Anglais Reading Comprehension Past Paper 2023-2024 PDF

1 Contrôle final Session d’automne 2023-2024 Filière : Anglais Module : Reading comprehension Semestre : 1 Parcours : …………………………………………… Session 1 Professeurs : KESBI / SBIHI/ El MALAKI / Durée : 1 heure : 45 YOUSSEF DI...

1 Contrôle final Session d’automne 2023-2024 Filière : Anglais Module : Reading comprehension Semestre : 1 Parcours : …………………………………………… Session 1 Professeurs : KESBI / SBIHI/ El MALAKI / Durée : 1 heure : 45 YOUSSEF DIB G/1 When critics wish to repudiate the world in which we live today, one of their familiar ways of doing it is to castigate modern man because anxiety is his chief problem. Whenever an age is characterized by a phrase, it is presumably in contrast to other ages. If we are the age of anxiety, what were the other ages? In addition, here the critics and carpers do a very amusing thing. First, they give us lists of the opposites of anxiety: security, trust, self-confidence, and self-direction. Then, without much further discussion, they let us assume that other ages, other periods of history, were somehow the ages of trust or confident direction. The savage who, on his South Sea island, simply sat and let bread fruit fall into his lap, the simple peasant, at one with the fields he ploughed and the beasts he tended, the craftsman busy with his tools and lost in the fulfilment of the instinct of workmanship- these are the counter images conjured up by descriptions of the strain under which men live today. However, no one who lived in those days has returned to testify how paradisiacal they really were. Certainly if we observe and question the savages or simple peasants in the world today, we find something quite different. The untouched savage in the middle of New Guinea is not anxious; he is seriously and continually frightened- of black magic, of enemies with spears who may kill him or his wives and children at any moment, while they stoop to drink 1  2 from a spring, or climb a palm tree for a coconut. He goes warily, day and night, taut and fearful. As for the peasant populations of a great part of the world, they are not so much anxious as hungry. They are not anxious about whether they will get a salary raise, or which of the three colleges of their choice they will be admitted to, or whether to buy a Ford or a Cadillac, or whether the kind of TV set they want is too expensive. They are hungry, cold and, in many parts of the world, they dread that local warfare, bandits, political coups may endanger their homes, their meagre livelihoods and their lives. Surely, they are not anxious. The kind of world that produces anxiety is actually a world of relative safety, a world in which no one feels that he himself is facing sudden death. Possibly sudden death may strike a certain number of unidentified other people- but not him. The anxiety exists as an easy state of mind, in which one has a feeling that something unspecified and undeterminable may go wrong. If the world seems to be going well, this produces anxiety- for good times end. If the world is going badly, it may get worse. Anxiety tends to be without locus; the various person does not know whether to blame himself or other people. He is not sure whether it is the current year, the administration, or a change in climate or the atomic bomb that is to blame for this undefined sense of unease. People who are anxious keep their car insurance up, have the brakes checked, do not take a second drink when they have to drive, are careful about where they go and with whom they drive on holidays. People who are too anxious refuse to either go into cars at all and so complicate the ordinary course of life- or drive so tensely and overcautiously that they help cause accidents. People who are not anxious enough take chance after chance, which increases the terrible death toll on the roads. This is the world out of which grows the hope, for the first time in history, of a society where there will be freedom from want and freedom from fear. Our very anxiety is born of our knowledge of what is now possible for each and for all. The number of people who consult psychiatrists today is not, as it is sometimes felt, a symptom of increasing mental ill health, but rather the precursor of a world in which the hope of genuine mental health will be open 2  3 to everyone, a world in which no individual feels that he needs to be hopelessly brokenhearted, a failure, a menace to others or a traitor to himself. I. VOCABULARY (10 points) A. Circle the best word that explains the following terms: (1 point each) 1. Repudiate: reject 2. Castigate: criticize 3. Trust: faith 4. Stoop: push up 5. Meager: abundant 6. Blame: excuse 7. Unease: anxiety 8. Toll: achievement 9. Consult: ask advice of 10. Menace: threat B. Comprehension questions (15 points) A. Answer the following questions according to the text 1. Why does the writer describe our age as of anxiety? _because in our world is the chief problem 2. Why doesn’t the writer consider the savage and the peasant anxious? _ because the savage and the peasant stay busy all day with Thier tools and works. 3. According to the text, what are the causes of anxiety? _causes of anxiety: Exists as an easy state of mind. Fear, blame our selves.hungry.. 3  4 4. What are the characteristics of anxious people? _The characteristics of anxious people are keep their car insurance up, have the brakes checked, do not take a second drink when they have to drive, are careful about where they go and with whom they drive on holidays… 5. Do you agree with the writer’s definition of anxiety? Why or why not? I agree with the writer because the anxiety is a reason to make people take care of Thier selves and lives.that push them for example to make assurance to Thier cars and to dont drink more… B. Paraphrase (15 points) A. Rewrite in your own words the following sentences keeping the same meaning 1. Whenever an age is characterized by a phrase, it is presumably in contrast to other age Every era differs from the next era 2. However, no one who lived in those days has returned to testify how paradisiacal they really were. _Despite this, there is no one who lived in Paradise and still can tell us about it 3. they dread that local warfare, bandits, political coups may endanger their homes The frightening premonition of every warrior that politicians may put in danger 4. one has a feeling that something unspecified and undeterminable may go wrong. _one has a emotion that something not thoroughly explained and Not possible to determine may go untrue. 5. Our very anxiety is born of our knowledge of what is now possible for each and for all _Our very distress is birth of our awareness of what is now able for everyone. 4