Ministerul Educaţiei, Cercetării şi Inovării

Centrul Naţional pentru Curriculum şi Evaluare în Învăţământul Preuniversitar

Examenul de bacalaureat 2008

Proba E/F
Proba scrisă la Limba Engleză
L1 - Intensiv 3-4 ore

SUBIECTUL I ( 30 de puncte) Varianta 014

Read the text below and complete the following tasks.

Last week I had for about the hundredth time an experience that always disturbs me. Riding
on a train, (1) … “I teach English.” Do you have any trouble predicting his response? His face fell,
and he groaned, “Oh, dear, I’ll have to watch my language.” In my experience there are only two
other possible reactions. (2) …: “I hated English in school; it was my worst subject.” The second,
so rare as to make an honest English teacher almost burst into tears of gratitude when it occurs, is
an animated conversation about literature, or ideas, or the American language – the kind of
conversation that shows a continuing respect for “English” as something more than being sure
about who and whom, lie and lay. (3) … It is because too many of us have seen ourselves as
unfriendly policemen. I know of a high school English class in Indiana in which the students are
explicitly told that their paper grades will not be affected by anything they say; required to write a
paper a week, they are graded simply on the number of spelling and grammatical errors. (4) … If
the student is not troubled about having to say anything, or about discovering a good way of saying
it, he can then concentrate on the truly important matter of avoiding mistakes.

(adapted from: Wayne C. Booth, Boring from Within: The Art of the Freshman Essay)

1. Four sentences have been removed from the text. Select the appropriate sentence for
each gap in the text. There is one extra sentence which you do not need to use. 4 points

A. It takes no master analyst to figure out why so many of our fellow citizens think of us as
unfriendly policemen.
B. I found myself talking with my seat-mate, who asked me what I did for a living.
C. The theory is simple.
D. The first is even less inspiring.
E. But I never teach French

2. Explain the underlined words. 6 points

3. Sum up the text in about 50 words. 10 points

4. For the following questions, choose the answer (A, B, C, D) which fits according to the
text. 6 points
1. The character in the text hates …
A. playing sports.
B. conversations.
C. education.
D. traveling by train.

2. The subject described is …

A. Maths.
B. English.
C. Geography.
D. History.
 Ministerul Educaţiei, Cercetării şi Inovării
Centrul Naţional pentru Curriculum şi Evaluare în Învăţământul Preuniversitar
3. What does the text refer to?
A. Life in USA.
B. Gaining success.
C. A teacher of English and his subject.
D. Behaviour in trains.

5. Comment on the following sentence: I know of a high school English class in Indiana in which
the students are explicitly told that their paper grades will not be affected by anything they say;
required to write a paper a week, they are graded simply on the number of spelling and
grammatical errors. (100 words) 4 points