3 examen de selectividad de ingles

SEXISM IN LANGUAGE
When Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon in 1969 he uttered a memorable sentence: “That’s one small step for
a man, one giant leap for mankind.” If he had landed on the moon today, no doubt he would have said a much more
politically correct sentence: “That’s one small step for a person, one giant leap for humankind.” Less poetic but certainly
more literally representative of the whole of the human race!
Language tends to use male pronouns automatically whenever t 5 he sex of the person is not known: “Every student
must bring his own calculator.” This is a sexist use of language, which often suggests an inherent male dominance in
many fields of life, and can reinforce the idea of female inferiority.
There is a tendency to associate certain jobs with men or women. For instance, “A director must do his best for his
company,” but “A nurse must treat her patients with kindness.” In addition, job names often include reference to the sex
of the person: “I’m meeting a group of businessmen next Friday,” or “The housemaid must clean this.” The use of such
words tends to emphasise the idea that it is not normal for women to be in professional, highly-paid, technical or
manual jobs, and that it is not natural for a man to work in such a caring (and generally poorly-paid) role as that of a
nurse.
(A) COMPREHENSION (4 points)
a) ANSWER QUESTIONS 1-2 ACCORDING TO THE INFORMATION GIVEN IN THE TEXT. USE YOUR OWN
WORDS. (1 point per answer)
1) How has language changed since the 60s?
2) How is sexism expressed in some job names?
b) ARE THESE STATEMENTS TRUE OR FALSE? JUSTIFY YOUR ANSWERS WITH THE PRECISE WORDS OR
PHRASES FROM THE TEXT. (0.5 points per answer)
3) Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon in the early 60s.
4) When we don’t know the sex of a person, we normally use male pronouns.
5) All job names contain an indication of the sex of the person doing it.
6) Men’s jobs are usually better paid.
(B) USE OF ENGLISH (3 points)
7) Find in the text a synonym for UNFORGETTABLE (adjective) (0.25 points)
8) Give one opposite for LAND (verb) (line 2) (0.25 points)
9) Find in the text one word meaning: “essential, characteristic, intrinsic or innate” (adjective) (0.25 points)
10) Complete the series with another word of the same semantic group: (0.25 points)
JOB, WORK, OCCUPATION, BUSINESS
11) Join the following sentences using a relative pronoun. Make changes if necessary. (0.5 points)
He used a sexist word. Its meaning was pejorative for women.
12) Fill in the gap with a correct form of the verb in brackets: (0.5 points)
They ___________ (teach) medieval history by their teacher when they were at school.
13) Give a question for the underlined words: (0.5 points)
We attend English classes three times a week.
14) Use the words in the boxes to make a meaningful sentence. Use all and only the words in the boxes without
changing their form. (0.5 points)
(C) PRODUCTION (3 points)
15) WRITE A COMPOSITION (80-100 WORDS). CHOOSE ONE OF THE FOLLOWING OPTIONS. SPECIFY
YOUR OPTION.
a) What type of job would you prefer—technical or artistic? Why?
b) Is there still inequality between men and women? Why?