MAGISTER

OPOSICIONES AL PROFESORADO Inglés Secundaria

PRACTICE EXERCISES (PART A – LINGUISTICS)

APRIL 2016
1. TRANSLATIONS.

A. Translate the following text into English.

…y seguimos el trayecto en dirección a Londres con el enérgico paso de un corredor.

Alguien en el asiento de atrás exhala un suspiro de impotente irritación; el lento tren de las 8.04
que va de Ashbury a Euston puede poner a prueba la paciencia del viajero más experimentado.
El viaje debería durar cincuenta y cuatro minutos, pero rara vez lo hace: esta sección de las vías
es antigua y decrépita, y está asediada por problemas de señalización e interminables trabajos
de ingeniería.
El tren sigue avanzando poco a poco y pasa por delante de almacenes, torres de agua, puentes y
cobertizos. También de modestas casas victorianas con la espalda vuelta a las vías.
Con la cabeza apoyada en la ventanilla del vagón, veo pasar estas casas como si se tratara
del travelling de una película. Nadie más las ve así; seguramente, ni siquiera sus propietarios
las ven desde esta perspectiva. Dos veces al día, sólo por un momento, tengo la posibilidad de
echar un vistazo a otras vidas. Hay algo reconfortante en el hecho de ver a personas
desconocidas en la seguridad de sus casas.
Suena el móvil de alguien; una melodía incongruentemente alegre y animada. Tardan en
contestar y sigue sonando durando un rato. También puedo oir cómo los demás viajeros
cambian de posición en sus asientos, pasan las páginas de sus periódicos o teclean en su
ordenador. El tren da unas sacudidas y se bambolea al tomar la curva, y luego ralentiza la
marcha al acercarse a un semáforo en rojo. Intento no levantar la mirada y leer el periódico
gratuito que me dieron al entrar en la estación, pero las palabras no son más que un borrón,
nada retiene mi interés. En mi cabeza sigo viendo esa pequeña pila de ropa tirada a un lado de
las vías, abandonada.

Tarde

El gin-tonic premezclado burbujea en el borde la lata y yo me la llevo a los labios y le doy un

sorbo. Agrio y frío. Es el sabor de mis primeras vacaciones con Tom. En 2005 fuimos a un
pueblo de pescadores en la costa del País Vasco. Por las mañanas, nadábamos ochocientos
metros hasta la pequeña isla de la bahía y hacíamos el amor en ocultas playas secretas. Por las
tardes, nos sentábamos en un bar y bebíamos cargados y amargos gin-tonics mientras
observábamos los partidos de fútbol de veinticinco personas por equipo que la gente jugaba
aprovechando la marea baja.
Doy otro sorbo al gin-tonic, y luego otro: ya casi me he terminado la lata, pero no pasa nada,
llevo tres más en la bolsa de plástico que descansa a mis pies. Es viernes, así que no tengo por
qué sentirme culpable por beber en el tren. Por fin es viernes. La diversión comienza aquí.

De “El secreto de la modelo extraviada” de Eduardo Mendoza

Inglés Secundaria ©MELC,S.A(MAGISTER) Práctico Parte A (Lingüística)-ABRIL 2016

B. Translate the following fragment into Spanish.

He was eleven years old that night when, green as he could be about the world, he climbed
aboard the first and only ship of his life. It felt as if a city had been added to the coast, better lit than
any town or village. He went up the gangplank, watching only the path of his feet –nothing ahead of
him existed- and continued till he faced the dark harbour and sea. There were outlines of other ships
farther out, beginning to turn on lights. He stood alone, smelling everything, then came back
through the noise and the crowd to the side that faced land. A yellow glow over the city. Already it
felt there was a wall between him and what took place there. Stewards began handing out food and
cordials. He ate several sandwiches, and after that he made his way down to his cabin, undressed,
and slipped into the narrow bunk. He’d never slept under a blanket before, save once in Nuwara
Eliya. He was wide awake. The cabin was below the level of the waves, so there was no porthole.
He found a switch beside the bed and when he pressed it, his head and pillow were suddenly lit by a
cone of light.
He did not go back up on deck for a last look, or to wave at his relatives who had brought
him to the harbour. He could hear singing and imagined the slow and then eager parting of families
taking place in the thrilling night air. I do not know, even now, why he chose this solitude. Had
whoever brought him onto the Oronsay already left? In films people tear themselves away from one
another weeping, and the ship separates from land while the departed hold on to those disappearing
faces until all distinction is lost.
I try to imagine who the boy on the ship was. Perhaps a sense of self is not even there in this
nervous stillness in the narrow bunk, in this green grasshopper or little cricket, as if he has been
smuggled away accidentally, with no knowledge of the act, into the future.
He woke up, hearing passengers running along the corridor. So he got back into his clothes
and left the cabin. Something was happening. Drunken yells filled the night, shouted down by
officials. In the middle of B Deck, sailors were attempting to grab hold of the harbour pilot. Having
guided the ship meticulously out of the harbour (there were many routes to be avoided because of
submerged wrecks and an earlier breakwater), he had gone on to have too many drinks to celebrate
his achievements. Now, apparently, he simply did not wish to leave. Not just yet. Perhaps another
hour or two with the ship. But the Oronsay was eager to depart on the stroke of midnight and the
pilot’s tug waited at the waterline. The crew had been struggling to force him down the rope ladder,
however as there was a danger of his falling to his death, they were now capturing him fishlike in a
net, and in this way they lowered him down safely. It seemed to be in no way an embarrassment to
the man, but the episode clearly was to the officials of the Orient Line who were on the bridge,
furious in their white uniforms. The passengers cheered as the tug broke away.

From “The Cat’s Table: A Novel” by Michael Ondaatje

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Inglés Secundaria ©MELC,S.A(MAGISTER) Práctico Parte A (Lingüística)-ABRIL 2016

2. TEXT ANALYSIS.

Read the following text and answer the questions below:

We didn’t always live on Mango Street. Before that we lived on Loomis on the third floor,
and before that we lived on Keeler. Before Keeler it was Paulina, and before that I can’t remember.
But what I remember most is moving a lot. Each time it seemed there’d be one more of us. By the
time we got to Mango Street we were six ―Mama, Papa, Carlos, Kiki, my sister Nenny and me.
The house on Mango Street is ours, and we don’t have to pay rent to anybody, or share the yard
with people downstairs, or be careful not to make too much noise, and there isn’t a landlord banging
on the ceiling with a broom. But even so, it’s not the house we’d thought we’d get.
We had to leave the flat on Loomis quick. The water pipes broke and the landlord wouldn’t
fix them because the house was too old. We had to leave fast. We were using the washroom next
door and carrying water in empty milk gallons. That’s why Mama and Papa looked for a house, and
that’s why we moved into the house on Mango Street, far away, on the other side of town.
They always told us that one day we would move into a house, a real house that would be
ours for always so we wouldn’t have to move each year. And our house would have running water
and pipes that worked. And inside it would have real stairs, not hallway stairs, but stairs inside like
the houses on T.V. And we’d have a basement and at least three washrooms so when we took a bath
we wouldn’t have to tell everybody. Our house would be white with trees around it, a great big yard
and grass growing without a fence. This was the house Papa talked about when he held a lottery
ticket and this was the house Mama dreamed up in the stories she told us before we went to bed.
But the house on Mango Street is not the way they told it at all. It’s small and red with tight
steps in front and windows so small you’d think they were holding their breath. Bricks are
crumbling in places, and the front door is so swollen you have to push hard to get in. There is no
front yard, only four little elms the city planted by the curb. Out back is a small garage for the car
we don’t own yet and a small yard that looks smaller between the two buildings on either side.
There are stairs in our house, but they’re ordinary hallway stairs, and the house has only one
washroom. Everybody has to share a bedroom ―Mama and Papa, Carlos and Kiki, me and Nenny.
Once when we were living on Loomis, a nun from my school passed by and saw me playing
out front. The laundromat downstairs had been boarded up because it had been robbed two days
before and the owner had painted on the wood YES WE’RE OPEN so as not to lose business.
Where do you live? she asked.
There, I said pointing up to the third floor.
You live there?
There. I had to look to where she pointed ―the third floor, the paint peeling, wooden bars
Papa had nailed on the windows so we wouldn’t fall out. You live there? The way she said it made
me feel like nothing. There. I lived there. I nodded.
I knew then I had to have a house. A real house. One I could point to. But this isn’t it. The
house on Mango Street isn’t it. For the time being, Mama says. Temporary, says Papa. But I know
how those things go.
From “The House on Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros.

a) Identify the style and textual types in the extract. Explain your answer.
b) Describe the communicative functions used on the text.
c) Locate cohesive devices and other rhetorical resources, illustrated by examples.

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Inglés Secundaria ©MELC,S.A(MAGISTER) Práctico Parte A (Lingüística)-ABRIL 2016

d) Contextualize the author and her work.

e) Transcribe phonologically the following lines from the text.

It’s small and red with tight steps in front and windows so small you’d think they were
holding their breath. Bricks are crumbling in places, and the front door is so swollen you
have to push hard to get in. There is no front yard, only four little elms the city planted by
the curb.

g) Analyse syntactically the following extract from the text.

The house on Mango Street is ours, and we don’t have to pay rent to anybody, or share the
yard with people downstairs, or be careful not to make too much noise, and there isn’t a
landlord banging on the ceiling with a broom

3. LISTENING

Listen to “Place A Bet On Your Weight-Loss Goal, And You May Win Twice”.

1. Answer the following questions.

1. What does Aubrey refer to as the January doldrums?

2. Which is one of the latest strategies to lose weight?
3. How much weight did Ben put on?
4. Which are the medical problems he is being treated on?
5. Which problem did he encounter during his weight loss?
6. Did he succeed at his bet? What was the real reason for it?
7. Why some companies fail when applying this weight losing method among their
employees?

2. Complete the gaps in the extracts with information from the text.

It just shows this sort of (1) __________, right? So I think when it comes to (2)
___________, a lot of people just need more (3) ____________. And that's what Ben's story
really shows, that in the end, the big (4) _____________ for him was not the prize money. It
was what he heard from his wife, that fear of losing the money. And it really turns out that
Ben's story is not so unique. Scientists who study financial (5) ___________ for a behavior
change or weight loss say most of us (6) ___________ this way without really ever knowing
it. We're highly (7) _____________. I spoke to this one researcher, Mitesh Patel, at the
University of Pennsylvania, and he put it this way, that the fear of loss can be more powerful
than the (8) _____________ of winning.

3. Summarize the content.

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4. USE OF ENGLISH

1. Use the word given in capitals at the end of some lines to build a word that fits in the gap in
the same line.

Many people seem to have (0)_____________ attitudes towards CONSIST

drink driving. On the one hand, they view it as totally (1)________ ACCEPT
that someone should through their own selfishness be a danger to
other road users. To kill someone while driving under the
influence is surely (2) __________, however accidental it may be, PARDON
and is technically defined as (3) ________ killing. LAW

Yet at the same time people (4) _________ seem to assume that RATIONAL
the same laws do not apply to themselves. Taking to the wheel
having had a few glasses over the limit doesn’t seem (5) ________ REASON
when you do it yourself. Surely only a couple of extra drinks is
perfectly (6) _________, you reason. Yet when other people PERMIT
commit offence, it is condemned as (7) _________ and downright ETHICS
(8) _________. Why these double standards? Surely it makes MORAL
perfect sense that such a potentially lethal practice be declared (9)
____________? And yet the die-hards continue to flout the law, LEGAL
continuing to drive even when (10)__________. QUALIFY

2. Read the text below and decide which option a, b, c or d, best fits each gap.
Most films on release this week are routine, standard issues of variable (1) ____________ and only
passing (2) _______________ in which the standard of acting is often (3) ___________ atrocious
and only 4) ___________ at best. Rising above such dull fare is Lionland, a three-hour epic which
the director Mathew Aronsky managed to complete just before he died last year. It may well prove
to be his (5) ___________ achievement. The story centers on Brad German, a boxer whose (6)
__________ rise to fame was legendary but whose powers now are on the (7) _________ and who
is way on his way down the slippery (8) __________ towards alcoholism and failure. Enter the
improbably named Bungy Jumpward, his sneering young sparring partner who pours (9)
__________ on Brad, (10)________ his achievements in the ring while grossly overestimating his
own. He is a character with hardly any (11) _____ qualities, but somehow his animosity spurs Brad
on to one final, glorious effort. But that is to give the plot away. Aronsky’s remarkable (12)
_________ to keep one involved in the story never lets up: he has always had an extraordinary (13)
_________ of creating characters that on paper seem no better than the flattest cliché but who on
screen manage to seem original and wholly rounded. His ability to judge the pacing of the story is
(14) __________ while his (15) __________ for detail is second to none. He will be sorely missed.

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1 A quality B class C nature D grade

2 A attention B interest C care D notice
3 A rightly B correctly C truthfully D truly
4 A medium B mediocre C midstream D middle
5 A topping B crowning C unique D worthy
6 A meteoric B hasty C winged D gunshot
7 A mend B way C wane D wagon
8 A hill B slant C incline D slope
9 A scorn B disgust C disdain D sarcasm
10 A shrinking B detracting C belittling D laughing
11 A redeeming B rescuing C recompensing D reprieving
12 A capability B ability C expertise D aptitude
13 A knock B knot C knell D knack
14 A unknowing B unforeseen C unenviable D uncanny
15 A ear B eye C head D nose

3. Fill in each numbered gap in the passage with ONE suitable word.
How can you criticise someone constructively to make sure that they (1) _______ do as you ask in
future? The (2) _______ are that yelling at them is never going to work while constant complaining,
on the other hand, (3)__________ very (4) __________ sound like a victim-like, poor-me moan that
give no incentive for change. Of course, if you do feel (5) _______ to have a go at someone, go
ahead, but it is rarely productive. Not only it is more or less (6) ________ to end in a row or a sulk,
there’s also the (7) _______ possibility it (8)____________ be ignored. Constructive criticism
really (9) ___________ to be adult, rational and reasonable. No wonder so many of us struggle with
it: there’s no (10)___________ it’s much easier being unreasonable. But even if you (11)
_________ manage to give criticism like an adult, it (12) __________ mean the recipient will feel
under any (13) ___________ to take it in the same way. In all (14) _________ you will be met by
hurt eyes, slumped shoulders and a sad face, and you (15) __________ as well get used to the fact.

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4. Complete the second sentence so that it has a similar meaning to the first sentence, using
the word given. Do not change the word given. You must use between three and eight words,
including the word given.
1. I doubt we’ll ever improve in that score.
CHANCE
There is not _________________________________ ever improve in that score.
2. There is no way he got the news from me as we haven’t spoken.
PASSED
It __________________________________________ the news to him as we haven’t spoken.
3. The only explanation for him being late is that there was a lot of traffic.
HELD
He _______________________________________________or he shouldn’t be so late.
4. It’s not impossible that the looming crisis won’t ever actually materialise.
BOUNDS
It is not beyond _________________________________________ the looming crisis won’t ever
actually materialise.
5. You can’t escape your responsibilities so easily, you know.
WRIGGLE
You can’t _______________________________________________ your responsibilities so
easily, you know.
6. Nobody is forcing you to take up the offer.
OBLIGATION
You are _______________________________________________ take up the offer.