Eindexamen Engels havo 2021, tijdvak 2: vragen en antwoorden

Bus driver

I frequently have to attend various talks about career and life planning with my classmates. On one occasion, I asked my friend about his career goal. His

5 answer came as a shock to everyone around us: he wanted to be a bus driver. Some of our friends were speechless, while some others laughed at him.

10 Growing up in Hong Kong, we are encouraged from our earliest years to make life plans. The idea keenly instilled in us is that money and power are paramount and we look down on those at the bottom of the social ladder. Basic values like respect and gratitude have been forgotten.

15 If there are no construction workers, we won't have a roof over our heads; without janitors, we can't enjoy a pleasant living environment; without factory workers, we won't get to wear trendy clothes. Every one of us should remember that all jobs are of equal value to society. All members of society should be respected for making our city a

20 better place to live.

Yeung Tsz-lee, To Kwa Wan

adapted from a letter to Sunday Morning Post, 2017

Hip: that's me

I've noticed over the years that you carry less rural news, so imagine my surprise when last Saturday's paper informed me that coveralls are suddenly a key item in "this summer's men's-wear mantra" (Well Suited, Life & Arts).

Thank goodness. I've been wearing these things on the farm for years, mostly to keep grease, oil, and what I'll 3 call organic material from staining my "good" work clothes.

While writer Jeremy Freed picked up his jumpsuit at a shop in Japan, I buy used industrial coveralls from a surplus outlet in North Bay. Twenty dollars or less gets you a serviceable outfit, with the added hip factor of having the previous wearer's name over the pocket. Over the past few years, I've been, variously, John, Marc and Shiraz. Now, you can call me Fashion Forward.

Ray Ford, Powassan, Ontario.

theglobeandmail.com, 2017

Counter offensive Microwaving a sponge makes bad bacteria quite happy to stay

Stop. Drop the sponge and step away from the microwave. That squishy cleaning tool is teeming with countless bacteria. Think that microwaving it will kill these tiny residents? It may nuke the weak ones in

5 your counter-swiping device, a recent study finds ─ but the strongest, smelliest and potentially pathogenic bacteria will survive. They will reproduce and spread to the vacant real estate left behind by the dead microbes.

10 In the end, your sponge will just be stinkier, and you may regret not just tossing it.

adapted from The New York Times International Edition, 2017

Lady of the Flies?

1 Last week, Warner Bros. unveiled plans to make a new film adaption of the classic 1954 novel Lord of the Flies, with one controversial adjustment. The main characters will be girls instead of boys. According to screenwriter Scott McGehee, the aim is to "help people see the story anew". But many commentators took to Twitter to express their disapproval, arguing that the story is supposed to be an exploration of "toxic masculinity".

2 In the book, a group of schoolboys is marooned on a desert island after a plane crash, leading to a power struggle that ultimately turns bloody. Yet if the lead characters were female would this even happen? One Twitterer suggested girls would "set aside their differences", another that they'd keep "apologising to each other" until "everyone's dead". The book’s author William Golding revealed in a 1993 interview that he wrote the work as a bitter critique of male-controlled society. Yet anyone who suggests women are fundamentally nicer than men clearly hasn't seen films such as Mean Girls and Heathers, said Erin Gloria Ryan on The Daily Beast. Women can be just as beastly as men, though it may be "in a different way".

3 Warner Bros. aren't motivated by a passion for gender equality, said Emine Saner in The Observer. 7 In the past two years, "female-led" movies have outperformed those with mainly male protagonists at the box office by 11% on average, and the suits at the studios have taken note. Hence the trend for gender-reversing remakes. Last year we had an all-female Ghostbusters. And coming shortly is a female version of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, titled Nasty Women, and a new take on the 1984 comedy Splash. This time round, the love interest isn't a beautiful mermaid, but a fishy-tailed Channing Tatum as a hunky merman.

adapted from THE WEEK, 2017

The battle of Chief Druid King Arthur Pendragon

adapted from an article by Gavin Haynes

1 When the original King Arthur wanted to park at Stonehenge, the prehistoric ring of standing stones, he simply rode up, got off his horse, tethered it to a rock, and went about his business of worshipping ancient stones. Parking in latter-day Britain is, of course, a nightmare. 9 , when the reincarnation of King Arthur wants to go and worship the grey stones during the summer solstice, he has to pay £15 to stow his Kawasaki motorbike.

2 Yet this week brings new hope for the 62-year-old self-proclaimed reincarnation ─ legal name King Arthur Pendragon; former name John Rothwell ─ with the news that Salisbury county court may be sympathetic to the divine parking rights of kings. Pendragon has petitioned the court to revoke all fees, citing articles 9, 10, 11 and 14 of the European convention on human rights. As a neo-Druid, he argues that this "pay to pray" impinges on his free right of worship, and in an early victory, the court this week granted him a full day to hear his case.

3 This is not the first time the former Royal Hampshire Regiment parachutist has gone into battle for the liberty of the Henge. In the 90s, when English Heritage first brought in visitor charges, he campaigned for free access to the site, resulting in multiple trespass arrests. More recently, he called for the immediate reburial of the cremated remains of about 40 bodies found at a nearby archaeological site. And he has repeatedly stood for election in Salisbury, on a platform of green-ish libertarianism.

4 Pendragon was a happily mortgaged family man before he began joining biker gangs in the 1970s, rising to the top of the Gravediggers. In 1986, after an encounter with a book of Arthurian legend, he realised the parallels between his own life story ─ squaddie, biker, property owner ─ and that of the former English head honcho ─ mythic king, sword-puller ─ were unmistakable and overwhelming.

5 Six weeks later, browsing local shops, he came across a copy of the sword Excalibur that had been used in the 1981 film of the same name, and the deal was sealed. The Loyal Arthurian Warband, 'The Warrior/Political Arm of The Modern Druid Movement', was formed. In the

ensuing years, he claims to have "knighted" many famous faces into his order, among them controversial Celebrity Big Brother contestant and cage fighter Alex Reid. He also co-wrote an autobiography in 2003, The Trials of Arthur.

6 Nonetheless, English Heritage continues to oppose his parking claim. In 2000, it points out, 10,000 people attended the solstice. By 2014, that number had risen to almost 40,000. Faced with such a deluge, it aims to encourage visitors to avoid parking, and instead lift-share or use buses.

7 For his part, Pendragon takes issue with the oft-floated idea that he might not be the reincarnation of the fifth-century king. The similarities are obvious, he said in 2014: "He rode around on a horse and fought people. I bang Druids' heads together and fight English Heritage."

theguardian.com, 2017

Het volgende fragment is het begin van een hoofdstuk uit het boek H is for Hawk, geschreven door Helen Macdonald, gepubliceerd in 2014.

3 Small worlds I was twelve years old when I first saw a trained goshawk. Please, please, PLEASE! I'd begged my parents. They let me go. Drove me there, even. We'll look after her, the men said. They carried hawks on their fists: orange-eyed

5 goshawks as remote and composed as statuary, with barred grey tails and breast feathers of vermiculated snow. I couldn't speak. I wanted my parents to leave. But when their car pulled away I wanted to run after it. I was terrified. Not of the hawks: of the falconers. I'd never met

10 men like these. They wore tweed and offered me snuff. They were clubbable men with battered Range Rovers and vowels that bespoke Eton and Oxford, and I was having the first uncomfortable inklings that while I wanted to be a falconer more than anything, it was possible I might not be entirely like these men; that they might view me as a curiosity rather than

15 a kindred spirit. But I pushed my fears aside in favour of silence, because it was the first time I'd ever seen falconry in the field. I'll remember this day for ever, I thought. One day this will be me. We walked in dark winter light over fields furred with new wheat. Vast flocks of fieldfares netted the sky, turning it to something strangely like a

20 sixteenth-century sleeve sewn with pearls. It was cold. My feet grew heavy with clay. And twenty minutes after we'd set out, it happened ─ the thing I expected, but for which I was entirely unprepared. A goshawk killed a pheasant. It was a short, brutal dive from an oak into a mess of wet hedge; a brief, muffled crash, sticks breaking, wings flapping, men

25 running, and a dead bird placed reverently in a hawking bag. I stood some way off. Bit my lip. Felt emotions I hadn't names for. For a while I didn't want to look at the men and their hawks anymore and my eyes slipped to the white panels of cut light in the branches behind them. Then I walked to the hedge where the hawk had made her kill. Peered inside. Deep in

30 the muddled darkness six copper pheasant feathers glowed in a cradle of blackthorn. Reaching through the thorns I picked them free, one by one, tucked the hand that held them into my pocket, and cupped the feathers in my closed fist as if I were holding a moment tight inside itself. It was death I had seen. I wasn't sure what it had made me feel.

35 But there was more to that day than my first sight of death. There was something else, and it also gave me pause. As the afternoon wore on, men started disappearing from our party. One by one their hawks had decided they wanted no more of proceedings, saw no good reason to

return to their handlers, and instead sat in trees staring out over acres of

40 fading pasture and wood, fluffed and implacable. At the end of the day we left with three fewer men and three fewer hawks, the former still waiting beneath their hawks' respective branches. I knew goshawks were prone to sulk in trees: all the books had told me so. 'No matter how tame and loveable,' I'd read in Frank Illingworth's Falcons and Falconry, 'there are

45 days when a goshawk displays a peculiar disposition. She is jumpy, fractious, unsociable. She may develop these symptoms of passing madness during an afternoon's sport, and then the falconer is in for hours of annoyance.'

Congrats, it's an emoji!

adapted from an article by Sarah Elbert

1 The next time you text a friend about plans for the evening, there's a good chance you'll spend longer searching for the perfect emoji to express your feelings and thoughts at that moment ─ grimace, sushi, running woman and all ─ than you do typing actual words.

2 Emoji have become ingrained parts of our daily lives, expressing our laughter, sadness, glee and fear in a few cartoony icons sent via text message, email or over social channels. They're available on clothes and pillows. They're so ubiquitous, in fact, that the "face with tears of joy" emoji was Oxford Dictionaries' 2015 word of the year; 17 since it's (obviously) not a word.

3 Emoji are used to express both convenient, low-risk emotional cues and our unparalleled wit. They transcend languages. Like ancient hieroglyphics written on cave walls, they often tell a story. But despite the publication of Emoji Dick, a crowd-sourced emoji translation of literary classic Moby Dick, don't go thinking that emoji will one day replace the written word entirely ─ just in case you were worried.

4 "Emoji and other forms of creative punctuation are the digital equivalent of making a face or a silly hand gesture while you're speaking," wrote internet linguist Gretchen McCulloch in Mental Floss. "You'd feel weird having a conversation in a monotone with your hands tied behind your back, but that's kind of what it's like texting in plain vanilla Standard English. But typing exclusively in emoji is like playing charades ─ it's fun for a while, but if you actually want to say anything complicated? . . ."

5 The universal set of emoji are "regulated," for lack of a better term, by the very unsexy- and unfunny-sounding Unicode Consortium, which gives each approved emoji its own universally recognized, unique code. The nonprofit consortium is an alliance of big tech companies, including Apple, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Facebook and others, that pay an annual fee of $18,000 to vote on characters and other text decisions. Having one central coding depot ensures that devices created by competing companies recognize each other's text and symbols. Emoji make up just a small percentage of the many text codes issued by the organization.

6 The process of creating new emoji takes about 18 months from start to finish, and anyone can submit applications to the consortium for a new icon, along with the reasoning behind it. For example, a group called Emojination last year proposed a new "dumpling" emoji, which was moved forward as a candidate for consideration with the next release. In its academic proposal, the petitioners argued: "Dumplings are one of the most pervasive foods in the world, culinarily native to four continents and served on all seven continents, including Antarctica."

7 If the dumpling is approved ─ it's on a list of potential emoji that will be released as the Unicode 10.0 group in June 2017, which will then trickle down to your devices ─ it will be up to the various tech companies to decide how their specific dumpling will appear. That's why in the latest round of new emoji to be released, the "clown face" looks different on Samsung devices than it does on Apple iPhones; some are creepier ─ or, ahem, cuter ─ than others. It's up to the emoji designers at each company to interpret the approved characters.

8 Gedeon Maheux is one of the owners of the Greensboro, North Carolina-based Iconfactory, which has designed icons and emoji for tech companies such as Microsoft, Twitter and Facebook. Companies are looking for their own graphical emoji style that will stand out, says Maheux, who is also a designer. While The Iconfactory designs proprietary icons for various companies and apps, the only "true emoji" are ones that have come out of the Unicode Consortium, Maheux says. "Everything else is just an icon or sticker or whatever you want to call it."

9 Maheux has been designing icons for about 20 years ─ and he's been designing emoji since they came into existence with the introduction of mobile devices such as the iPhone. As a big Star Trek fan, he says, one of his favorite emoji is the "Live long and prosper" hand icon. "And, of course, you can't talk about emoji without mentioning the poop one," he says. "I've drawn more poops than I care to consider."

Delta Sky, 2017

Why rewards can backfire adapted from an article by Oliver Burkeman

1 Here's a story about a man with a cunning genius for 25 . This man is elderly and lives near a school. Every afternoon a group of pupils subject him to merciless taunts as they walk home. So he approaches them and offers a deal: he'll give each child £1 if they come back next day to taunt him further. Incredulous but excited, they agree. They return to mock him; he pays as promised, but tells them that the following day, he'll only be able to afford to pay 25p per person. Still thrilled to be paid at all, the children are there again the next afternoon, whereupon the old man sadly explains that, henceforth, the daily reward for hurling abuse at him will be a mere 1p. "A penny?" The kids are scornful. For such pathetic money, it's not worth the effort. They stalk off, grumbling, and never bother him again.

2 The truth being exploited here ─ that rewards can backfire ─ isn't new. It has been studied for years, and scientists call it the "overjustification effect". The traditional assumption was always that people worked essentially like Skinner's1) lab rats: dangle a treat, and you'll train them to do what you want. But for humans, in certain conditions, the reward simply reinforces the belief that the task can't be worth doing for itself. It locates all the pleasure in the future, when the reward will be bestowed, turning the present-moment doing into a grind. From this perspective, rewards aren't the opposite of punishments, but basically the same thing: a way of pressuring people into performing activities you can't rely on them wanting to do.

3 This effect gets much discussed in the context of parenting and teaching (beware of giving your kids treats for doing chores, or awarding gold stars for work well done); and also sometimes personal habits (think twice before adopting a policy of rewarding yourself for going to the gym or writing the next page of your novel). But it applies more widely than that. The latest evidence, a study published in Psychological Science, suggests charity fundraisers bring in less money, and come across as less sincere, when they're being paid ─ even if they started off genuinely committed to the cause. Come to think of it, since most of us are obliged to work for money, maybe the overjustification effect is built into the economy. Does

the very fact we're paid for what we do mean we could never extract the maximum meaning from it?

4 Perhaps it's not even limited to money. In his recent book The Course of Love, Alain de Botton rails against the romantic fantasy of relationships which has us yearning for perfect soulmates who just "get" us, when real partnerships are imperfect, challenging and not always fun. The reward backfire effect adds a whole new layer to this problem: if we're constantly chasing the future moment, when everything will feel perfect, won't that make the daily grind seem even more arduous, and the relationship itself less attractive? 28

theguardian.com, 2016

noot 1 Skinner was een wetenschapper die zich bezighield met experimentele en toegepaste gedragsanalyse.

BURNING QUESTION Can handling money spread germs? adapted from an article by Heidi Mitchell

1 Money laundering is typically meant to describe the process of scrubbing funds of their origin. That term could also be applied to the 30 cleaning of Benjamins1). According to a recent study, bacteria of many forms cling to dollar bills. One expert, Emily Martin, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, explains which bugs may be money-hungry and when it's worth worrying about critters in the ATM.

2 American paper money is made from a blend of linen and cotton, which make notes porous, with "lots of nooks and crannies for things to get stuck in," says Dr. Martin. As dollars move from person to person, each owner's bacterial signature can be 31 the bill and feast on residual oils from sticky fingers.

3 A recent study found more than 3,000 types of bacteria on bills in circulation, though the epidemiologist says most of what was found is part of our world's bacterial ecosystem. "We carry so many bacteria, we are used to fighting them," Dr. Martin says. "Problems arise only when bacteria get into places they shouldn't."

4 Among the critters found are the germs that cause acne. The skin cells a person sheds onto inanimate objects are laced with bugs. 33 , with little nutritional value in a dollar bill, they can only survive a couple of days on deposited skin scales and oil, Dr. Martin says. "The bacteria you'll find on a bill are more reflective of the last person who touched it than everyone who ever touched it," she says. "Typically the numbers of bacteria found on a bill aren't large enough to cause infection, and these aren't necessarily the same strains that are resistant to antibiotics anyway," Dr. Martin adds. Plus, "our skin is an excellent barrier. Just don't touch anything that's handled often and then touch an open wound or put your hand in your mouth," Dr. Martin says. Washing hands frequently with soap and water should get rid of any residual germs that may hitchhike on bills.

5 Dr. Martin runs a lab and is surrounded by germs all day. She doesn't give a second thought to who is riding the coattails of Abe, Andrew or Benjamin. "I'd worry more about what flu virus is being sneezed in your direction," she says.

Wall Street Journal, 2017

noot 1 Benjamins verwijst naar biljetten van $100 met de afbeelding van Benjamin Franklin.

I can see clearly now …

1 "Specsavers are offering free home eye tests to those who are mainly housebound or in a care home," wrote Daily Mirror columnist Fiona Phillips on 14 April. "Why am I telling you this? Because a survey conducted for the famous brand found that most people are unaware of this vital service."

2 Er… or possibly because Specsavers "has an agreement with Fiona Phillips to promote our home-visiting service for which we are paying her", as the optician chain confirmed to Dr Alex May, who runs a blog campaigning against undeclared pluggery for medical services in the media.

3 This may also have some bearing on the 3 February column in which Phillips told readers at enormous length how she "nipped off to Specsavers and skipped home with soft, monthly, disposable contact lenses, which previously, because of my prescription, hadn't been available to me. It's like a whole new world."

4 She failed to declare her interest then, too, which is remarkably careless for someone whose column is headed "Because she cares". Wouldn't it just be simpler and more 36 for the Mirror to slap the Specsavers logo on Phillips's page and be done with it?

Private Eye, 2018

Running genes? adapted from an article by Victoria Allen

1 EXERCISE does wonders for many but leaves others cold. Now scientists have found that genes can govern how pleasant or unpleasant we find going to the gym or going for a run or a bike ride.

2 Our make-up explains up to 37 per cent of the difference in how calming, energising or fun people find exercise. Dutch researchers indicate that genes control the reward centres of the brain, which flood us with 'happy hormones' during exercise, said the journal Psychology of Sport and Exercise.

3 The importance of genetics was calculated by asking 226 pairs of twins with different levels of unspecified shared genes to run or cycle.

4 Lead author Nienke Schutte, of VU University in Amsterdam, said: 'If genes affect the psychology of exercise, making us extroverts who get a boost from the gym or neurotics who worry about our muscles and joints, the one-size-fits-all approach to getting people exercising won't work.'

5 Yesterday the Daily Mail reported how nearly half of UK adults are so inactive, they fail to go for a brisk walk even once a month.

iol.co.za, 2017

Furious Faces

1 Furrowed brow; thinned lips; flared nostrils. If you've ever rubbed someone up the wrong way, you'll know that the signs of anger are hard to miss. Angry facial expressions are a communication tool, essentially conveying the message that the incensed individual is not a happy bunny. Now, psychologists have discovered why this 'angry face' has evolved: it makes the person appear stronger and more formidable.

2 …

3 …

4 …

sciencefocus.com, 2014

Lees bij de volgende tekst steeds eerst de vraag voordat je de tekst zelf raadpleegt.

Ranking Romance: Here Are the Best (and Worst) States for Love

adapted from an article by Kacey Deamer

1 In a study of positive relationships in all

50 U.S. states, researchers found that Mississippi, Utah and Wisconsin topped the rankings. Not interested in love? North Dakota fared the worst in the study.

2 Lead author William Chopik, an assistant psychology professor at Michigan State University, said the study results fit many state stereotypes. Utah and California both landed in the top 10 list. As for New York, when it comes to romance, fuhgeddaboudit! The Empire State was the ninth worst state for lovers, which comes as no surprise when you think of the archetypical anxious New Yorker. California, on the other hand, seems like a romantic place with beautiful sunsets, oceans and warm weather. And Utah residents are known to be very nice, warm and generous, which many people attribute to the large Mormon population.

3 To determine which states had the most positive romantic relationships, the researchers used measurements of both attachment anxiety ─ clinginess and feelings of fear of being abandoned by a partner ─ and attachment avoidance ─ a discomfort with intimacy. Both of these traits, Chopik said, can weigh on relationships. So he and co-study researcher Matt Motyl of the University of Illinois at Chicago looked for states that scored low on those measures.

4 The study's rankings were based on survey data from 127,070 adults across all states. Participants were asked to rate the extent to which they agreed with a series of statements about their attitudes towards relationships.

5 By averaging the measurements of each attachment type, the state's rankings were determined. Many of the clichés that exist about states could be found back in the ranking: the researchers found that people in the mid-Atlantic and Northeast regions showed the highest scores for the

anxiety measure, with the exception of Vermont, which did not follow the pattern and turned out to be one of the 10 least-anxious states in the study.

6 The researchers also compared the attachment measurements with other state data on relationships. For instance, they looked at U.S. Census information on relationships ─ number of individuals never married, married couples, divorced couples, etc. ─ as well as each state's mortality rates. The researchers also studied the state's level of well-being, as measured by the 2013 Gallup Healthways Well-Being Index. Even factors like the temperature and weather in a region can affect relationships, the study researchers said.

7 The study's authors concluded that while their research provided valuable information for how states, and their residents, vary in relationship attachments, "positive relationships are found everywhere and transcend time and place."

livescience.com, 2017

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