Eindexamen Engels havo 2023, tijdvak 2: vragen en antwoorden

Avengers: Infinity War

I suffer from Avengernesia: I'm a bit hazy on which Marvel films I've seen and the order they're supposed to be in. You don't need to have seen all the earlier films to enjoy this, but some backstory on its gazillion superheroes certainly helps. We begin with Thor getting his arse kicked

5 by Thanos, who's out to collect six Infinity Stones, which will give him ultimate power in the universe: control over time, space, reality and, um, soul and… other stuff. Perhaps even pedestrian crossings that make you wait forever for the green man. Two of the Infinity Stones are on Earth: one in Vision's head, the other

10 with Dr Strange. Various superheroes gather to protect each stone, others go after Thanos and yet more help Thor find a replacement for that hammer of his. Despite the vast cast and multi-stranded plot that looks bewildering on paper, this does kind of work. But ensembles are harder to care about than single protagonists ─ and after Thanos, the only villain

15 likely to test the combined superheroes' power, you wonder where the franchise has left to go.

mercifullyshortreview.wordpress.com, 2019

Range presents a risk To the editor

Re: Outdoor recreation enthusiasts petition for range access, May 21.

1 In your recent article, the lieutenant-commander offers a curiously outdated defence of the military's right to continue to fire live ammunition miles into a forest area adjacent to a popular public park.

2 When the range was established almost a century ago it was in an extremely remote location, but the world has changed and it now presents a risk to public safety.

3 Apart from the risk of hitting people and wildlife, the spent ammunition produces undetermined toxic waste close to a public water source. 4 , during our hot, dry summers there must be a significant risk of starting a forest fire. At critical times the use of power tools and lawn mowers is banned, so why are gun ranges still open then?

4 It is clear that major changes in attitude are required by the federal government. If this range is not relocated to a new 'safe' location, if such a place exists, then the operators should create barriers to prevent stray ammunition flying miles into the forest.

Carl Jones Nanaimo, Canada

Nanaimo News Bulletin, 2019

Smart tech is coming for your last safe space adapted from an article by Justine Calma

1 There's no shortage of gadgets ready to invade the last bastion of privacy at home: the bathroom. The intruders aren't just startups hoping to revolutionize the way we use the bathroom. Regular brands that make personal hygiene products also want in on the action.

2 Bic unveiled a prototype for a smart razor and accompanying app. The shaver tracks everything from hair density, shaving speed, the number of strokes, time spent shaving, and blade dullness to environmental factors like temperature and humidity. All of that information is supposed to deliver its users a more personalized shave and improve the razors of the future.

3 While the benefits of Bic's data collection 6 , a new generation of smart toothbrushes is already vying for a spot in our medicine cabinets. Oral-B and Colgate have toothbrushes on the market that can tell you how to brush better by tracking your movements while you're in the act.

4 Toilet paper brand Charmin is working on a sensor shaped like its trademark bear that "sniffs" the air so that it can warn you if the bathroom smells awful. Based on the sensor's reading, a separate display monitor will indicate if it's safe to enter the bathroom or if you're in for a doozy. Charmin's also got a prototype "RollBot", which is a robot shaped like a bear that you can summon to grab a new roll of toilet paper using your smartphone if you're ever in a pinch.

5 Do consumers need brands' relentless obsession with enhancing our most intimate moments? Personal hygiene products probably don't need to worry about getting left behind if they don't hop on the "smart home" bandwagon. We'll still need something to wipe our behinds.

theverge.com, 2020

How to be more efficient adapted from an article by Maddy Savage and Ginevra Boni

1 Whether or not we care to admit it, we're all familiar with procrastination: waiting until the last minute to catch up with pressing tasks, often leading to inferior or incomplete work. The antidote ─ while easier said than done ─ is simply to start on your assignments sooner, long before the cut-off time so that your work reflects your full potential. But in your quest to beat procrastination, is it possible to go too far?

2 David Rosenbaum, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside, certainly thinks so. His research focuses on the perils of 'precrastination', the tendency to rush too quickly into tasks. It can result in an expenditure of unnecessary effort that could be avoided with a bit of planning ─ 9 , haste makes waste.

3 As opposed to a procrastinator, who might leave an inbox full of emails untouched until the next day, a 'precrastinator' reads and responds to each of them first thing in the morning. Even if they know most of the emails are unimportant, they choose to clear them off as soon as possible.

4 So why do people 'precrastinate'? Rosenbaum says that for most, it's tough to resist reaching for low-hanging fruit. If something is immediately available to you, you're instinctively wired to go for it. Personality traits such as conscientiousness, eagerness to please and high energy can predict 'precrastination' behaviours, Rosenbaum says, but the evolutionary impulse behind them is universal.

5 The real downside of 'precrastination' comes when, in your rush to finish, you encounter the naturally higher chance of doing your work incompletely or inaccurately. In the case of emails, sometimes waiting to respond can show respect for careful thought over expediency, especially if the content of the message is emotional.

6 Of course, 'precrastination' is not without its benefits, but it's critical to do so only when it makes sense. Chronic 'precrastinators' must also realise that it's OK to set trivial things aside, because they will not require huge mental energy later in the day, Rosenbaum says.

7 He argues that the managers of today would be wise to acknowledge that it's not always best to do everything as quickly as possible. "It should be agreed in our society that it's okay to smell the flowers," he says. "To be deliberate, mindful and to be allowed to slow down."

bbc.com, 2019

Is the internet leading us into a 21st century dark age?

adapted from an article by Emily Reynolds

1 I was about 11 or 12 when we got the internet, the creaky dial-up tone so new and so thrilling that I feel a jolt of excitement when I hear it even now. Unlike the generation that came after me, for whom the internet feels more like a human right than it does a novelty, I can't quite say that I 'grew up' online; rather, it's where I came of age.

2 This meant, of course, that our parents were nervous; the internet was new to them, too. They were concerned about what we were posting, how much of ourselves we were revealing; 'catfishing' might have been years away, but they were still faintly aware that other people might con us online.

3 But there was one concern that haunted them more than most: the idea that everything we posted would be there forever. It was drilled into us: don't post that stupid comment underneath your friend's Bebo profile picture, it'll be there forever. Don't loudly proclaim your political affiliation on your MySpace profile ─ you might change your mind, and it will be there forever.

4 MySpace and Bebo might be distant monuments to adolescence, but this sense of perpetuity has followed us. Every day we look at Timehop and Facebook Memories to see what we were doing, saying and thinking 10 years ago; websites we were featured on then are still live, too.

5 Is it healthy to have our every correspondence so easily accessible, stored in a phone you pick up hundreds of times a day? Have the boundaries blurred between public and private, work and leisure, our inner and our outer worlds? The answer barely matters; we proceed without thought.

6 Perhaps we shouldn't. Just last week, MySpace lost millions of songs from its servers: millions of recordings that may have only existed there and are now gone forever. The same day, I received an email from Google Plus, an old social media platform long since confined to the garbage pile of equally forgettable websites. The site was closing, Google wrote; if there was anything on there you wanted to save, you had better do it quickly or it too would be wiped.

7 A few days later, quite coincidentally, I interviewed Elaine Kasket, a psychologist who has just written a book about what happens to our data after we die. Perpetuity, she told me, is a myth propagated by social media platforms keen to keep guzzling our most personal data; if it were all to be lost, rendered inaccessible by technological growth, where would we be? A whole era could become invisible to history.

8 This could be catastrophic culturally, of course, and historically. But it's also pause for thought when it comes to our emotional lives. There's nothing wrong with conducting intimate relationships online. The WhatsApp chat log detailing me and my boyfriend's relationship from first message to last, for example, is one of our most precious romantic artefacts.

9 But, as Kasket told me, it isn't really ours at all ─ it belongs to WhatsApp. The intimacies we share online still belong to us ─ of course they do. But the infrastructure within which we have to operate doesn't. An email from a partner can be just as potent and precious as a physical love letter ─ the difference is that only one can be snatched from beneath us so easily. In person, our intimacies belong to no-one but ourselves; online, they can always be sold.

huckmag.com, 2019

Autonomous cars need an ‘inclusive design’ adapted from an article by Paul Herriotts, Professor of Transport Design, Coventry University

1 The move towards driverless cars isn't just a chance for people to relax at the wheel. It's an opportunity to revolutionize personal transport in a way that offers life-changing benefits to people with disabilities. But for this to happen, we need the car industry to commit to more inclusive design practices that right now are widely absent, and to overcome the challenges of designing new ways to interact with autonomous vehicles. The solution could involve manufacturers drawing inspiration from diverse areas of product design to get the balance right between style and real-world user-friendliness.

2 The term 'inclusive design' is used to describe the consideration of the needs and abilities of a diverse range of people in the design process. The car industry has traditionally focused on designing for people with driving licences ─ who by definition tend to be the more 20 section of the population. Yet people with disabilities make up a significant minority ─ 22% of people in the UK. Many of these people may be unable to drive today's cars, whether due to issues such as sight loss, significant physical impairments or cognitive issues.

3 Having a disability and being reliant on public transport is fraught with difficulties. And having trouble getting around is key among the barriers disabled people cite as stopping them taking greater part in society, whether visiting friends and family or joining a club. So making transport more accessible will enable them to improve their quality of life ─ whether through better economic opportunities, less social isolation or restoring dignity.

4 While autonomous cars will increasingly take away the need for people to physically drive the vehicles, there are other barriers to disabled people using cars that need to be considered. Simply getting in and out of vehicles presents difficulties to many people with physical disabilities ─ not just wheelchair users ─ and to many older people as muscle strength decreases with age. This makes thoughtful design touches such as grab handles and side steps 22 . Self-driving cars will also introduce new challenges, such as the need for interfaces to enable passengers to select a destination or receive information about their journey. Visual displays may not be suitable for some passengers, just as voice input may be inappropriate for others.

5 Yet, despite the considerable discussion and resources going into changing personal transport through the development of self-driving cars, there's little evidence that inclusive design is a major part of the process. Regulators are updating their codes to accommodate trials of autonomous vehicles, but apparently without considering how vehicle design could benefit people with disabilities.

6 It's not difficult to design accessible cars if the needs and capabilities of a diverse population are considered early in the design process. A few car makers have adopted this philosophy, for example, Ford uses a 'third age suit' that simulates the limited mobility, vision and sense of touch that many older people experience. This helps the firm's engineers and designers to get those important details right, such as their 360-degree door handles that allow the door to be easily opened from the outside using the whole arm and hand, rather than pull-up handles that require the fingers and wrist to operate them. Similarly, firms in other sectors have already found ways to develop accessible interfaces. Samsung's work in producing smart TVs accessible for blind and partially sighted people received the Royal National Institute of Blind People's inclusive Society Award. The TV can read on-screen text back to the user and provides verbal feedback about the channel, volume and programme information.

7 The car industry has a choice to make: business class travel for a select few, or truly accessible transport for the wider population, offering dignity and an enhanced quality of life to those who face significant challenges every day. I know which I prefer.

theconversation.com, 2020

The following text is taken from the novel The Party, written by Elizabeth Day and first published in 2017.

He paused briefly, glancing around the marquee, taking its measure, and then I could see him fix his features accordingly and he unbuttoned his jacket and became jovial, shaking the proffered hands with ease, one palm

5 resting on the other person's upper arm as he did so. 'Good to see you,' I heard him say as he approached. 'Great party. Great to be here.' Edward Buller got closer and closer to us and I felt a surge of energy, all at once worried that he wouldn't

10 remember me and that I would have to pretend to be a perfect stranger, even though I'd spoken to Gilly plenty of times in the past about how well I knew him. I saw her watching me now with her beady stare as the Prime Minister continued his triumphal procession and I knew that if Edward Buller

15 blanked me, Gilly would note this down and it would become part of her spewing anecdotage at other parties like this one and I would never live it down. 'All he needs now is someone to give him a baby to hold,' Lucy said. 'Wonder if Ben's arranged that.'

20 I laughed. 'Hi, Eric!' The Prime Minister was saying now, just two feet away from us. 'So glad you could make it.' He was trailed by his meek wife, Fiona, a slender brunette wearing a mid-calf dress in an ugly geometric print. The Daily Mail was forever

25 pillorying Fiona Buller for 28 and her habit of recycling old outfits. A few weeks before, she had been pictured at a women's mentoring event wearing a jumper knitted with the design of a poodle across her chest. The Mail had run a double-page spread asking fashion experts to give their assessment under the headline 'Paw Show'. One of the stylists had

30 given her 'Canine out of ten for dowdiness'. 'Great to see you', Buller said to a man with ginger hair. 'You remember my wife, Fiona?' Behind him, Fiona gave a wordless shrug. The Prime Minister was now close enough for me to smell the metallic edge of his aftershave. I rehearsed what I would say. I thought it best to

35 take the initiative so that, before he had the chance to humiliate me by not remembering who I was, I would say, 'Nice to see you again, Edward,' and then maybe I would follow up with 'Must have been at Ben's' in order to give him the appropriate context. My hand was sweating. I removed it from Lucy's clasp. The Prime Minister had just embraced a woman in a

40 tight brocade dress and was moving towards me, his progress inexorable. He looked up and our eyes met briefly and his gaze was one of complete

blankness and I felt my heart rate soar as he came closer and the inevitable moment was upon me…. 'Maaaaate!' Ben had surged out from the crowd and was grappling the

45 Prime Minister into a showy bear hug. All I was left with was a broad sweep of Buller's shoulders and Ben's arms around him. Ben drew back. 'So good of you to come.' His eyes were glistening. Was he — no, he couldn't be — but was he actually on the verge of tears? 'Wouldn't have missed it,' Buller was saying.

50 Then Serena shimmied into the picture, cheekbones pearlescent, and kissed Fiona lightly on each cheek and said loudly: 'You two never let us down!' So everyone could see what good friends they were. Fiona took a startled step back.

Can tiny homes solve big problems for the homeless?

1 To the editor: While I am accepting of the need for temporary shelter for homeless individuals, the "tiny homes concept" is not a cost-effective way to achieve it. Multi-unit construction with common walls and perhaps a second story are cheaper to build, air condition and maintain. They also require less land. Think college dorm units, with individual locking bedroom areas and shared bathroom, kitchen and outdoor facilities. Cost-effective solutions might also include conversion of empty malls to dorm-type shelters. Finally, it is notable that the dignity of homeless people is emphasized, and yet it is OK to keep nursing home residents in shared rooms with shared bathrooms. Not a safe, respectful or dignified situation for them, is it? Danella Donlan, Palm Springs

2 To the editor: Seeing the photo of rows of tiny homes for unhoused people made me sad. I am reminded of rows of barracks at displaced persons camps and military bases, unrelieved by any greenery. Is there not a way to site the homes in a more organic, humane configuration? Trees? Community vegetable gardens? A tiny garden plot outside a front door? A window box? For $130,000, I'll bet there are communities where home-buyers could get a condo with a balcony and have access to green space. Toby Horn, Los Angeles

3 To the editor: Twelve years ago, I worked at a Los Angeles City water reclamation plant. We decided we needed shelter for our one-person, 24-hour security. The structure needed enough room only for two people, so it would be small. It would have internet and electric access but no water and sewer connections. When I inquired about the cost, I was told it was around $50,000. Once the prefabricated structure was installed, a Building and Safety inspector came out and told us we needed a concrete wheelchair access ramp with curbing to the sliding door. We tried to explain that the plant had proper access for wheelchairs, and that no one in a wheelchair would approach the guard house. Needless to say, we installed the access ramp to the door with the required curbing. We then passed inspection. The final cost of the small guard house after all the work was close to the "tiny home" price of $130,000. The thing is, soon after that I got a report that one of the guards had tripped over the curbing while leaving the guard house. Douglas Bohlmann, La Habra

latimes.com, 2020

Sheep ban threatens ancient grazing rights by John Bingham, social affairs editor

1 IT IS one of the oldest surviving commoners' rights in England, thought to date back beyond the Norman Conquest, but the custom of allowing sheep to roam free in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, is set to become a crime.

2 Forest of Dean district council has drawn on controversial anti-social behaviour legislation to rule that anyone allowing sheep to "enter and remain" in Bream, the area's largest village, will now face a fine of up to £1,000. Introduced almost two years ago, Public Spaces Protection Orders allow councils to ban specific activities within certain areas.

3 But the Manifesto Club, a group that campaigns against hyper- regulation of daily life, has catalogued how the so-called "busybody's charter" is being used in some areas to outlaw lucky charms, chalk drawings, singing and even, in one case, carrying a golf bag. But if the penalties, now out for consultation, come in for Bream it is thought it will be the first time orders have been used to criminalise sheep.

4 After complaints of sheep nibbling rose bushes, baa-ing loudly and leaving droppings, the council set up an "Irresponsible Shepherding Scrutiny Task Group" to compile "evidence logs". However, local shepherds believe some complaints are from new arrivals in the area's "gentrification", many of whom ignore an unwritten rule to fence and gate their gardens. They fear it could spell the end of rights enjoyed for centuries which allow commoners in the "Hundreds of St Briavels" ─ the traditional name for the Forest of Dean ─ to "turn out" or graze sheep freely.

5 A protest is planned for Saturday.

Daily Telegraph, 2016

Young people don't trust anyone who uses a full stop

adapted from an article by Hanna Frishberg

1 While older texters may consider the period an innocent symbol that a sentence has ended, digital natives consider it a triggering form of aggression. The punctuation problem ignited over social media recently, with Gen Z and millennials agreeing that ending a sentence with a period is overly hostile and, worse yet, extremely uncool.

2 "Only old people or troubled souls put periods at the end of every sentence," wrote digital culture journalist Victoria Turk in her book on digital etiquette, Kill Reply All. "The thing is, in a messaging conversation, a period is simply not necessary," she explained. "It's clear when you've finished your thought already, so what function does the period fulfill?

39 , using a period in messaging now looks rather emphatic, and can come across as if you're quite cross or annoyed."

3 Guardian columnist Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett started a public discussion on the issue. "Older people ─ do you realize that ending a sentence with a full stop comes across as sort of abrupt and unfriendly to younger people in an email/chat? Genuinely curious," she asked on Twitter. Although the tweet was met with cries of ageism, her argument has a point: In a 2015 study of 126 undergraduates, researchers at Binghamton University found that texts containing periods were also perceived as insincere.

4 The period's new, aggressive interpretation can also be used 40 , for comedic effect. "While periods at the end of sentences might be on a downward slope, they can find themselves redistributed elsewhere, where they can be placed very deliberately in order to add emphasis," Turk wrote. This includes putting a period between every word, as in the example she gives: "Just. Look. How. Emphatic. This. Is."

New York Post, 2020

Lees eerst de opgave voordat je naar de tekst gaat.

The tricks bosses play at interviews Employers have shared some of the ways they pick a suitable candidate. But does washing your coffee mug mean you're right for the job?

by Emine Saner

1 For some employers, doing extensive prep for an interview and arriving on time isn't enough. They may also subject you to some serious mind games and some have been giving insights into the tricks they use to supposedly highlight the best candidates. Trent Innes, managing director of Australian accounting company Xero, bases his hiring decisions on what people do with their glass or coffee cup. "You can develop skills, you can gain knowledge and experience, but it really comes down to attitude," he recently told The Venture Podcast. "And the attitude that we've talked a lot about is the concept of 'wash your own coffee cup'." Similar is the Wrapper Test, where a sweet wrapper is dropped by the door of the interview room and the candidate is judged on if they pick it up. This is supposed to provide insights into a person's selflessness and attention to detail.

2 Another manager recently shared her way of weeding out those undeserving of a job: they don't send a thank-you email after the interview. Doing so indicates the person is "eager, organised, and well- mannered," wrote Jessica Liebman, executive managing editor at Insider Inc, in a post for Business Insider that went viral: "It shows resourcefulness, too, because the candidate often has to hunt down an email address." Another CEO revealed to the New York Times that she texts prospective employees at 9pm or 11am on a Sunday, "just to see how fast you'll respond."

3 Ruth Cornish, an HR expert, says trying to "hack" recruitment is particularly common in fast-growing companies and tech businesses, "where the culture is very strong. It is a way of identifying whether that person will fit: 'Are they right for our gang?'" The problem with such tricks, apart from them being potentially unethical, discriminatory and even unlawful, is that companies end up employing the same types of people. "It's not about diversity or inclusion. If you've never been in a world of work before, or your family haven't, you may not know what etiquette is. It doesn't mean you're not a talented person who can't do a wonderful job at that company."

4 Claire McCartney, diversity and inclusion adviser at the HR industry body the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, says these tests seem to be an attempt to uncover people's values and behaviours. According to her there are ways that are much more based on evidence, for instance, asking candidates for examples of their integrity or their ability to work in a team.

5 There is no rigour to reading into coffee cups and follow-up emails, says McCartney. "People might respond differently for different reasons ─ they might be nervous about being interviewed. Not saying thank you to an interviewer doesn't mean they're not courteous." And, as Cornish points out, some employers find a follow-up email "a bit desperate and annoying".

6 For the candidate, these arbitrary tests ─ which can be as contrived as a challenge on The Apprentice ─ present more possibilities for post- interview angst. Was your prospective boss impressed when you picked up the greasy Greggs bag ─ or did you just make her uncomfortably aware that she works amid squalor?

theguardian.com, 2019

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