Escuelas Oficiales de Idiomas

CONSEJERA DE EDUCACIN,
JUVENTUD Y DEPORTE
Comunidad de Madrid

CERTIFICADO NIVEL AVANZADO

INGLS
COMPRENSIN AUDITIVA CLAVES DE RESPUESTA

TASK ONE: A MUMMIFIED FOREST

EXTRACT

LETTER

TASK TWO: PERFORMING THE FEELING OF GRIEF

- Playing that scene was something natural for Firth because of the way it was written
[10].
- Firth decides not to cry in the scene because theres nothing in the script that says George
breaks down [11].
- Firth thinks George reacts in a calm way because hes still hanging on the world as it was
a few seconds ago [12] when everything was OK.
- Firth also gives the example of a woman who seems to be fine, however, shes not ready
to have the death of her husband announced in the newspaper the next day
[13].
- Something as monumental as a loved persons death isn't something that you react to in a
way that's quick or simple [14].

- The interviewer admits everybody looks at Firths eyes because they are interesting and
penetrating [15].
-Georges protective mask prevents people from seeing how broken he is and how chaotic
[16] his true world is.
- The perfect way George needs to dress [17] is another example of how he hides his inner
feelings.
- Firth admits that Tom, the film director, gave him a great deal of freedom [18] to be silent
in the film.

TASK THREE: TODAYS NEWS

EXTRACT

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

LETTER

TRANSCRIPT:
TASK 1: MUMMIFIED FOREST
In ancient Egyptian tombs archeologists sometimes find mummies, whose skins and organs had
been preserved for thousands of years. I think thats a long time. Well, it turns out that the
barren Canadian Artic has its own mummies, and theyve been preserved for not just thousand
but millions of years. These werent human mummies, of course, they were trees, entire forests
of trees. Dr. Joel Barker is a Canadian research scientist, at Ohio State University. Hes been
studying the Northern most mummified forest ever found in the Canadian Artic.
Dr. Barker, welcome to Quirks & Quarks
Dr. Barker Thanks very much, Bob.
Presenter Now, Ive heard of petrified forests but Im not to sure about mummified forests,
whats the difference?
Dr. Barker Yeah, the difference with petrified forests, the wood has been replaced with
mineral, so really theyre rocks now. But with mummified forests theyve just been preserved as
wood, so even though they are ancient a couple millions old, they still burn, you wouldnt notice
them as anything other than wood if you passed them today.
Presenter - Wow, so are they just dried out?
Dr. Barker Exactly, yeah, theyre just dried outso youat one point seal them off from
oxygen and from circulating water, and they just rest there preserved for millions of years.
Presenter - Well, wheres this mummified forest?
Dr. Barker Its up in Kootenay National Park, which is way up north, on Ellesmere Island. Just
an amazing place if you ever get a chance to go there, I highly recommend it.
Presenter - Ive been to Ellesmere Island and there isnt a tree to be found anywhere. So how
did you find these?
Dr. Barker Yeah, and thats why I was up there doing unrelated research on another project
at a place called Lake Hazen and talking to a park warden one night he mentioned that theyd
found these logs at this location, so right away that picked my interest because as you said
theres no trees up there now, so I got to go over there and look around, and sure enough,
there were these logs sort of scattered all over the place.
Presenter So what kind of logs are they?
Dr. Barker Its funny, because they are sort of species that youd find in more southerly
latitudes these days, so were talking about pine, spruce, birch and lurch, those types of things.
Presenter Im just trying to get a picture of this forest. If I could go back all those millions of
years when it was standing, what would I see?
Dr. Barker I think it would be very similar to walking through a northern boreal forest today.
The astounding thing with that is that on Ellesmere Island, two to ten million years ago, it was
at the same latitude as it is today, so these forests were undergoing 24 hours light in the
summer and 24 hours darkness in the winter time. So that would be an obvious difference to
the boreal forest of today.

Presenter How big were the trees and how old were they when they died?
Dr. Barker We found trees that are at least 75 years old just based on counting the tree rings
but they are very narrow. The diameter is sort of the width of your finger.
Presenter The width of my finger!
Dr. Barker Well, as long as your finger is, thats how the tree is. (mumbling)
Presenter So, that is, lets see, the width of a water bottle, kind of thing.
Dr. Barker Exactly, yeah. Exactly. Because conditions were so harsh for them they couldnt
allocate a lot of the resources that they got during the growing season to put it on biomass, so,
to grow. They were sort in a maintenance state.
Presenter You mentioned that you found logs up on Ellesmere Island. Did you find anything
else?
Dr. Barker Yeah, as you dig into this exposure you find leaves, which is just amazing to me,
this sort of fragile leaves that youd find outside in Ontario when the snow melts, and they look
just like that but, of course, these ones are a couple of millions years old. Were also finding
seeds, cones, that sort of things.
Presenter Thats astounding. That you have leaves that are millions of years old and theyre
still preserved.
Dr. Barker Yeah, it is. I cant quite wrap my head around it.
Presenter But today there are no trees up there at all. Why was the Artic different? What was
it like then that allowed these trees to grow?
Dr. Barker Well, the Artic was much warmer back then, and I should point out that certainly
isnt the only site of its kind up there. There are at least a dozen in Canada and a couple over in
Greenland. But what makes this site interesting from my perspective is that the species
diversity of the trees that we are finding is so low. In many of these other sites theres just sort
of a much more diverse plant and animal record preserved. Here, as I said, were sort of down
to four or five types of trees and looking at these logs, theyre very thin. Their growth rings are
just miniscule, millimetres, which sort of indicates that this ecosystem was probably right at the
edge of the environmental conditions that it could tolerate.
Presenter So, what kind of conditions was it under?
Dr. Barker Well, it wasin the Artic at this time period, so ten to two million years ago, it was
going from sort of a warm, what we would call a greenhouse global condition, where its much
warmer than it is presently, more towards the icehouse condition that were living in, presently.
Presenter Now, you say, the trees were very thing. What about their height?
Dr. Barker We dont have a really good idea of their overall height as it yet because the
glaciers had been there and the site was buried by what we think is a low-energy landslide. We
dont really find trees at their full height, theyve been snapped off.
Presenter Is it a landslide? What do you think happened?
Dr. Barker We think a landslide is what sealed this site off this from oxygen. You see deposits
that are characteristic of landslides lying right above it. So this tells us that this site was
probably buried by a landslide quite quickly.

Presenter Ok, so trees that are thin, under stress, it sounds like trees at the very top of the
treeline that we see right now, was this the tree line ten million years ago?
Dr. Barker - Yeahthats what were thinking and this makes this site quite important because
trees that are sort of existing the peak of the tree line there would be most sensitive to any
change in climate. So were hoping that by looking at the chemistry and the isotopic
composition of the individual tree rings within an individual tree, we can get an idea of how the
climate was changing, what the climatic conditions were over the lifetime of these trees and
then how the ecosystem responded to this change.
Presenter Well, the high Artic is warming up now, what do you think of the opportunity of
forests re-emerging there again?
Dr. Barker Well, thats an interesting question because what we want really to get at with our
research is identify thresholds that were reached environmentally and identify how the
ecosystem responded to those thresholds, so, at this site were looking at a global cooling, so
as you pointed out, its going the other direction now. So, maybe if can identify these
thresholds, maybe we can apply them to a warming scenario and understand, ok, if were
increasing temperature, what sort of conditions are favourable for the growth of higher plant
material that is currently absent there, now.
Presenter Oh, Dr. Barker, thank you very much for your time. Good luck on your expedition.
Dr. Barker Well, thank you very much, Bob. It was a pleasure.

www.cbc.ca/quirksandquarks, 2011.

TASK 2: PERFORMING THE FEELING OF GRIEF

GROSS: Colin Firth, welcome to FRESH AIR. Let me just describe for our listeners who have
not seen the movie what's going on during that phone call and after the phone call in terms of
how you are reacting. You're in shock, and you're in grief, and it's starting to register on your
face. As you get the news, you're breathing deeper. You slightly grimace, you facial muscles
tighten, your eyes start to tear, but you're still holding in your emotion. And you're alone in
your home. You could let loose without anybody seeing. You could really erupt. You don't.
Everything is still pretty held in. Can you talk a little bit about how you decided to play that
scene?
FIRTH: I don't think it really came from a decision. I think it was something that seemed
natural because of the way it was written, because of the speed with which I felt such news
would be processed. You know, there's nothing in the script that says George, you know,
breaks down. What I read was what you heard, which was oh, Mr. Ackerley, there was another
dog in the car. I suppose I should book myself a ticket, and will there be a service. He's
operating as a man still socialized, still observing the rules of courtesy and protocol. Now to me,
looking back on it, I think there's something rather heartbreaking about that because I think
he's hanging on to the world as it was a few seconds ago, when everything is okay, when that's
how you behave, and that's how you talk. Everything's actually falling apart completely inside.
But I think if he gives in to hysterical misery, then it'll become real. And he's not ready for that.
So I didn't really see it as containment. I saw it as just not having got there yet. And something
comes to mind here. To me, it echoes some of the observations that Joan Didion wrote about in
The Year of Magical Thinking . You know, her husband dies. She records the time of his death.
She identifies his body at the hospital. She signs a form, and she's ready to acknowledge the
fact that she knows that he's dead. She knows full well that he's gone, but she's not ready to
have it announced in the newspaper the next day because then somehow, if everybody knows
about it, it concretizes it in a way that she's not ready for. So, I think that something as
monumental as the death of somebody very close and very loved isn't something that you react
to in a way that's quick or simple.
GROSS: So much of your acting in A Single Man is about your face. I mean, you have
dialogue in it, but there's a lot of silence in the film. There's times when people are talking to

you, and we're watching you react. So it's about your face and mostly about your eyes. And
your eyes are so interesting in this movie because they're so penetrating. Your eyes look like
they can see through other people, but at the same time, you have this kind of shield on your
own face so that people can't see through you.
FIRTH: Well, I think that a lot of what the film deals with is the body armour that George puts
on. I'm sure Tom talked about this. This was something that I think was very much in our
minds when we made the film. He has to get through a particular day, and he has to put
something in place which is a both a protective mask. In other way, its something that
prevents the rest of the world from seeing how broken he is and how chaotic his true world is,
and at the same time, this has to act as a protection against the world trying to come in on him
from the outside world, penetrating his very, very vulnerable sensibility. And I think this is
where he gets his need to dress perfectly from. This is why he needs to make sure his shoes
are shined and that his cufflinks and his tie pin are in place and all of these. I think maybe
these are very much acts of desperation. These are things that his life depends on on this
day. And I think if the eyes are doing anything, it's because it's his day of seeing through that
mask.
Tom was there to photograph what I was doing. So it gave me a great deal of freedom, gave
me a lot of freedom to be silent. As you heard in our phone call, I wouldn't have thought that
scene would work on the radio, but it was interesting to listen to how heavy those silences
hang. And I think Tom has great faith in stillness and in what the human face can do without a
lot of histrionics and without being very, very demonstrative. And for someone whose approach
to acting is not that demonstrative, this is a great gift. I felt he played to my strengths.

npr.org, 2010.

TASK 3: TODAYS NEWS

Extract 0. CHEAP LAND IN AFRICA. Global food prices have been made worse by
international investment funds buying up farmland in Africa. Thats according to a new report
by the US based think tank, the Auckland Institute. The report says investment funds are
finding attractive returns on African farmland because in many cases they get it cheaply due to
poor property and land ownership rights. The report also says that many African governments
are waving tax obligations and further providing incentives to those foreign companies. One of
the countries named in the report is Sierra Leone. According to the Auckland Institute, farmers
there are driven off their lands in exchange for meagre amounts of money.
Extract 1. BEATEN HUSBANDS. B.M.: Men are concerned they wont be believed. Why will
a man take violence from a female when he is perhaps, you know, bigger, stronger. Domestic
abuse is emotional, financial and certainly I think there needs to be an increased understanding
that domestic abuse can happen to men and women. Men are victims too.
P: And it's not always a two way street, is it? I mean, did you ever hit her?
B.M: No, that thought never ever entered my mind. When the violence starts you actually hope
that a punch, a kick, a bite, that will blow the, blow the storm out. Because there's no way of
controlling someone who is in a rage.
P: Because you loved her, didn't you?
B.M.: Without the shadow of a doubt. I guess I did love her and you're shocked that you feel
that feeling is reciprocated.
Extract 2. DECRIMINALIZING DRUG ADDICTS. The war on drugs has failed. We need to
treat people with addiction problems like patients not criminals. That's the view of one of the
so-called Eldest, a group of former presidents, prime ministers and business leaders who've
come together to form the global commission on drug policy. They launched their report today,
in New York. The big idea to push for a new approach to tackle the drug problem. One that's
less hard line focusing more on decriminalization and public health. There are already projects
up and running along these lines. Here in Britain, for example, where some four hundred
addicts are able to get heroine on the national health. Addicts like Erin OMara, who edits Black
Poppy , a health magazine for drug addicts.

Extract 3. FEMALE ACTIVIST WAS A HE. Now, for weeks during the popular revolts in the
Arab world many people and many journalists have been gripped by a blog out of Syria, called
a Gay Girl in Damascus. It appeared to be the work of Amina Abdallah Aral al Omari, a 35-yearold feminist activist who gave a vivid picture of her life in Syria. No one ever met her or spoke
to her or saw her. But when it was reported that she'd been taken away by the security forces
there was outrage, a furore and then the first doubts. And now Tom McMaster, a forty-year-old
American arabist studying in Scotland says it was him all along and he has no regrets.
Extract 4. REGAINING CONFIDENCE IN THE ECONOMY. The International Monetary
Fund says in its annual report theres a good chance that the revival of the economy in some
key industrialized countries will turn into a permanent recovery. The IMF notes that curved
inflation in several countries, substantial falls in interest rates, lower oil prices and higher buying
power are distinctly encouraging signs. It adds that indications are that confidence has been
restored to such an extent that an upsurge in world production and international trade can be
expected. The world economic situation and third world debts will be the subjects topping the
agenda of the annual meeting of the IMF and the World Bank to be held in Washington from
the 24th to the 30th of this month.
Extract 5. NEW CLUES TO OUR ORIGINS. On a 2008 mapping expedition in Malapa,
South Africa, American paleo-anthropologist Lee Berger made a remarkable discovery. The
fossilized bones of a human-like woman and a boy buried in cave settlements. The two,
possibly a mother and her son, lived almost two million years ago. About the time
anthropologists believe the first modern humans were beginning to walk the earth. The new
species, one of a family of non-ape human ancestors, known as hominines, is called
Australopithecus Sediba. Berger says the age of the find is significant.
Extract 6. LIVE FIRE AGAINST DEMONSTRATORS. The Israeli military called it a
measured and proper response to a breaching of its border security. A Palestinian witness
compared it to a bloody Turk issue. Twenty people died according to Syrian media when Israeli
security forces opened fire on protesters attempting to scale border fences in the disputed
Golan Heights, the border of the two countries. An event that was witnessed by members of
the foreign media. Protests came three weeks after demonstrators first breached the border at
the same place on the anniversary of Israel's foundation. The Israelis fired live shots at the
protesters, claiming their intention was to wound. An Israeli military spokesman, Avital
Leibovitz, says this is legitimate defence of the country international borders.
Extract 7. A COLLECTION WORTH A FORTUNE. Now, here's a story of passion and longterm commitment. A Chicago property developer has amassed the world's biggest movie poster
collection and it's soon to be up for sale. Dwight Cleveland began collecting at the tender age of
17, he is now 52 and his collection has grown to over eleven thousand posters from all over the
world and it's estimated to be worth about three and a half million dollars. I asked Dwight how
it all started.
DWIGHT: I was introduced to this by the art teacher at the high-school that I attended. And
he came back one day from a bank trip and had a small little group of them and I saw these
posters and I had to own one, its just simple as that.
PRESENTER: Why? What was..., I mean, you were only 17. What was it about owning a movie
poster?
DWIGHT: This was a lobby card which measures 11 by 24 inches, it was from the movie Wolf
Song with Lupe Velez and Gary Cooper and I just fell in love with the art dco graphics. It
was...It had great colour and great design. It was sort of love at first sight.
bbc.co.uk, 2011.