ABITURPRÜFUNG 1999 Arbeitszeit: 180 Minuten
ENGLISCH
als Grundkursfach
Textaufgabe II
Nobody in Bienvida´s class at school ever had tea. They had
crisps or chocolate biscuits and cans of drink when they got home
from school, but not tea, not the kind of thing she got at her
grandmother´s. Bienvida knew nothing of the English tradition of
5 tea, bread and butter and sandwiches, biscuits and cake and a pot
of tea served at four o´clock. She was too young to have read about
it and no one had told her, but she sensed, when she had read at
Lilac Villa1, that this was how things should be, had used to be,
and was something surely specially apprpriate for people of her
10 age when they got home at four.
Other things at Cecilia´s Bienvida also much approved of. She
was a child who liked washing her hands before meals, perhaps
because she had never been told to do so. She liked sitting in a
clean room, at a table with a cloth on it, or on the chintz sofa,
15 watching Neighbours2 on her grandmother´s television. She liked
talking with Cecilia, though much of what she said to her was lies.
Bienvida told the lies less for her own protection than for her
mother´s. And in the hope of making Cecilia happy and making her
believe existence at Cambridge School3 was orderly and smooth-running
20 and what Cecilia herself would call decent. So when her grandmother
asked her, putting the question optimistically, as one expecting
the answer ´yes´,if Jasper4 was attending school regularly, Bienvida
replied that he was.
"Hedoes go to school, doesn´t he, Bienvida?"
25 "Yes, of course he does," Bienvida said with as much earnestness
as she could muster.
"Because he´s a clever boy and he needs education." Cecilia
hesitated, went on vaguely, "He would need it even more if he
weren´t clever, but I´m sure you know what I mean."
30 Bienvida, eating homemade sponge cake, butter-iced5 and scattered
with chocolate vermicelli6, said she did know. She sat very upright
at the table, enjoying the soapy smell of her clean hands.
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"I expect you go to bed at the same time, don´t you, even though
he is two years older than you?"
35 This time Bienvida did not have to lie. She replied that this
was true, they did go to bed at the same, forbearing to7 add that
it was seldom before eleven and might be at midnight. Rather grace-
fully, she chanced the subject by asking if she could have another
piece of cake, another piece of this delicious cake, a grown-up
40 adjective which made her grandmother smile.
Cecilia, in spite of the smile, felt miserable and ashamed of
herself. It was very wrong, she had always maintained, to question
innocent children about their mode of life behind their parents´
backs. If she had heard of anyone else doing it she would deeply
45 have disapproved. But she could not help herself. She could not
help herself though she was not entirely, or even halfway, deceived
by Bienvida´s lies. She even knew what kind of lies they were,
designed to protect her and Tina8 and keep them happy and caring
for one another, and she loved Bienvida even more for this.
50 Knowing they were lies should have kept her from further ques-
tioning. It inhibited her but could not quite stop her. She felt
her way round the burning question, the one that might have the
terrible answer, she danced round it, pouring Bienvida more weak
sugary tea, plying her with chocolate chip cookies. It was not
55 possible for her to ask this innocent and gentle child, whose eyes
were too way and too sad for her age, if her mother´s boyfriend
Billy was living with her and sharing her bed. She could not ask it
and retain her self-respect.
It was a distance of no more than two hundred yards to the
60 School but Cecilia walked her home. It was daylight, it was on the
whole a ´nice´ district, Cecilia thought Bienvida an obedient girl
who would remember about not speaking to strangers, but neverthe-
less she walked home to the School with her. She always did. She
had read too many newspaper accounts of abducted and murdered
children, seen too much evidence on the television of the peril
children were in.
From: Barbara Vine, King Solomon´s Carpet, 1991
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Annotations:
1 Lilac Villa: name of Cecilia´s house
2 Neighbours: title of a popular TV series
3 Cambridge School: a run-down Victorian school bulding, in which
Bienvida lives with her mother and her brother, among other
lodgers
4 Jasper: Bienvida´s elder brother
5 butter-iced: covered with butter cream
6 chocolate vermicelli: hits of chocolate in the form of short thin
threads
7 to forbear to do sth: to hold oneself back from doing sth
8 Tina: Bienvida´s mother
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ENGLISCH als GRUNDKURSFACH - Textaufgabe II
WORKSHEET:
maximum number of
points attainable
I. Questions on the text
Read all the questions first, then answer them
in the given order.
Use your own words as far as is appropriate.
1. Describe the situation and the atmosphere at grandmother
Cecilia´s home as presented in the first two paragraphs.
What effect does the last sentence (11. 15/16) have on
the reader? 20
2. Characerize Bienvida as she is portrayed in this excerpt.
Give evidence for your findings. 20
3. Analyse Cecilia´s actitude and behaviour towards her
granddaughter. 20
4. What does the use of "does" and "doesn´t he" in line 24 and
"did" in line 31 betray about Cecilia and Bienvida? 10
5. Show that the society presented in this text is undergoing
disturbing changes. 10
II. Composition 40
Choose o n e of the following topics.
Write about 120 to 150 words.
1. It is difficult to grow up in a permissive society.
Discuss.
2. Living at home till you are pushing 30 - what do you
think of this trend?
III. Translation 40
Translate the following text into German:
_____
160
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According to experts on adolescent development, children now
spend significantly less time in the company of adults than they
did a few decades ago; more of their time is spent in front of the
television or with their peers in unsupervised environments. Less
5 time with adults means less time learning from those who can serve
as valuable role models to youth.
Working single parents and families in which both parents work
make it even less likely that young people will be able to seek
parental guidance and advice during critical after-school hours.
10 The double-income family has added a new child to society, the
"latchkey" child1. This child sometimes leaves an empty house in
the morning and almost always returns to an empty house. The
emotional and educational impact on these children is just now
15 beginning to be addressed and investigated.
A lack of mentors and role models, the working parent and the
related latchkey phenomenon - all reflect the changing social and
economic pressures affecting youth today.
From: Pacific Center for Violence Prevention, Preventing
Youth Violence
1 "latchkey" child: a child who has to carry a key, because there
is no one at home when he or she returns from school
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