ENG0111: English for International Students

UNIVERSITETET
I OSLO

Institutt for litteratur, områdestudier og europeiske språk

WRITTEN EXAMINATION

SPRING 2010

ENG0111: English for international students

Duration 4 hours Thursday, June 3, 2010

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English-English dictionaries are allowed. REMEMBER TO DOUBLE-SPACE.

Answer sections 1-3. A pass mark is required on each section.

Exercise 1: Composition (30% of mark)

Based on the bar chart, write a short accompanying text about the main contributors to rising sea levels. The text should not exceed 50 words. Do not include yourself in the text; do not refer to the bars in the chart.

Sea-Level Rise Contributors

Exercise 2: Précis [Summary] (40% of mark)

Read the text below carefully. Go paragraph by paragraph and identify the main ideas. Highlight the topic sentences. Use your dictionary to understand difficult terms and to find synonyms. Rewrite and paraphrase each paragraph to the best of your ability; then write a précis of not more than 250 words. Find a new title. [Remember to double-space]

Iceland: Mainly Clear Consciences

Like the volcano that erupted last week, this once obscure island nation seems to have awoken from centuries of quietude with a determination to spread its fallout all over Europe.

In the fall of 2008, Iceland suffered an economic implosion so spectacular that the noise somehow rose above the worldwide din of financial calamity, leaving Icelanders with huge IOUs to British and Dutch bank depositors. The three largest Icelandic banks - Glitnir, Landsbanki and Kaupthing - have all gone into receivership. Now, of course, the large continent to the east is once again feeling this under-populated island’s outsized effect in the form of an enormous volcanic ash cloud that has snarled air traffic throughout Europe and beyond.

“It seems we’re getting pretty good at exporting our disasters,” says Egill Helgason, a political commentator and host of a well-respected political talk show. “I think people elsewhere might get funny ideas about Iceland.” “But,” he quickly adds, “we’re not to blame for a volcanic eruption.”

While they are careful not to appear to take pleasure in this latest bout of troubles, Icelanders have met the volcanic eruption mostly with a collective sigh of relief. The financial meltdown may have shattered Iceland’s reputation as a place of Nordic rectitude and caused deep soul-searching among its leadership and citizens, but this crisis — they gladly point out — was definitely not one of their own making.

So far, Iceland has been largely spared the worst effects of the eruption underneath the Eyafjallajokull glacier on the island’s southern coast, with the prevailing winds carrying most of the ash abroad. Except for farmers in the sparsely populated area around the glacier, whose land was flooded by melting glacier water and blanketed with a thick layer of ash, the direct impacts have hitherto been minimal.

In the small capital city of Reykjavik, 75 miles west of the volcano, the air has been conspicuously clear, the sea breezes surprisingly clean and life has gone on more or less as normal. “Our forebears picked a clever spot for the capital,” Mr. Helgason says wryly.

While air traffic from Reykjavik to Europe was curtailed most of the week, flights between Iceland and the rest of the world have remained on schedule. “It’s amazing; we haven’t registered any ash,” explains foreign minister Ossur Skarphedinsson during a late-afternoon drive around the capital on Saturday. He grins and then, taking his hands off the wheel and turning his palms upward in a mock-dramatic gesture of appeal, blurts out: “What should I say, ‘I’m sorry’?”

Mr. Skarphedinsson and other Icelandic politicians do not try to conceal their feelings of resentment toward the British government for its use of terrorism laws to freeze Icelandic banks’ assets during the financial crisis in 2008. But, if they feel any malicious and smug pleasure in Britain’s suffering now, it is well hidden, though cropping up in the jokes that have been making the rounds here. One, perhaps told with more glee by Icelanders than by mainland Europeans, has Iceland misunderstanding what Europe was requesting: “We wanted cash,” Europe says, “not ash.” Or: “It was the last wish of the Icelandic economy that its ashes be spread over Europe.”

The volcanic eruption at Eyafjallajokull has been such a non-factor for most Icelanders that after a day or two, attention quickly shifted back to the other prevailing domestic topic of the day: the continuing political fallout from the financial crisis. Last Monday, a special investigative committee released a much-anticipated report analyzing events in the nation’s public and private sectors ultimately that led to the collapse of the banks. The report, which runs more than 2,300 pages, accuses seven government officials, including the former prime minister and the former head of the central bank, of acting with “negligence” in their supervision of the financial sector. The findings prompted three members of Parliament to take leaves of absence pending the outcome of a parliamentary review of the report. More departures are expected.

“We thought we were living in a well-ordered society, a respected member of the Nordic countries, stable, well-organized, well-behaved, deeply democratic and certainly not corrupt,” Jon Baldvin Hannibalsson – former foreign affairs minister and ambassador to Washington – said in an interview Sunday. “This investigation shows a totally different picture.”

It may seem to outsiders that Iceland has leapt onto the world stage, but Icelanders say otherwise. The sparsely inhabited island [with about 310,000 residents] has enjoyed a long streak of influence elsewhere far out of proportion to its economic power and population.

Settled in the ninth century by Norsemen, it was for several centuries thereafter a zone of experimentation in radical free market economics known as the Icelandic Free State, with no taxes, no police or army, and certainly no bureaucrats. It was those settlers’ descendants — referred to most unflatteringly as “the Vikings” – who ran all over the globe in the last decade, brokering complicated and wildly overleveraged financial instruments that led to the crash in 2008.

This latest volcanic plume of ash is not the first to settle over Europe. In June 1783, the Laki volcano erupted and spewed ash into the air for the next eight months, casting a persistent ash haze over Western Europe. Some historians believe that the cloud may have contributed to climatic conditions that helped incite the French Revolution six years later.

Many conversations here about the volcano and its import eventually seem to drift to Katla, a far more powerful volcano on Iceland’s southern coast just east of Eyjafjallajokull. Scientists fear that the recent volcanic activity at Eyjafjallajokull could set off Katla, which erupts on average about twice a century – the last time in 1918. The eruptions of the comparatively small Eyjafjallajökull have historically preceded massive eruptions by Mount Katla. Experts are concerned that the present volcanic eruption could trigger Katla, and volcanologists are therefore monitoring Katla very closely right now.

There are eruption channels between Eyjafjallajökull and Katla, and magma from the Eyjafjallajökull system could shoot into the Katla volcano. Katla might only need a small nudge. The consequences of an eruption at Katla would put the current air-travel chaos in the shade, inflicting much greater economic losses upon Europe.

Hallgrimur Helgason, a novelist and artist, said that with the recent political and geological events, the true character of the nation and its land has been on full display. “Nature in Iceland,” he said, “is harsh and full of surprises.” The national psyche has been moulded by its unpredictability. “You never know what’s going to happen,” he said. “There’s never a dull moment here.”

1094 words - Summary 250 words

Terms

Receivership – A type of corporate bankruptcy in which a receiver [temporary administrator] is appointed by a bankruptcy court or by creditors.

Receiver - A person or body appointed by a bankruptcy court [or secured creditor] to run a company for a short period of time in a manner that will ensure that as much debt as possible is paid back to the creditors.

Overleveraged – If a company or country is overleveraged, it has borrowed too much money and is unable to make payments on the debt.

IOU - An abbreviation of the phrase "I owe you." An IOU in the business community is a legally binding agreement between a borrower and a lender.

The New York Times, REYKJAVIK, Iceland – April 19, 2010 [Edited]

Exercise 3: Text Comprehension (30%)

Read the text for summary and answer all the questions. Indicate whether the statements are True or False. If False, correct them.

1. All air traffic between Iceland and the rest of the world came to a stop in the week following Eyjafjallajökull’s eruption in April 2010.

1. Iceland has managed to maintain its clean-hands reputation within the financial world.

1. Iceland is in dire financial straits because of the recent volcanic eruption.

1. Icelanders want their ashes spread over Europe.

1. The Icelandic psyche is unpredictable.

1. What is meant by the “large continent to the east”?

1. What have been the effects of Eyjafjallajökull’s eruption on Great Britain?

1. Many Icelanders were pleased when the Eyjafjallujökull erupted.

1. Most Icelanders are very concerned about the long-term consequences of the volcanic eruption.

1. No ashfall has been registered on Iceland, because the winds blew away from the island.

1. The foreign minister has apologized for the eruption.

1. Which volcano may have indirectly caused the French Revolution?

1. The local impact of the latest volcanic eruption on Iceland has been negligible.

1. Iceland is responsible for the current global financial crisis.

1. Who suffered the most from the collapse of the three main banks on Iceland?

1. What is the name of the most dangerous volcano on Iceland and how often does it erupt, on average?

1. What word is used in the text to describe the financial collapse?

1. When was Iceland settled and by whom?

1. Where is Katla located in relation to Eyjafjallajökull?

1. Why are volcanologists so worried about the current eruption at Eyjafjallajökull?

Explanation: For an explanation of the mark obtained: contact the responsible teacher of the course no later than 1 week after the exam results have been published in StudentWeb. Remember to include your name and candidate number. The examiner will then decide whether to give a written explanation or call you in for an interview.

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