The Notting Hill Carnival - PAU 2016 inglés Andalucía

>Exámenes selectividad inglés resueltos Andalucía

The Notting Hill Carnival traces its origins back to the culture of the Caribbean. When African slaves were first brought to Trinidad, they were not permitted to dance or play their own music. However, as the slavery regime settled down, a strong local tradition of carnival emerged. Once a year, enslaved people symbolically escaped from the oppression of their daily routine by playing music, dancing, and dressing up in costumes which mimicked the European fashions of their masters. They even whitened their faces with flour or wore white masks.

The tradition came to London with the migration of workers and their families from the Caribbean to Britain after the Second World War. By the late 1950s, many Caribbeans were living in Notting Hill a poor area. There, they faced racism, bad housing conditions and, in 1958, violent attacks from white youths. The idea of a Caribbean carnival emerged as a way of reasserting community cohesion after the 1958 disturbance. 

Claudia Jones, the editor of the West Indian Gazette, was the moving spirit behind the idea. The first carnival celebration was held in the town hall building in St. Pancras in 1962. This was a great success and became an annual event. In 1965, local social worker Rhaune Laslett suggested holding some outdoor festivities in Notting Hill. The two celebrations were combined, and so the Notting Hill carnival began. The skills of costume-making, steel drumming and calypso music gradually came together to establish a festival of music, arts and culture.

The Notting Hill Carnival is the largest European street party and the second major street festival in the world after Rio's Carnival. It is truly a spectacle not to be missed.

No Fear, No Surprise, No Hesitation - PAU inglés 2016 Madrid

>Exámenes selectividad inglés resueltos C. Madrid

Ancient Samurai Armor | by williamcho

Where does this saying come from? It's from a seventeenth-century samurai warrior. This way his key to successful living.

No fear. There should be nothing in this life that you are afraid of. If there is, you might need to overcome that fear. Here I have to confess to a certain fear of heights. Recently, owing to leaky rain gutters, I had to crawl out on our roof. I gritted my teeth and kept repeating, "No fear, no fear", until the job was done. Oh yes, and of course I didn't look down. Whatever your fear, face it head on and defeat it.

No surprise. Life seems to be full of them. You're going along swimmingly and suddenly something huge rears up ahead of you. But if you look carefully, there were clues all along the way that it was going to happen. So why does life seem to surprise us then? Because we are asleep half the time. Wake up and nothing can sneak up on you.

No hesitation. Weigh up the odds and then just get on with it. If you spend too long thinking, the opportunity will have passed. Once we have looked at the options, we make a choice; then, go for it. No hesitation means not waiting around for other people to help out or make up our minds for us. No hesitation means if there is a certain inevitability about a situation then just throw yourself in, head first, and enjoy the ride. If there is nothing to be done then waiting doesn't help.

Why are British kids so unhappy? Two words: screen time. PAU Valencia 2016

>Exámenes selectividad inglés Comunidad Valenciana resueltos

Children at school-by-Lucélia Ribeiro

Peter Wanless has warned of a nation of deeply unhappy children, due to “the pressure to keep up with friends and have the perfect life online... adding to the sadness that many young people feel every day”. New research by Action For Children (AFC) finds that one in four parents struggles to control their  children’s  screen  use, 10% of parents find it hard to get their kids to do homework, and 18% can’t get them to go to sleep at night.

AFC suggests limiting children’s screen time by planning fun activities for the whole family that don’t involve technology and creating a balance between technology use and other activities, insisting that, for every hour of screen, children should have to do an hour of something else.

Sorry, none of that’s ever going to work on any teen I know, for that matter; it’s too late for that now. No, it’s time for some Victorian-style parenting.  So last night we sat our son Fred down and laid down the law: from this Sunday,  he’s to hand in his phone to us by 10.30 pm on school  nights - no discussion,  no argument,  just good old-fashioned “because I said so”. His response? “No way. That is so unfair. I’ve done nothing wrong!”

Sure, you can blame the parents for this whole mess -if we hadn’t filled our homes with smartphones and tablets and  laptops and desktops, none of this would ever have happened.  You can even blame society or  the government. Or it could be Tim Berners-Lee’s fault for inventing the web.

Bob Granleese, The Guardian, 7-1-2016

PAU 2015 Cantabria. Train to take you from Los Angeles to San Francisco in three hours

>Exámenes selectividad inglés Cantabria resueltos

Everyone’s talking about California's high-speed rail project – a $68 billion network that could zip passengers from San Francisco to Los Angeles in less than three hours. Construction of the first phase of the line will begin next year in the Central Valley, a 28-mile stretch from Madera to Fresno. In future years, the rail line will stretch north to San Jose and south to Palmdale and the San Fernando Valley north of Los Angeles. The whole network might not be completed until 2028.

The project has been surrounded by controversy. Some have said even though the nation’s first bullet train will take a quarter of the time it currently takes, it will still not be fast enough to attract sufficient customers.

Others have said the price tag is too high. Yet officials at California’s High-Speed Rail Authority say it is still cheaper than building dozens of new airport runways and highways to accommodate a state population that is estimated to reach 46 million by 2035.

At a special ceremony in Fresno on Tuesday, California Governor Jerry Brown compared the rail line to the construction of the great cathedrals of Europe, which took generations. “The high-speed rail links us from the past to the future, from the south to the north,” he said. “It's not that expensive. We cannot really afford not to build it.

All these projects are a little controversial. You’ll always have some critics say why spend all this money?”

Last year, two government transport officials from the state, Brian Kelly and Mary Nichols, wrote in a newspaper article that the only genuine alternative to the high-speed train was to invest up to $150 billion to build 4,300 new lanes of highway, more freeways and hundreds of new airport gates and runways. They added: “This would cover large parts of the state with concrete and asphalt.”

By car, the journey takes at least six-and-a-half hours in optimum traffic conditions, and can cost about as much depending on the type of car, fuel and highway tolls. The high-speed train tickets will be similar to the cost of air travel, promoters say, and deliver people to central stations, saving more time and money.

The Independent, 7 January 2015 (Adapted)

PAU 2015 inglés. E-Cigarettes increase the risk of flu and pneumonia

>Exámenes selectividad inglés Cantabria resueltos

Using electronic cigarettes may harm the body’s defences against pneumonia and flu, according to a recent study. The research, which reopens the debate on the dangers and benefits of e-cigarettes, suggests the vapour produced by the devices can compromise the immune system in the lungs, leaving them more vulnerable to infection by harmful bacteria and viruses.

Scientists from John Hopkins University exposed mice to e-cigarette vapour twice a day for two weeks.

They then administered some of the mice with an influenza virus and others with the bacteria which is responsible for pneumonia. The mice that had been exposed to the vapour were less able to fight off illness, and some died. Professor Shyam Biswal, senior author of the study, said the findings suggested that e-cigarettes are not neutral in terms of the effects on the lungs and that studies should now be carried out on people, particularly those with common lung problems which often affect smokers and ex-smokers – the main users of e-cigarettes.

It is true that e-cigarettes have been shown to be highly effective in helping smokers to quit, and there is a broad consensus that despite some uncertainty over their health impact, they are less harmful than tobacco cigarettes but Professor Biswal remains concerned e-cigarettes could pose risks to future generations, particularly given evidence from some countries that they are becoming more popular among young people who have never smoked.

He has recommended to the World Health Organisation that they be banned in indoor public spaces – a measure the Department of Health in England has ruled out, but which is being considered by the Welsh government.

However, Professor John Britton from the UK said the most important point was that harm to the lungs was less from e-cigarettes than from tobacco. “The lung is an exquisitely delicate organ and therefore nobody with any common sense would believe that inhaling heated vapour many times a day would be harmless,” he said. “What matters here is not a comparison of the effects of e-cigarette vapour compared with nothing, but the effects compared with those of tobacco smoke. Harm to the lungs will be less with electronic cigarettes than tobacco cigarettes, and any smoker who cannot quit using nicotine, and doesn’t find medicinal products effective, would be well advised to try an electronic cigarette.”

The Guardian, 4 February 2015 (Adapted).

How Facebook affects us - PAU 2015

>Exámenes selectividad inglés Cantabria resueltos

Two recent studies have revealed amazing facts about how Facebook affects its users. The first study, carried out by researchers at the University of Missouri-Columbia, has shown that being envious of Facebook friends can cause depression and that looking through the site to compare achievements with those of friends can have a very detrimental effect on a person`s mental health. Margaret Duffy explains, "Facebook can be a fun and healthy activity if users take advantage of the site to stay connected with family and old friends and to share interesting and important aspects of their lives. However, using it to see how well an acquaintance is doing financially or how happy an old friend is in his relationship can lead to feelings of depression."

Duffy and a colleague based in Singapore surveyed 700 students for the paper, published in the journal ‘Computers in Human Behaviour’. She went on to say, "Facebook can be a very positive resource for many people, but if it is used as a way to compare your own accomplishments against others, it can have a negative effect. It is important for Facebook users to be aware of these risks so they can avoid this kind of behaviour when using Facebook."

A second study, completely independent from the first, has shown that a computer can be better at assessing someone’s basic personality than close friends or family. A study of more than 86,000 users of Facebook has demonstrated the power of intelligent machines to predict an individual’s character based on what they have listed as their “Likes.”

Researchers said that the day when computers are able to judge a person’s personality accurately has almost arrived and even suggested that science fiction films like “Her”, based on a man’s emotional attachment to an intelligent computer, are closer than we think. In the future, computers could be able to infer our psychological characteristics and react accordingly in an emotionally-intelligent way. “People may choose to change their own intuitions and judgements with this kind of data analysis when making important life decisions such as choosing activities, career paths or even romantic partners,” said Wu Youyou of Cambridge University.

The Independent, 12 January and 4 February 2015 (Adapted)

Do young people care about learning foreign languages? - PAU 2015 inglés Cantabria

>Exámenes selectividad inglés Cantabria resueltos

Do young people in the UK care about learning languages? Fewer students than ever are choosing to study a language degree at university, and since 2004, taking a language at GCSE* has not been compulsory, so the simple answer would seem to be no. This is disconcerting news for a country which is not exactly famous for its multilingualism.

However, research conducted by the organisation ICM paints a far more complex picture of youth attitudes in the UK. Those choosing to study languages may have dropped, but of the 1001 young people between the ages of 14-24 interviewed in the survey, almost 20% already speak another language at home with their family, and 70% would be interested in learning another language in the future.

When asked to pick the three main benefits of learning a language, students said that job prospects at home and abroad were both key incentives. Learning about another culture and the experience of communicating also scored highly in this section. So if languages offer you the ability to make new friends and work abroad, why are young people put off? Asked to pick the three main downsides of learning a language, the difficulty of the learning process was an important reason but the idea that they were less interesting than other subjects came top for our young interviewees. Interestingly, low confidence levels in speaking another language also played a role in this decision.

Asking interviewees to comment on their ability in the language they had studied at school provided perhaps the most revealing piece of data from the survey. For most of the languages, students don’t perceive themselves to be progressing past basic language levels. The survey suggested that the opportunity to use a language outside the classroom and communicate with native speakers would make language learning more attractive. As for teaching inside the classroom, young people want more interaction, and more technology.

November 2014, The Guardian (Adapted).

• *GCSE – General Certificate of Secondary Education (in the UK)

The birth of Rock and Roll - PAU 2016 Andalucía inglés

>Exámenes selectividad inglés resueltos Andalucía

The  origins  of  rock  and  roll  have  been  fiercely  debated  by  commentators  and  historians  of  music.  There  is  general  agreement  that  it  began in  the  Southern  United  States  –  a  region  which  would  produce  most  of  the  major  early rock and roll acts – through the meeting of various influences that embodied a merging of the African musical tradition with European instrumentation.  The migration of many former slaves and their descendants to major urban centers  such  as Memphis,  New  York  City,  Detroit  and  Chicago meant  that  black  and  white  residents  were  living  in  close  proximity  in  larger  numbers  than  ever  before,  and  as  a  result  heard  each  other's  music  and  even  began  to  emulate each other's fashions.

Radio stations that made white and black forms of music available to both groups, the development  and  spread  of  the gramophone  record,  and  African  American  musical  styles  such as  jazz  and  swing  which were taken up by white musicians, aided this process of "cultural collision".

The immediate roots of rock and roll lay in the rhythm and blues, then called " race music", and country music of 10 the  1940s  and  1950s.  

Particularly  significant  influences  were  jazz, blues, gospel,  country,  and folk. Commentators differ in their views of which of these forms were most important and the degree to which the new music was a re-branding of African American rhythm and blues for a white market, or a new hybrid of black and white forms.

In the 1930s jazz, and particularly swing, both in urban based dance bands and blues-influenced country swing, was among the first music to present African American sounds for a predominantly white audience.

PAU Galicia 2015 inglés - The Polite Society

>Exámenes selectividad inglés Galicia resueltos

When  was  the  last  time  you  stopped  to  have  a  friendly  chat  with  your  neighbour,  or  paused  to open  the door for someone, or gave up your seat on the bus to an elderly person? If you have to stop to think, then it was too long ago.

Ian Gregory, the founder of the Polite Society, is the sort of person who does it every day and thinks that the world would be a better place if we all did the same. What we need, he says, is a touch more courtesy. Our society is full of rude, inconsiderate and selfish people who wouldn’t give you the time of day even if your life depended on it. He’s absolutely right, of course, but isn’t that “a sign of the times”? Well,  he  thinks there is  something  that  is  going  wrong  with  the  way  we  live  our  lives  and  interact  with one another, especially  on  the  roads,  where  an  estimated  47  per  cent  of  accidents  can  be  traced  back  to some act of discourtesy.
There is nothing that legislation can do about this; there’s nothing that money can do about it either. You can’t impose a personality on a nation and say: “Well, let’s all be nicer to one another”. But the only way you  are going  to  get  anything  effective  done  about  it  is  if  you  persuade  enough  people  that  they  can  be happier, more successful individuals if they are more considerate to one another in their business, in their love lives, in their family lives, in everything.
You  see,  we  are  brilliant  at  discovering  things,  learning  how  to  use  computers,  etc.,  but  in  terms  of behaviour towards one another we are no better than cavemen.

How would we live in a world without oil? -PAU 2016 inglés Madrid resuelto

>Exámenes selectividad inglés resueltos C. Madrid

What would happen if our oil supply were shut off in a day? First, there is transportation. With the overwhelming majority of the oil we produce devoted to powering our vehicles, the impact on getting around would be most dramatic. Price-speculation would begin right away, and long lines would form at gas stations. Soon, we would all be looking for an electric car or converting our vehicles to run on natural gas. But it would not be long before natural gas supplies were also driven to extinction.

Fuel shortage is not the only problem our enslavement to black gold would cause. We also need to keep the lights on and blackouts would soon begin. It gets much worse still, of course, because a world without oil would quickly become a world without all of the products made from petroleum that we have come to know, love and depend upon. The list of essentials that we would soon be doing without is prodigious: medicines, paints, utensils and equipment, virtually all plastics, etc.

Eating would get tougher, too. If no one can truck fresh vegetables from across the country, we might be inclined to go back to basics and grow our own food. Local farmers would become a necessity, not just people who sell us honey at the street fair. It is an interesting thought experiment to picture such a world. Though the scenario is unreal, of course, taken to its logical conclusion, it encompasses so much more. A complete extinction of oil would lead to a rapid breakdown of society, desperation, lawlessness, wars and untold suffering.

Videogames - PAU inglés 2015 Andalucía resuelto

>Exámenes selectividad inglés resueltos Andalucía

A teenager died at an Internet cafe in Taiwan after reportedly playing a videogame for 40 hours straight. The 18-year-old, who has only been identified by his first name, Chuang, had booked a private room in an Internet cafe in southern Taiwan. Chuang then proceeded to play the videogame for 40 hours straight without eating. The next day, an attendant went into the room where Chuang had been playing and found the teen resting on the table. The attendant was able to wake Chuang, who stood up, took a few steps and then collapsed onto the ground. He was pronounced dead soon after arriving at the hospital. Authorities believe the teenager may have suffered a heart attack due to sitting for such a long period of time. 

The video game he had been playing was of the role play variety and very popular due to its repeated scheme of killing the monsters, finding the treasure and then escaping from the beast’s den. What made it so addictive, particularly when it got to the end of the game, was the fact that repetitive actions are necessary to develop our character’s strength till you are able to overcome the boss level. 

Regarding the teen's death, the developer of the game said: “We're saddened to hear this news. Though we recognize that it's eventually up to each individual or their parent or guardian to determine playing habits, we feel that moderation is clearly important, and that a person's day-to-day life should be more important than any form of entertainment.” Chuang is not the first individual to die following a long gaming session. Last February, 23-year-old Chen Rong-yu was found dead after having played a videogame for 23 hours.

What is cyberbullying? - PAU 2015 Andalucía resuelto

>Exámenes selectividad inglés resueltos Andalucía

It is currently reported that up to 69% of young people experience cyberbullying before the age of 18… but what is it and who does it affect? Cyberbullying is defined as “the use of digital technologies with an intent to offend, humiliate, threaten or abuse somebody.” It can include anything offensive that is directed at you on an electronic form of communication. This includes via text, email, Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and online games.

Anybody can become a receiver of cyberbullying, no matter how old they are or the kind of job they occupy. In fact, it is well documented that a lot of celebrities also experience cyberbullying. The most important thing is knowing how to deal with it by considering how serious the cyberbullying is. If it is light name-calling (that is, receiving insults) from somebody that is unknown, it may be easier to just block that user. However, if the experience comes from somebody you go to school or college with, you should report it to a teacher, an adult or contact the police as soon as you can. It is also advisable to keep social media privacy settings high and not get together with anybody unknown offline. People may not always be who they say they are and you could be putting yourself and those that you care about most in real danger. Additionally, taking a screenshot of anything that could be considered cyberbullying and keeping a record on the computer might be helpful.

However, you should never respond to anything that has been said or get revenge by doing the same thing back. Posting something humiliating in revenge may make matters worse or even get you into trouble.

Mass tourism can kill a city - PAU 2015 Andalucía resuelto

>Exámenes selectividad inglés resueltos Andalucía

We have all been a tourist at some point, but citizens of great cities like Venice or Barcelona are trying to defend their traditional neighbourhoods from the massive invasion of tourists. The last local underwear shop in Venice closed a decade ago. This means that residents of this city of islands have to go to the mainland for such essential purchases. This is a warning sign. Any city that concentrates too much on mass tourism will be abandoned by its people when they can no longer pay the cost of housing, food and basic everyday necessities. 

We’re starting to see Venice without Venetians. It’s also happening in Barcelona, a city of 2 million inhabitants that received 7.5 million tourists last year. The local authorities say that they want to increase this to 10 million visitors per year. These figures have led to open conflict this summer. There have been neighbourhood assemblies and protests against the situation, because in popular places of the city the scale of visitor numbers is affecting not only residents’ quality of life, but their very ability to live in the area.

Neighbourhood communities are essential to the culture of southern Europe. Yet, people who live in popular tourist areas are at risk of being forced out by speculators who raise the rents of apartments and shops. The people who have always lived in these areas are forced to leave or, if they don’t, they suffer consequences such as noise and pollution levels that are difficult to combine with daily life. It’s paradoxical, but uncontrolled mass tourism ends up destroying the things that made a city attractive to visitors in the first place: the unique atmosphere of the local culture.  

Safe swimming - PAU 2015 Andalucía

>Exámenes selectividad inglés resueltos Andalucía

When the summer holidays arrive, what could be nicer than a day at the seaside? Or perhaps you plan to lie by the pool, or try a bit of river or canal boating. The water looks so sparkling and inviting that it is easy to forget it can also be a deadly hazard.

According to the Swimming Teachers Association (STA), the tragic fact is that 400 people drown every year in the UK. Lives could be saved if more people knew the basics of safe swimming. According to the STA, everyone needs to know five basic skills. 

First of all, we should all be able to float for one minute without a rubber ring or other support. In terms of distance, for safety you need to be able to swim a minimum of 25 metres without stopping. This is the length of a standard swimming pool. You need the ability to turn over from your front on to your back in case you get tired in the water and have to wait for help. For safety, you should also be able to exit the pool without a ladder. And it is important to learn how to enter the water safely, make a turn, and get out of the water again. 

It is never too late to learn, and age is no barrier. For most of us, swimming is excellent for the heart, lungs, muscles and joints. Even if you have a disability, you can learn to swim. A properly trained swimming teacher can work with your abilities, and find ways to help you stay safe while you enjoy all the health benefits of swimming –and all the fun!

La Tomatina festival: The messiest holiday in the world - PAU 2015 Andalucía

>Exámenes selectividad inglés resueltos Andalucía

The world-famous Tomatina festival has been held in the Valencian town of Buñol on the last Wednesday of August since 1945. Every year, thousands of tourists join the town’s 9,000 inhabitants to throw tonnes of tomatoes at one another. The event, often regarded as the world’s largest food fight, is the culmination of a week-long celebration made up of street parties, fireworks, food fairs and a paella cooking contest. 

The tradition began in the mid-1940s, though its origins are unclear. It has been attributed to a food fight that broke out in the town in 1945 during the “parade of giants and big heads” and had to be broken up by the police. The fight was banned in the early 1950s until 1957, when the locals held a funeral for a giant tomato in protest and successfully had the ban removed. 

Over 100 tonnes of tomatoes are brought to the town and thrown during an hour-long battle, at an estimated total cost of €140,000, or €2,300 a minute. In recent years, the festival has become so popular that the council decided to limit the attendance to the event to a maximum of 20,000 people. 

The fight begins at 11am with the firing of a water cannon. According to the rules, participants must stop throwing tomatoes as soon as they hear the second round of the cannon. Then, it’s time to clean up. Actually, once the tomato pulp is sprayed down by fire trucks, the ground is clean due to the acidity of the tomato. 

The tomato festival has become a global phenomenon, with similar festivals staged at one time or another in Colombia, China, the US and Chile. 

Tattoos - PAU 2015 inglés Andalucía resuelto

>Exámenes selectividad inglés resueltos Andalucía

The discovery of mummies with very simple decorative tattoos has proved the existence of tattooing since prehistoric times. Scientists have not been able to explain the symbolism of these designs made up of lines and dots, but it is thought they were part of a medical healing process.

However, for nearly as long as there has been tattooing, there has been condemnation. The Romans used tattoos to mark slaves and criminals and the Japanese also considered them punishment. If you were a convicted criminal, you would get a mark on your forehead, convicted twice get another, and if you were convicted a third time, you would receive a third and final mark making the Japanese symbol for “dog”.

In some other societies, tattoos gained respect and assured the owners status for life. The Polynesians developed them to mark rank, and there is evidence that the Incas tattooed their warriors to remind them and others of their success and bravery in battle.

In the late 1700s, Captain Cook and his men reintroduced tattooing in Europe. Returning from one of his trips, he brought a heavily tattooed Polynesian man who was a sensation among London upper-class. They were so fascinated that they began adorning themselves with body marks in discreet places and, for a short time, tattooing became a trend.

After World War II, tattoos had a terrible reputation because newspapers reported stories of blood poisoning and other diseases and the people who wore them were associated with delinquents. Today they are becoming so popular that it is getting harder and harder to find individuals without a tattoo. This rise in popularity has placed tattooists in the category of “fine artists”.

Esperanto and universal communication - PAU 2015 Cataluña

>Exámenes selectividad inglés Cataluña resueltos

Today, English has no rival as an international lingua franca. However, things could have been different if Esperanto, an artificial language invented in 1887 by Ludwig Lazarus Zamenhof, a Jewish doctor from Bialystok (modern-day Poland but then part of the Russian Empire), had become a common language. Esperanto is made up of key structures from different linguistic families (Latinate, Germanic, Slavic and Semitic). The word Esperanto derives from Doktoro Esperanto (“Esperanto” translates as “one who hopes”), the pseudonym under which Zamenhof published the first grammar of Esperanto. Zamenhof’s goal was to create an easy-to-learn, politically neutral language that would transcend nationality and encourage peace and international understanding between people with different languages.

In a letter to a friend, Zamenhof explained why he was worried about human communication: “The place where I was born and spent my childhood gave direction to all my future struggles. In Bialystok the inhabitants were divided into four distinct elements: Russians, Poles, Germans and Jews; each of these spoke their own language and looked on all the others as enemies. Living in such a town made me feel the misery caused by language division. The diversity of languages is the first, or at least the most influential, basis for the separation of the human family into groups of enemies. I was brought up as an idealist. I was taught that all people were brothers, while outside in the street at every step I felt that there were no people, only Russians, Poles, Germans and Jews.”

In 1905, Esperanto’s first international congress took place in Boulogne-sur-Mer, in France. Then, in 1920, the League of Nations (the precursor of the United Nations) recommended that its member states incorporate the language, despite misgivings in France, as at that time French was the dominant international tongue. However, the advent of the Second World War and Nazi expansion put an end to the possibility of the language, which was invented by a Jew, from becoming the new international lingua franca. Nevertheless, more than a century since Zamenhof published his first grammar enthusiasts of Esperanto continue to promote the usefulness of the tongue. “Esperanto is much easier to learn than English,” says Ramon Perera, a member of the Associació Catalana d’Esperanto and a teacher of the language for the past 20 years. “Esperanto,” he says, “is a fairer language because none of its speakers have an advantage over the others.” Perera says that up to two years are needed to learn the language, “depending on the capabilities of each person, the hours dedicated to it and the level they want to reach.”

Perera began learning the language some 38 years ago when a friend lent him a book written in Esperanto. He took a four-week intensive course, which left him captivated by the language’s “simple and logical” grammar. From that moment on, he became a dedicated “Esperantist” and has since met speakers from all over Europe, something that has been aided by the advent of the Internet. “It is a language that works and that could solve the world’s communication problems,” he says. In fact, the French economist François Grin, in 2005, presented a report to the European Parliament that proposed adopting Esperanto as a common language in the European Union, which would save the Union 25 million euros every year. For the moment, that report has been filed away somewhere, but according to estimates by the World Esperanto Association, there are as many as two million Esperanto speakers who hope that one day their adopted language will take root and a new era of universal communication will begin.

Text adapted from Catalonia Today (October 31, 2013)

Are love-locks on bridges romantic or a menace? PAU Cataluña 2015

>Exámenes selectividad inglés Cataluña resueltos

Beautiful bridges in Paris are being ruined by an epidemic of padlocks. But is the growing trend for love-locks a thoughtless act of vandalism, or just a harmless expression of love?

It seemed romantic when Carolyn Barnabo and Clive Roberts attached a padlock to the Pont des Arts and symbolically threw the key into the Seine. Five years later they are married and their love is still strong, but Carolyn’s fondness for love-locks certainly isn’t. “It’s just out of control and I feel so bad that we contributed to it,” says Carolyn. “This beautiful bridge is ruined.” There were just a few love-locks on the bridge when she attached hers and posted photos on her blog. Now there are thousands on bridges all over Paris.

The locks first started appearing on bridges in Paris around 2006, shortly after young couples in Italy had begun attaching padlocks to the Ponte Milvio over Rome’s river Tiber, mimicking the protagonists of a popular Italian novel. In 2007 the mayor of Rome introduced fines for anyone leaving a padlock on this bridge. “After Rome started forbidding the locks, couples from all over Europe came to Paris,” Lorna Taylor explains. She and friend Lisa Anselmo started the No Love-Locks campaign in January 2014. “The delicate Pont des Arts, which has become a freakish mass of indistinguishable metal pieces, is now in mortal danger,” Lisa Anselmo adds. They say the City of Love has now become the City of Locks, and they have counted at least eight bridges over the Seine and three over the Canal Saint Martin where padlocks have spread “like fungus.” Anselmo thinks that this trend “defaces and damages historic structures, and it is already imposing itself on other cities around Europe, where some of the bridges involved are hundreds of years old.”

The padlock supposedly symbolises a bond between two people in love—but local authorities are now removing some padlocks from time to time. It was only after a wall on the Pont des Arts collapsed under the weight of the locks that the Paris authorities got serious about putting an end to the practice. “Some of the railings have 500 kilograms of locks by the time they are removed. The one that collapsed weighed 700 kilograms. They’re a costly problem for the city and also a safety one,” Lorna Taylor says. Now, city officials in Paris are experimenting with panels of thick glass to protect the bridges from the damage caused by padlocks.

Described as an “epidemic” by the No Love-Locks campaign, padlocks are spreading around the world, and they are no longer restricted to bridges. Love-locks have appeared on the top of the Eiffel Tower and others can be found on fences in London. And they are not restricted to tourist destinations either—four have already appeared on St Botolph’s Bridge in Boston, Lincolnshire, which only opened in February 2014. Many businesses have benefitted from this trend: some offer engraved padlocks in heart shapes and even one website suggests locations to attach them in Amsterdam, Chicago, Prague, Rome or Sydney. Lisa Anselmo says: “If a city wants to designate a space uniquely for love-locks, and restrict the practice on non-designated areas, that’s not a bad idea. The question is how to find a way for love-locks and heritage to co-exist.”

Despite attaching her own love lock in Paris five years ago, Carolyn now regrets that she contributed to this horrendous sight. “I would hate to see any beautiful bridges in England get like that. It was a nice idea, but I hope it dies out soon.”

Text adapted from BBC News (May 5, 2014)

The last of the noblest generation - PAU Cataluña 2015

>Exámenes selectividad inglés Cataluña resueltos

Harry Patch, the last survivor of the First World War, and the man who reminded the modern world of its obscene massacre, died at the age of 111. His life ended on a fine summer morning in his native Somerset, many miles from the Belgian land of Ypres where so many of his comrades fell, and where he so nearly joined them. For decades he kept the sights and sounds of that terrible experience to himself. But then, at the age of 100, he began to talk…

Born in the village of Coombe Down, Harry left school at 14 for an apprenticeship with a plumber, and would, no doubt, have lived a life of peaceful anonymity if the war hadn’t been declared. Being too young at first, at the age of 17 Harry was conscripted. “I didn’t want to go and fight anyone, but it was a case of having to,” he said. He was in charge of a machine gun, and, by his 19th birthday, was in a trench in the middle of one of the most famous and bloodiest battles of the First World War: the Battle of Ypres. “Anyone who tells you he wasn’t scared is a damned liar,” Harry would later say. “We lived by the hour… You saw the sun rise; hopefully, you’d see it set. If you saw it set, you hoped you’d see it rise.”

Many didn’t. One of them was a young soldier whom Patch and his comrades found in the battlefield, badly wounded by shrapnel. “Shoot me,” he said, and then, before Harry could react, he died with the words “Mother!” on his lips. It was but one of the phantoms from the trenches that Harry carried with him until his death. Later on, in September 1917, came the German projectile which would hit Harry. It burst among his mates with such force that three of them were never found again. Harry, some metres away, was seriously wounded, his stomach pierced by shrapnel. He was taken to a CCS (casualty clearing station), where he lay, untreated in maddening pain, for one day and a half. Finally, a doctor came, and, with no anaesthetic, took out the metal while four men held him down. Although he would not be demobbed for another year, that was the end of Harry’s war. He returned home, to plumbing, marriage, two sons, and an old age that saw him survive both sons and his wife.

All this time, he had kept those memories of war to himself, telling no one. But then, as he passed his 100th birthday, a journalist called Richard Emden asked Harry if he would talk of war. He agreed and he wrote, with Richard’s help, his life story, and became a witness for those comrades who had been killed so many years before. When Richard Emden went to see him, Harry sat at a table in the morning room of his house. The conversation went mainly one-way. Harry’s mind was sharp, and his sight good, but his voice was soft and delicate, and he was practically speechless. The journalist ended the interview before he had intended, afraid to be more of an inconvenience than he had already been.

His voice and body may have died, but his words on war should live on, resonating strongly. Harry Patch had words for all his experiences. They were spoken with an anger that lasted all his adult life. “War,” he said, “is organised murder, and nothing else.”

Text adapted from The Independent (July 26, 2009)

Use or abuse of technology - PAU inglés 2015 Madrid resuelto

>Exámenes selectividad inglés resueltos C. Madrid

People in Britain now spend more time watching TV, gaming, and using their mobile phones and computers than they do sleeping. Research by a British communications agency found that the average UK adult uses technology for eight hours and 41 minutes a day, 20 minutes longer than they spend sleeping. One of the biggest reasons for this is Wi-Fi. People can get online almost anywhere, so they spend more time online. Nowadays, it is very common that people make telephone calls or surf the web while watching television.

The study, which examined the use of technology by different age groups, also found that six-year-olds understand how to use gadgets such as tablets and mobile phones at the same level as 45-year-olds. Another finding was that people understand digital technology better when they are 14 or 15.

According to Dr. Arthur Cassidy, a social media psychologist, technology is changing the way people communicate with each other. He warned that we are becoming more and more anti-social and we are moving away from face-to-face conversations because of technology. He added that people are now saturated with digital technology and are becoming psychologically dependent on their smart phones.

Dr. Cassidy linked the increasing cases of Internet and social media addiction among youngsters with problems in mental and physical development. Perhaps we should think of recreational screen time as a form of consumption in the same way that we think of sugar, hours of sun, ... – measured in units of hours per day.