman asked if the seat next to Mrs. Selfridge was taken because





8. How did Mrs. Selfridge respond to the gentleman’s question?





9. The gentleman said he would sit there until





10. What did the gentleman pretend to be doing by throwing the suitcase on the platform?





Read the following text and mark the correct answer for questions 11. to 15.

While few people claim to be addicted to it, ice cream is certainly a great favourite among people of all ages in many parts of the world. Although it is commonly believed to have originated in China, and has long been associated with Italian manufacturers, it doesn’t actually come from
either of those countries. Ice cream originated when chemists in the Middle East worked out that adding salt to water reduces its freezing point, making it possible to cool it below its normal freezing point without turning it to ice. In the eleventh century wealthy Arabs were certainly
enjoying water ice sweetened with sugar or fruit juice – a drink they called “sherbet”.
Folklore also holds that Nero, the Roman Emperor, invented water ice during the first century AD when he sent slaves up in the mountains and made them pass buckets of snow, hand over hand, to his banquet hall, where it was mixed with honey and wine. However, there is nothing to
prove that tale.
Well, one way or another, the method for making this delicacy found its way into Europe. The first book to mention it was published in Italy in 1530. At that time, water ices were typically served by monarchs and other important people as a special treat on great occasions. The British
are supposed to have been responsible for coming up with the idea of using cream in their ices instead of plain water, and thus ice cream as we know it today was born.
However, for a long time ice cream remained an expensive luxury because it relied on ice imported in vast blocks from colder climates. It was only from the mid-nineteenth century onwards, with the invention of modern refrigeration techniques, that ice cream started to become the familiar item of mass consumption that it is today.

11. According to the speaker, ice cream originated in





12. Arabic chemists discovered how to lower the freezing point of water by





13. The story of Nero, the Roman Emperor, having snow brought to him from the mountains





14. Using cream instead of plain water in water ices





15. Before the invention of modern refrigeration techniques in the mid-19th century, ice cream was





Read the text below. Then read the questions that follow it and choose the best answer to each question 16. to 20.

Who’s the Smart Kid?

For decades, scientists have been quarrelling over birth order like children fighting over a toy. Some of them say being a first-, second- or lastborn has a significant effect on intelligence. Others say that’s nonsense. The debate goes back as far as Alfred Adler, a Freud-era psychologist who argued that firstborns had an advantage over their younger brothers or sisters. Other psychologists found his theory easy to believe and set out to confirm it. Dozens of studies over the next several decades presented
Even though psychologists were quick to find evidence, they couldn’t discover a cause. Perhaps, one theory went, the mother’s body was somehow attacking the later kid while it was still in her womb. Maternal antibody levels do increase with each pregnancy. However, a study published recently in the journal Science strikes down the antibody hypothesis. The study, based on a quarter million young Norwegians, looks at kids who are the eldest by accident – those whose older brothers or sisters die in infancy – as well as those who are true firstborns. Both groups hit the same high scores on IQ tests. Whatever is lowering the secondborns’ scores, it isn’t biology before birth.
The obvious reason then must be the way parents raise their kids. Could they favour their first child and neglect the second? Hardly. In surveys, they say they give their children equal attention. Kids agree, reporting that they feel treated fairly.
What, then, is causing the differences? UC Berkeley researcher Frank Sulloway says that even though parents try to treat their kids equally, they still end up giving less care to secondborns because there’s one thing they can’t equalize: at no point in the secondborn’s life does (s)he get to be the only kid in the house. Besides, older kids are often called on to be “assistant parents”, he notes. Getting that early taste of responsibility may prepare them for higher achievement later on.

16. Alfred Adler claimed that firstborn children were smarter than their younger brothers or sisters.




17. All psychologists in the next decades were skeptical of Adler’s theory.




18. The study done with children in Norway confirms the theory of maternal antibody reaction.






19. Surveys show that parents admit treating their first child better than their younger kids.




20. Frank Sulloway suggests that parents do, in fact, treat their kids in a different way.




Read the text below. Then read the questions that follow it and choose the best answer to each question 21. to 25.

The Scandal at Tiger Temple

Thailand’s infamous Tiger Temple is finally being closed down, after nearly two decades of controversy. The popular tourist attraction near Bangkok allowed visitors to handle and pose with the animals – if you’ve seen one of your Facebook friends cuddling up to a tiger, it was probably taken there.
The temple was founded as a sanctuary for rescued animals. In 1999, it received its first tiger cub, found by villagers. It died soon after. Later, several sick or orphaned tiger cubs were given to the temple. The number of tigers soon expanded and as of January 2016 it exceeded 150. Claims of conservation were everywhere but those 'tiger stocks' had no real conservation value, as we can’t be sure what subspecies they are and there’s basically zero potential for
reintroduction into the wild.
Tourist money was supposedly vital for the tigers but more so for their guardians who had turned them into cash cows. Some of the tigers were paraded each day before being chained in an open-air display area to indulge a growing tourist craze for selfies and intimate encounters with captive wildlife. Other tigers, unsuited to display, were kept out of sight in unsanitary concrete enclosures. There were also accusations that those animals selected for display were heavily
sedated.
The Temple has long been accused by animal rights activists of being merely a front for illegal trade in wildlife – a claim perhaps validated by the horrifying discoveries of the latest police raid at the temple. In May 2016, the Thai police discovered 40 tiger cub dead bodies preserved in freezers, while one monk was caught trying to escape with skins and fangs. Tiger parts and their derivatives have long been valued by the profitable traditional Chinese medicine industry. Their bones can reach £300 per kg, while an entire skin is worth tens of thousands of dollars. Certain adults that had previously been micro-tagged by researchers were missing.
Police have charged 22 people, including three Buddhist monks, with wildlife trafficking. Authorities are currently removing and resettling more than 100 tigers to safe locations across the country.

21. Tiger Temple used to be a hands-on zoo attraction for tourists from around the world.




22. Tiger Temple was of vital importance for the conservation of tigers and the restoration of their population in the wild.




23. The animals at Tiger Temple were underfed.




24. A recent police raid at Tiger Temple uncovered evidence of large-scale illegal activities.




25. Thai authorities are trying to find new homes for the animals from Tiger Temple.




Read the text below. Then read the questions that follow it and choose the best answer to each question 26. to 30.

George Lucas and the Star Wars Story

A long time ago in a galaxy not far away… before the empire struck back, and the Jedi returned – there was a young director named George Lucas who had a crazy idea for a space opera that almost never made it to the screen.
In 1973, George Lucas was living in a one-bedroom apartment in Mill Valley when he directed a low-budget film called American Graffiti. Based on his childhood in Modesto, California, as well as his love for cars, American Graffiti was a blockbuster. Although it cost less than \$1 million to produce, it earned \$50 million as well as five Oscar nominations including Best Director.
Encouraged by his early success with American Graffiti, Lucas was determined to follow through on an idea for a “space opera” he and his partner, Gary Kurtz, had been playing with since 1971. The story was based on outer space adventures like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers — stories Lucas adored as a young boy while growing up on his family’s walnut farm.
There was no shortage of sci-fi in Hollywood at the time but what American audiences mostly got were dark, depressing, dystopian tales like Rollerball or Logan’s Run. Lucas was determined to make a different kind of sci-fi movie — one that was fun and aimed at 14- and 15-year-olds. “The reason I'm making Star Wars is that I want to give young people some sort of faraway exotic environment for their imaginations to run around in,” he said in an interview. “I
want kids to get beyond the basic stupidities of the moment and think about colonizing Venus and Mars. And the only way it's going to happen is to fantasize about it — to get your ray gun, jump in your ship and run off into outer space. It's our only hope in a way."
Lucas and Kurtz offered a twelve-page treatment of Star Wars to various Hollywood studios. United Artists turned them down. So did Universal Pictures. However, 20th Century Fox, encouraged by the early buzz from American Graffiti, decided to give the duo some money to develop the script. But going from a rough outline to a final script would take years.
On January 1, 1976, they finished the fourth draft of the script, which eventually was used when production began in the Tunisian desert in the spring of 1976. Lucas and Kurtz originally budgeted \$18 million for the film. Fox offered them \$7.5 million. Eager to begin shooting, they took the offer and the rest was history.
Star Wars debuted on May 25, 1977, in fewer than 32 theaters, which would be laughable today, but it immediately broke box office records. It started a new era of movie-making with its special effects and fascinating blend of myth and fairy tale. Although the final budget was \$11 million, the film made a profit of over \$513 million worldwide during its original release, setting the stage for a franchise that would last decades and create generations of fans across the world, connected by a common love for a galaxy far, far away.



26. What can we understand from the text about George Lucas’ childhood?





27. Which of the following is true of George Lucas’ American Graffiti?





28. Lucas was eager to make a science-fiction film because





29. In this context, the word “treatment” in paragraph 5 most likely means





30. Which of the following is true of the first Star Wars film?





USE OF ENGLISH

Read the text below and for each numbered gap choose the word or phrase that best suits the gap, marking your answers for questions 31. to 45.

Movie Magic

The enormous film industry of today had a relatively simple beginning. The first public showing of a motion picture on May 22, 1891, at Thomas Edison’s workshop in New Jersey (31) _______ of a polite man who smiled, waved, (32) _______ his hat and bowed to the audience. Then, in 1895, the Lumiere brothers presented their first film. It was (33) _______ than a minute long; the quality was poor, and the images were jumpy, (34) _______ it was a tremendous success. The motion picture industry was born.
Since its birth, the movie industry has been filled with illusions – i.e. things that (35) _______ to be real but actually aren’t. The first movie makers were excited about the camera’s (36) ______ to create “supernatural” images, such as people disappearing or objects flying through the air. The methods used were very simple but their “magic” (37) _____ people to gasp or run from the theatre as they believed the images were real. In The Great Train Robbery (1905), (38) _______, there was a lot of shooting: firearms were shot, smoke came out of the guns and men “dropped dead”. (39) ______ there was no sound – the first “talking” motion picture did not appear until 1927 – women in the (40) ________ put their fingers in their ears to
shut out the “noise” of the guns. People’s imagination, added to the pictures on the screen, made the illusion (41) ______.
One of the most (42) _______ illusions throughout the history of film has always been the use of “blood”. (43) ______ of the popularity of murder mysteries, war stories and westerns, there has always been an enormous (44) _____ of blood on the screen. In the earlier days producers were challenged by the problem what substance to use as a substitute, but today, of course, it’s all (45) ______ of technology.



31. (31)





32. (32)





33. (33)





34. (34)





35. (35)





36. (36)





37. (37)





38. (38)





39. (39)





40. (40)





41. (41)





42. (42)





43. (43)





44. (44)





45. (45)





For each of the sentences below, choose the word or phrase that best completes its meaning, marking your answers 46. to 50.

46. Bad news always __________ much faster than good news.





47. Ever since the 17th century blue whales __________ by hunters for their oil and meat.





48. People ___________ in luxury quickly while the opposite is not that easy.





49. They ___________ so much food – only two of the guests turned up.





50. ___________ we arrived at the party, the guests had left.





Sentence Transformations

Complete the second sentence below so that it is as close as possible in meaning to the first one.



51. It is many years since George last went to the theatre.

George hasn’t ____________________________ years.


52. It’s possible for her to lose her job because her work is careless. (Use a modal verb.)

Unless she works more _________________, _______________________ lose her job.




53. Do you have any special arrangements for this evening?

Are you ___________________________ special this evening?


54. I have never heard such a strange story!

This is _________________________________________ heard!


55. I regret buying that crappy old car. It keeps breaking down.

I wish ______________________________ that crappy old car!


56. “Does anyone know when the ambulance came?” the policeman asked.

The policeman asked __________________________________________ .


57. They are going to hold a big party in his honour.

A big party ________________________________________ in his honour.


58. We fell asleep at once in spite of the noise.

We fell asleep at once ______________________________________ noisy.


59. Jane woke up late because she forgot to set her alarm.

If Jane ________________________, ________________________ earlier.




60. Michael Clark grew up in the country with his grandparents.

Michael Clark was __________________by his grandparents in the country.


WRITING

On your sheet write a text in standard English of about 160-170 words on ONE of the following topics.


1. You wake up tomorrow with the ability to travel through time. What do you do first?
Have you ever dreamed of living in another age? Which one? Why? What would you like to learn about that age or to witness there?

2. You can't judge a book by its cover.
One should not form an opinion on someone or something based purely on what is seen on the surface, because after taking a deeper look, the person or thing may be very different from what was expected. Do you agree or disagree with this saying? Use reasons and specific examples to support your opinion.



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