Eindexamen Engels vmbo-kb 2021, tijdvak 1: vragen en antwoorden

Grace the dog

By Tyler Leigh Vivier

Dogs can be our best friends and to them, we are their everything. The next best thing are toys and balls. So when dog Grace went blind, her owner Mandy Robinson got creative and made a plan. She bought a tennis ball the size of a soccer ball so Grace would be able to find it easily. She then drilled a hole in the ball and placed a bell inside so Grace would be able to hear where the ball went. According to Mandy, the ball has been a big success and Grace is happier than ever chasing her larger than life tennis ball around the garden. This goes to prove that even for animals, it’s the little things that count.

goodthingsguy.com, 2018

Zoo faces charges after taking bear for ice cream at Dairy Queen drive-thru

1 A Canadian zoo has been charged after it took a bear out for ice-cream at a Dairy Queen drive-thru and posted the video online. Footage showed the one-year-old Kodiak bear, called Berkley, leaning out of the passenger window of a pickup truck and licking an ice cream cone held by the restaurant’s owner. Discovery Wildlife Park took the video down following widespread criticism, but initially defended it by saying it was supposed to be a message about safety. “The message was: Don’t feed the bears. Don’t stop on the side of the road”, Doug Bos, the owner of the zoo, told CBC News. “If everybody would listen to the video, that’s what the message was: don’t do this.”

2 At the time, a trainer said there were no safety concerns, as the bear was secured by a chain and the film had been taken before the Dairy Queen had opened for the day. The zoo, located in Innisfail, Alberta, has now been charged under the Wildlife Act for taking the bear out without informing the authorities

• one count relates to the ice cream excursion and the other for failing to inform officials Berkley the bear was taken home nightly for bottle-feeding in 2017. The owners of the wildlife park, Doug Bos and Debbie Rowland, have said they plan to plead guilty.

3 “We made a 3 . I’m embarrassed about it,” Mr Bos said. “Every time we take an animal off the property, we’re supposed to notify Fish and Wildlife, send them an email, and we forgot to do that in both instances.” The zoo’s permit has also been revised to include new conditions requiring the zoo to provide more details when transporting animals and to keep them in a cage, crate or kennel while in a vehicle. Members of the public will also be barred from having any contact with animals, including bears.

independent.co.uk, 2018

Three-year-old scientist

1 While most three-year-olds are still getting to grips with sentences, Freya Mason is already paving the way for a career on YouTube as a scientist. The Leicestershire-based toddler performs experiments at home and presents her findings to more than one thousand viewers on the video streaming platform, where she has her own channel: Freya’s This Is Science.

2 Mason began her experimenting escapades after she dissolved some skittles in water to create a rainbow-like effect at the age of two. Since then, she’s performed a whole host of weird experiments, from making lava lamps using oil to hatching chicks in her back garden. “It’s her own curiosity that fuels it,” Mason’s mother Sarah explains. “She’s always wondering how the world around her works. She sees things as little puzzles to work out and she’s always trying to make sense of the world around her.”

3 The ambitious girl hopes to grow up to become a doctor or researcher and, according to her mother Sarah, she is also a natural performer who regularly thanks her viewers for ‘tuning in’. Her videos have been viewed by more than 1,000 people across the globe. While the magnitude of viewers may not be of huge importance to Mason, she loves it when people like her videos. “If I say ‘100 people watched your video’ she doesn’t really understand the significance of that,” said Sarah. “But when I say to her ‘a little boy saw your video and his mum wrote this’ she loves that.” Sarah hopes that her daughter’s videos will inspire other young girls to pursue careers in science.

independent.co.uk, 2018

Inline Skating

• the Gear Whether you’re in a skate park in the Northeast, cruising the boardwalks of California, or playing a game of roller hockey in the Midwest, inline skating is good exercise and an excellent off-season training program for hockey and skiing.

1 Inline skating has exploded in popularity. Skaters can be found almost everywhere bicyclists, skateboarders and joggers go. This increases the chances of painful collisions. Most inline skating injuries happen when a skater loses balance and falls on a hard surface after bumping into someone. The most commonly injured body parts are the hands and arms. Most seriously, skaters who don’t wear helmets can get head injuries. Skaters who wear safety gear are less likely to be injured. So always wear your safety gear

• and make sure you have it on properly
• anytime you go inline skating. Here’s a rundown of what you’ll need when you skate.

2 A helmet is a must every time you skate. It’s the most important piece of safety equipment. It’s a good idea to invest in a helmet designed specifically for inline skating or skateboarding. Helmets must fit properly. Helmets that are too large or improperly fastened can come off during a fall. If you need fit or sizing tips, ask when you buy the helmet. And always fasten chin straps snugly under your chin so the helmet doesn’t move around.

3 You’ll want a comfortable but sturdy pair of inline skates, with plenty of ankle support. One way to check if skates offer the support you need is to feel the plastic of the boot. If you can squeeze it, the material is not strong enough. Always check your skates before you put them on. Make sure that wheels and brakes are in good shape and tightly secured. If wheels or brakes are misshapen or worn, replace them right away. Check that any buckles are in proper working order. Always buckle up your skates and keep them nice and snug when you skate.

4 Cuts, scrapes, and sprained or broken wrists are a constant danger to inline skaters. In addition to wearing a helmet, you need to wear knee pads, elbow pads, and wrist guards every time you skate. Knee and elbow pads should have a cushioned interior with a hard plastic shell to protect against scrapes. Wrist guards should be made from rigid plastic that holds the wrist securely in place in the event of a fall. All pads should fit properly and be securely fastened at all times. Some skaters like to wear long pants and long-sleeve shirts for extra protection against scrapes and cuts. Light gloves can keep your fingers safe.

teenshealth.org, 2014

Pranksters dress Angel of the North in Santa hat

1 A group of pranksters have adorned the Angel of the North sculpture with a Santa hat, later revealing that it was their seventh attempt at pulling off the stunt. Their previous attempts at bringing a Christmas surprise to passers-by outside Gateshead were hindered by heavy winds, a car breaking down and using too small a hat. Now, however, the group has succeeded in making the festive gesture on top of the 20-metre-high structure, believed to be the largest angel sculpture in the world, after slinging abseiling ropes over the wings and scaling up.

2 “We really wanted to do something people might find uniformly 13 , something that might bring people together to have a laugh,” one of them said on condition of anonymity, adding that they are delighted by the response, having prepared for the occasion for several years.

3 The 10-person operation began in the early hours of Monday, with the sculpture seen to be wearing the Santa hat throughout Christmas Eve’s daylight hours. “Ten of us, five different vans, everyone had a bit of something in the back of their vehicle,” one of the group’s leaders said. “We all filed out like paratroopers, everybody knew what their role was. We have gone to significant efforts to make sure it doesn’t fly off.” Another said he spent £90 on fabric to create the hat, sewing it together on his grandmother’s sewing machine with the help of his girlfriend. “Someone on Twitter said it’s just a couple of drunk kids,” he said. “Drunk folk don’t usually carry around a 25-feet-hat in their pocket.”

4 Although there was some opposition to the installation of the sculpture in 1998, it has since become a much-loved symbol of the north of England. Gateshead council has yet to comment on the stunt, while Tyne and Wear fire and rescue service and Northumbria police declined to do so. “We will take it down if it’s still there after a certain time, and we are eminently qualified to do it,” one of the group said. “That has always been my biggest worry about the whole thing. That someone goes up to take it down and gets himself hurt.”

theguardian.com, 2018

Computer teacher

A teacher in Ghana, West Africa, is making headlines around the world after a photo of him in class went viral. Owura Kwadwo Hottish, 33, is an information and communications technology teacher in a middle school. Where he works there are no computers, so instead he methodically draws the computer screen in detail on the blackboard. Hottish posted photos of himself in the middle of February showing him teaching his students how to use Microsoft Word. The photos spread like wildfire. The teacher spends around 30 minutes making the drawings before each class. To him, it’s nothing special. “Every subject is taught on the blackboard here,” he said. “Teaching of ICT in Ghana’s school is very funny,” Hottish wrote, alongside his photos. “I love my students so I have to do what will make them understand what I am teaching.”

theepochtimes.com, 2018

Cats v. Rats?

1 New York rats are big and bad. They sit around on the subway tracks, minding their own business, calmly 18 the commuters on the platform. They stroll through Central Park as if they owned the place. They pretty much rule the East Village. And they do not have much to fear from cats, a new study suggests.

2 In the report, published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, the authors first present some background. Cats hunting rats have been studied before: researchers in New Zealand, for example, analyzed poop from

229 cats and learned that almost all of them ate rats. The felines even seemed to prefer rats to birds. But New Zealand rats weigh an average of

150 grams, or about five ounces, whereas rats in the most recent experiment in New York were more than twice as large. Size, it turns out, is an obstacle for cats who might otherwise dine on city rats.

3 It was not easy for the scientists to find a place to do their research. The lead author, Michael H. Parsons, a research biologist at Fordham University, said property owners generally want their rats killed, not caught and then released for study. But the team did eventually find a recycling plant in Brooklyn whose staff members were willing to let the rat detectives do their work.

4 Dr. Parsons and his colleagues began with another aim: tracking the rats’ activity at the factory and their reactions to various scents. The scientists captured and anesthetized 37 rats, inserted radio frequency identification tags under the skin of each, and then released them into their colony. But while the researchers were watching these rats, five wild cats took up residence at the factory, so the team seized the opportunity to study them, too. Dr. Parsons used motion-sensitive video cameras to record cat behaviors in the presence of rats

• walking, running, stalking, chasing, feeding and so on. They made 306 videos over almost three months. All the cats stalked rats, but over the entire period only two cats even dared to chase and attack a rat. Each made just one kill.

nytimes.com, 2018

Meet Japanese couple Bon and Pon

1 Whether they’re standing next to a work of art, against an ocean backdrop or in front of their home, the location doesn’t seem to matter. The hundreds of thousands of fans who have turned an ordinary Japanese couple into online megastars are really interested in only one thing:

23 . Tsuyoshi and Tomi Seki

• also known as Bonpon511
• have attracted a huge following since they started posting Instagram photos of themselves decked out in coordinated clothes in late 2016.

2 But they are not your average Instagram stars. The couple, who are in their 60s, appear almost daily in an array of outfits incorporating similar styles and colours. The simplicity of their clothing choices has earned them praise from fashion commentators and adoration among their almost 720,000 followers. The playful images, taken with an iPhone mounted on a tripod, also communicate the obvious pleasure they derive from each other’s company, 38 years after the college sweethearts married.

3 The couple have now published two books celebrating married life and have been the subject of numerous articles in Japanese newspapers and magazines. Next month they will launch their own range of clothes and accessories, in collaboration with a designer, at the Japanese department store Isetan Mitsukoshi. “But it’s not just about coordinating our clothes,” said Tsuyoshi. “We try to choose outfits that complement our surroundings.”

4 “Now we’re on our own and finally have the time to do all the things we didn’t have the time for when we were raising a family and working. We want to show that retirement can be a lot of fun, especially if you find something you enjoy doing together,” Tomi said. Each of their photos attracts tens of thousands of likes and universally upbeat comments in Japanese, English and other languages. “We’re overwhelmed by the number of comments, although we’re unable to understand all of them,” said Tsuyoshi. “But we’re extremely grateful to everyone who takes the time to post.”

theguardian.com, 2018

11-Year-Old In College Class

There’s no shame in not being the sharpest kid in your college class. Some people are simply smarter than others. But when the kid who’s smarter than you is an 11-year-old boy…well, that’s a little harder to accept. But that’s precisely the situation some students are finding themselves in at the University of Toledo in Ohio, because one of their classmates just happens to be a child genius named Daniel Liu. “This kid is 11 and in my organic chemistry class,” wrote Cigdem Kahyaoglu, 19, who shared a picture of her youngest classmate on Twitter recently. “He said if we have questions to just email him.” Since then the tweet has been liked more than 230k times, but Daniel (who goes to high school but takes some classes at the university) is no stranger to fame. He’s already met Bill Nye (the Science Guy) and he’s even met former President Obama when collecting the $10,000 scholarship that he won at the White House Science Fair. Did we mention he’s only eleven…

boredpanda.com, 2016

Mysterious postcard

1 A man received a mysterious postcard that had been ‘lost in a time warp’ after it took more than 40 years to be delivered. Checking through the mail on his doormat, Stewart Glass discovered a postcard by two women he had never heard of. The pair had been holidaying in Poole, Dorset and sent the card to a friend called Karen Tidd

• and it only cost them six and a half pence. But on closer inspection Stewart was stunned to find it marked with the date August 5, 1976. ‘We do sometimes get the wrong post delivered here but this was something else. It’s like it was lost in a time warp,’ said the 67-year-old.

2 The holiday card was written by two women called Linda and Janette. The photo depicts Branksome Chine beach in Poole and on the back the women write about having a ‘lovely time’. They also describe meeting ‘two lads from Malta’ at a disco and complain about their lack of a suntan. Stewart, who has lived with his wife in Mickle Trafford, Cheshire for almost four years, said he had never heard of the women or the intended recipient, Karen Tidd. But a quick check of the deeds to the property revealed a family with the surname Tidd lived at the home from the 1960s. He said their ‘postcard from the past’ had quickly become a talking point among family, friends and neighbours since it was delivered last month.

3 ‘I thought something was a bit odd when I looked at the card and spotted the cars as they looked a bit ancient,’ said the grandfather. ‘Then I turned it over and saw the 31 that was written on it and I couldn’t believe it. It must just have been lying dormant somewhere until someone posted it. It’s all very strange.’

4 Julie Pirone, spokesman for Royal Mail, said the card would have been delivered to the address as soon as it entered the postal system

• even though it had a 40-year-old stamp on it. She said: ‘It is very likely that the postcard has been put back into the postal system by someone recently, rather than it being lost or stuck somewhere.’

metro.co.uk, 2017

Yellow car

1 Tourists from around the world flock to the picture-postcard Cotswold’s village of Bibury to take souvenir snaps of the mediaeval cottages on Arlington Row. The 14th century National Trust-owned cottages

• the oldest inhabited properties in the UK
• are also the most-photographed ‘ordinary’ dwellings in Britain. Iconic Arlington Row was built around 1380 from local stone and its image features on the inside cover of the British passport.

2 But the picturesque village that attracts hundreds of thousands of tourists a year has been spoiled by a photo-bombing yellow car. The bright yellow Vauxhall Corsa is owned by local resident Peter Maddox, 82, who claims he has nowhere else to park his banana-mobile. Peter, who has lived in a cottage near Arlington Row for the last 12 years, has no garage. He bought the bright yellow Corsa a year-and-a-half ago and uses it to do his shopping in the nearby town of Cirencester. He added: “She’s a lovely car. I saw it and went ‘Ahh’. I love it here. It’s very nice. The tourists don’t bother me

• I don’t hear them.”

3 However, photographers have taken to Twitter to complain about the setting, and photographs, being ruined by the yellow car. Photographer Lee McCallum sparked a debate on Twitter: “Bibury’s elephant in the room. The picture postcard street photobombed by the ugly little yellow car

• every day.” However, Lee does not object to the car being parked there and claims it reflects the “weirdness of the Cotswolds”.

4 Residents of Arlington Row described the Twitter spat as a “storm in a teacup” and sprang to Peter’s defence. Pensioner Francome Robinson has lived in one of the National Trust cottages for the past 23 years. Francome, 71, said: “Tourists should stop complaining. They must realise that we live here. These are our homes. Peter has every right to park there and there isn’t anywhere else he can park. There are plenty of places people can take photographs from without getting the yellow car in.” Arlington Row resident Christine Charlton said that tourists open her door if it is unlocked and peer in the cottage windows. She said: “This is not Disney World. There’s nowhere else to park and Peter is quite elderly. I think it is totally ridiculous.”

5 The National Trust said that they had no influence over where Peter parked his car as he is not an Arlington Row tenant. Spokesman Allan King said: “He is, we believe, parking on the highway which he is entitled to do. Because he is not our tenant or parking on our land, we wouldn’t comment on the car. We look after the appearance of Arlington Row and try keep modern intrusions to a minimum.” Although the National Trust paints the houses on the famous street in colours based on historical evidence, they have no say over what colour cars residents are allowed. Residents have a car park at the rear of the row that does not obstruct the view of the cottages.

telegraph.co.uk, 2015

Earless bunny

1 Mimi the tiny bunny is completely deaf and has only three legs. But thanks to a loving owner, neither of these things hold her back. Mimi’s owner is Rodajia Welch, 22, who decided that she’d make her rabbit some woollen ears to stand in for her missing ones. The charity worker brought home Mimi, her mother, and the rest of the litter after their elderly breeder became too ill to care for them. Rodajia will take care of all the bunnies until they’re old enough to be separated, then will keep Mimi as her pet.

2 Mimi looks a little different to her brothers and sisters. ‘Deciding to make the ears all started with finding her a name

• it obviously had to be ear-related,’ said Rodajia. ‘So while doing some research my boyfriend Josh came across Kemonomimi, which is a form of cosplay where the characters have animal ears. It was perfect because she didn’t have any ears and she could be whatever she wanted to be.’ On an average day the bunny will wear white knitted ears with a pink middle, but she sometimes experiments with knitted flower crowns and rounded mouse ears.

3 ‘Mimi was born with no ears and three legs

• she’s missing a front one,’ she said. ‘She’s a lot smaller than the others so I believe that it was maybe a lack of oxygen or not enough nutrition for development. She only wears the ears after I’ve just made them for pictures, or when she’s sitting with me. She lets me put them on her but for safety reasons I don’t tie them in a knot so if she wanted to, she could just knock them off pretty easily.’

metro.co.uk, 2018

Christmas Time

A father made sure he could spend time with his daughter

• who had to work on Christmas
• by becoming a passenger on every flight she was scheduled to work. In a heartwarming gesture, Hal Vaughan booked multiple flights on Christmas so that he could be with his daughter Pierce Vaughan, a flight attendant for Delta Air Lines. Delta responded to this story of a dad’s devotion to his daughter at Christmas time. “We appreciate all of our employees for working during the holidays to serve Delta customers, and love seeing this awesome Dad having the chance to spend Christmas with his daughter
• even while crisscrossing the country at 30,000 feet,” it said.

goodthingsguy.com, 2019

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