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Sample Specialised Paper Questions for 2017 Young Professionals

Programme Information Management, Public Information and
Multimedia Production Network (YPP INFONET) Examination

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The purpose of the sample questions below is to illustrate the types of the questions
that you will see in the actual test. The content and difficulty of the questions in the
actual test may vary.

Specialized Paper Part I: Multiple Choice Items

1. You are the United Nations INFONET Officer in the country of Jyouk. Your
supervisor has asked you to organize an event to raise awareness on climate
change. Whom do you consider your primary strategic partners?

a) Guests who attend your event

b) Local companies that assist you financially
c) Local libraries with United Nations reference desks
d) Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) which help you disseminate key
messages

2. You are an INFONET officer working in the library of an international organization

and you are tasked to implement a web scale discovery service. One of your
colleagues asks you the main reason of this implementation. Which of the following
reason would you pick?

a) To measure and analyze the impact of scholarly research in social media

b) To facilitate searching in multiple databases simultaneously
c) To help library users construct complex Boolean search strategies
d) To facilitate searching the invisible (dark) web

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3. You are an INFONET officer working in an international organization and you are
tasked to digitize documents for long term preservation. Select the choice that
lists best practices and standards for digitization and long-term preservation of
text, photographic, audio and video formats, respectively:

a) TIFF, WAVE and JPEG2000

b) PDF, JPEG, MP3 and H264 PDF-A
c) MS/Word, BMP, MP3 and AVI
d) XML, GIF, MP2 and MPEG4

4. You are an INFONET officer working in an international organization and you have
been asked to promote a campaign to raise awareness among high school
learners about climate change. What would be the best way to reach this
audience?

a) A dedicated website targeted at teenagers

b) An essay-writing competition
c) A video message by the Youth Ambassador
d) An interview with the Secretary-General on a youth TV programme

5. You are an INFONET officer working in a peacekeeping mission at the United

Nations. You have been asked by colleagues in disarmament to communicate to
combatants a new programme which would guarantee them amnesty. Which
media would you use to get across this message?

a) Internet
b) Radio
c) Newspapers
d) Television

Multiple Choice Items Answer Key:

1. D
2. B
3. A
4. B
5. B

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Specialized Paper Part II: Constructed Response Items

Sample Question 1

Question 1 consists of two parts. You must answer both parts.

PART I

Suggested time: 45 minutes

Instruction: You are an INFONET Officer working at the United Nations Radio. The
UNESCO has issued a press release. Based on this press release, please write a radio
news story. Your story should range from 120 to 150 words.

Aid to education down 10% since 2010

Aid to education is seriously declining: it fell by just over 6% between 2010 and 2011,
and a further 3% in 2012. Basic education which enables children to acquire
foundational skills and core knowledge is now receiving the same amount of aid as
it was in 2008. As funds diminish, and just one year before the deadline for achieving
the global Education for All goals, 57 million children and 69 million adolescents are
still out of school

These new figures are released by UNESCOs EFA Global Monitoring Report ahead of
the Global Partnership for Educations Replenishment Pledging Conference in Brussels
(25-26 June), at which donors are being asked to help raise a much-needed US$3.5
billion for education in the poorest countries.

When so many girls and boys are still out of school and not learning, the continuing
drop in funds for education is cause for serious concern, said Irina Bokova, Director-
General of UNESCO. Increasing external support for education is an ethical and
development imperative. We know the difference that well-targeted aid can make
in helping countries to put quality education first.

Julia Gillard, Board Chair of the Global Partnership for Education, affirmed that
Education is a long-term investment not an expense. We owe it to the children of
the world particularly the poorest and most marginalized that both international
donors and developing country governments step up and commit more funding to
education.

The paper shows that aid is still vital for many countries, making up over a quarter of
public education spending in 12 countries. Yet with aid flows to the sector falling by
10% far more than the 1% decrease in overall aid levels donors are clearly backing
away from education as a development priority.

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This worrying fall in aid is in the context of a US$26 billion annual finance gap for
education. Unless this negative trend is reversed, the likelihood of reaching the global
education goals is put at great risk - all the more so if new education targets are set
for 2030, said Aaron Benavot, director of the EFA Global Monitoring Report. With aid
proving so volatile, governments must urgently improve their domestic financing,
including better management of their tax systems, so as not to put their countrys
development in jeopardy.

The cuts are biting hardest in those countries furthest from reaching the education
goals. In sub-Saharan Africa, which is home to over half the worlds out-of-school
children, aid to basic education fell between 2010 and 2011, and stagnated between
2011 and 2012. Since 2010, 12 African countries have seen cuts in their aid to basic
education of US$10 million or more.

The two countries with the largest cuts in aid to basic education from 2010 to 2012
were India and Pakistan, even though both sit among the top five countries in the
world with the most children out of school.

Aid to basic education for low-income countries recovered slightly in 2012 compared
to the decreases felt in 2011, but levels are still lower than they were in 2010. Twenty-
two low-income countries received less aid for basic education than two years
before.

The EFA Global Monitoring Report continues to show that despite half of the worlds
out-of-school children living in conflict-affected countries, humanitarian aid appeals
neglect education needs: education only received 2% of humanitarian appeals in
2013 only half way to the modest 4% target set by the United Nations last year. As a
sector, education is suffering a double disadvantage: not only is it receiving the
smallest proportion of humanitarian appeals, but it is also receiving one of the smallest
proportion of requests that it makes for funding: in 2013 education received 40% of
the funds it called for from humanitarian aid.

PART II

Suggested time: 15 minutes

You are an INFONET officer in a peacekeeping mission in a fairly remote region where
there is moderately good Internet access.

The new Head of Mission has asked you to write a brief proposal identifying digital
communications tools and/or technologies that could be used to disseminate
information to the local public about the work of the peacekeeping mission.

Write your brief proposal, identifying three digital communications tools and/or
technologies and one advantage and one limitation of each.

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Sample Question 2 Suggested time: 15 minutes

You are an INFONET officer in a large international organization. Your organization is

considering creating a single digital multimedia archive. Your manager has asked you
to write a brief proposal identifying key considerations when consolidating different
archives into one digital multimedia archive. Using 150 to 200 words, write your proposal
identifying four key considerations.

Sample Question 3
Suggested time: 10 minutes

You are an INFONET officer working at the United Nations (UN). You are tasked to

1. write a post based on the Secretary-Generals statement below for the United
Nations Radio Facebook page
2. explain which audience you would like to reach
3. indicate which other material you would include in the post.

Secretary-Generals statement:

Welcome to this UN kick-off to the World Cup!

Todays gathering is an occasion to celebrate the best values of sport: teamwork,
fair play and mutual respect.
Sport has a unique ability to unite us, and to show us what we have in common.
There is no better testimony than todays event.
And to all the boys and girls here today, thanks for helping us to get the World Cup
off to a high-spirited start.