Junta de Andalucía

Consejería de Educación y Deporte

Pruebas Específicas de Certificación 2020/2021

Comprensión de Textos Escritos
NIVEL C2 | INGLÉS

Apellidos: ............................................................................................................................................................
Nombre: ..............................................................................................................................................................
 Alumno/a OFICIAL del grupo: .......................................................................................................
Indica el nombre de tu profesor/a-tutor/a: ...........................................................................
 Alumno/a LIBRE.

INSTRUCCIONES
 Duración máxima: 75 minutos.
 Este prueba consta de tres tareas:
o En la Tarea 1 tendrás que identificar las ideas generales del texto.
o En la Tarea 2 tendrás que entender las ideas principales del texto.
o En la Tarea 3 tendrás que comprender los detalles importantes de un texto.
 En cada tarea obtendrás: 1 punto por cada respuesta correcta; 0 puntos por cada respuesta incorrecta
o no dada.
 Solo se admitirán respuestas escritas con bolígrafo azul o negro.
 Por favor, no escribas en los espacios sombreados destinados a la calificación de las tareas.

PUNTUACIÓN NOTA FINAL CALIFICACIÓN

 Superado
/ 26 / 10  No Superado
 Junta de Andalucía Pruebas Específicas de Certificación 2020/2021

TASK 1
Read the text about negative interest rates and choose one of the headings A-I as a title for each of
the paragraphs 1-6. There are two headings that you DO NOT need to use. Item 0 is an example.
You will get 1 point per correct answer.

BANKS TOLD TO PREPARE FOR NEGATIVE RATES

If implemented, the controversial policy is likely to heap more pain on millions of savers, while financial
experts have warned it could herald the end of free banking.
[0]
The Bank of England has put lenders on alert to be ready to introduce negative rates within six months
if the UK’s post-pandemic fightback flags.
[1]
The Bank has already cut interest rates to just 0.1pc since Covid struck but launched the consultation
with more than 160 banks and building societies last autumn as it hunts more ammunition to fuel the
recovery.
Policymakers have ruled out a faster move as posing “material” risks to the “safety and soundness” of
banks, with concerns focused on banking IT systems.
The Bank’s Prudential Regulation Authority arm has instead ordered firms to “put themselves in a position
to be able to implement a negative Bank rate at any point after six months”.
[2]
Andrew Bailey, the Bank’s Governor, highlighted recent IT fiascos in the banking sector - such as TSB’s
botched upgrade in 2018 - as reasons for caution if banks were forced to carry out negative rates “without
doing the rigorous testing, trialling and so on that we expect”.
He said: “We know, sadly, there's some other well documented and much publicised examples of banks
doing changes to their systems which are getting themselves into quite difficult situations and having
outages that are obviously very damaging to the customer and ultimately to the banks themselves, so
we don't want to cause that to happen.”
Five other central banks - in Japan, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden and the European Central Bank - have
used negative rates, although Sweden ended its experiment with the measure in 2019.
[3]
John Garvey at PwC said: “It is a bit of a ‘Y2K’ moment as there are an enormous number of models,
systems and contracts that will need to be addressed.”
[4]
However, Mr Bailey stressed the PRA’s orders to banks should not be taken as a “signal” that Threadneedle
Street’s monetary policy committee intended to follow suit.
He said: “The committee was clear that it did not wish to send any signal that it intended to set a negative
Bank rate at some point in the future. But on balance, it concluded that it would be appropriate to start
the preparations, in order to provide the capability to implement a negative Bank Rate if necessary.”
He said: “Once the Bank does overcome operational concerns with negative rates – which it expects to
do in six months’ time – it will only be a matter of time before the policy is eventually adopted.”
While banks are unlikely to pass on negative rates to ordinary savers, returns are likely to be punished
even further.
 Junta de Andalucía Pruebas Específicas de Certificación 2020/2021

[5]
Allan Monks, chief UK economist at JP Morgan, said the “door was ajar” to negative rates as a result of
the Bank’s move.
Saving rates are already at a record low after the average interest on an easy-access savings account
sank to just 0.17pc.
Some commentators argue that pushing rates below zero could lead to far more bank accounts paying
zero interest or introducing fees.
[6]
The Bank’s economic predictions of a vaccine-fuelled recovery, as restrictions are lifted in the months
ahead, were greeted positively by financial markets.
The pound pushed higher following the Bank’s decision, buoyed by dwindling expectations that
Threadneedle Street will follow through on introducing sub-zero rates.
Relieved investors also bought bank shares, leaving retail-focused lenders Lloyds and NatWest as the
FTSE 100’s top risers.
The blue-chip index finished 4 points lower at 6,503.

Source: telegraph.co.uk

. ANSWER

Prior instances of banks running into major glitches when upgrading their
A.
computer systems have been reported.
According to economists, the Bank of England has left the door wide open to
B.
the adoption of negative rates.
The controversial policy being explored by the Bank of England could lead
C.
to financial losses for savers.
0 
Banking authorities give no assurances that the negative rate policy will
D.
eventually be implemented.
Sterling rose following the Bank's decision, spurred by the fading outlook for
E.
the introduction of sub-zero rates.

F. The potential policy expands on past initiatives to lower interest rates.

G. The profitability of savings accounts is bound to take a further hit.

The negative rates policy has been discontinued in other countries that were
H.
pioneers in its deployment.
The vaccine-driven recovery in the coming months has prompted a rapid
I.
plunge in financial markets.

MARK /6
 Junta de Andalucía Pruebas Específicas de Certificación 2020/2021

TASK 2
Read the text about Brexit and answer the questions on page 7.

SO LONG, WE’LL MISS YOU – WE EUROPEANS SEE HOW MUCH YOU’VE HELPED TO SHAPE US

[0] ______K_______
History will judge that the near 50-year relationship between the UK and Europe has been good for both.
Best to forget the rancorous ending.
Now that a deal has been done, the end of Britain’s life as a member of the European Union can be
decently mourned. As funeral orations go, the one William Shakespeare put into the mouth of Mark
Antony in Julius Caesar is, well, world-beating: “The evil that men do lives after them,/ The good is oft
interred with their bones.” Before we throw the last handful of earth on the corpse of Britain’s membership
of the European Union, we might briefly disinter the good things about the relationship.
[1] ______________
A bad ending gets projected backwards. A messy divorce obliterates the years of reasonably happy
marriage. Brexit has projected into the future a sour story of resentment and rancour. Almost 50 years of
history are squeezed into a deterministic story of irreconcilable incompatibility. The evil lives on; the good
rots in the earth.
[2] ______________
No one doubts that Britain’s European years were often marked by reluctance and sometimes by
resistance. For all sorts of reasons, Britain could never sit comfortably in the place it was offered in the
EU’s holy trinity, alongside France and Germany.
[3] ______________
But that should not obscure the great reason for sadness about the way it has all ended: Britain did much
good for Europe and Europe did much good for Britain. This half-century has not been mired in futility.
It has not all been a waste of time.
[4] ______________
Two huge things in the history of the EU would not have been completed in the way they were without
the Brits: the single market and enlargement. The problem with both, indeed, is that Britain pushed them
forward without quite understanding their political implications.
The single market is the EU’s great achievement – protecting it was, ironically, the overwhelming aim in
the negotiations on future trade with the UK. It simply would not have happened, when it happened, if
Margaret Thatcher had not pressed so hard. It is easy to forget – because it has suited almost every side
to do so – that the blueprint for the single market was a booklet called Europe – The Future that Thatcher
presented to her fellow leaders at the Fontainebleau summit in 1984.
[5] ______________
The problem was that Thatcher could never accept that the workings of a single market would have to
be counterbalanced by common social, environmental and safety standards, with the political, legal and
administrative capacity to enforce them. The fact remains: the force that has shaped the EU for the past
30 years was set in motion by Britain.
[6] ______________
Equally, without Britain, it is not at all obvious that the EU would have responded so boldly to the fall of
the Berlin Wall by bringing the Warsaw Pact states into its fold. Again, it was Thatcher who proclaimed
the goal of enlargement in her Bruges speech in 1988. It was under a British presidency that talks on
 Junta de Andalucía Pruebas Específicas de Certificación 2020/2021

membership were opened with the first wave of central European states. It was Tony Blair who later
pushed for Romania and Bulgaria to be allowed to join. Here, too, the implications of a British policy
were not really understood in Britain. It was not explained that free movement would mean more
immigration from these countries. Or that the governance of a much bigger EU would inevitably have to
be more closely co- ordinated. Nonetheless, on these two defining issues, Britain was adventurous,
ambitious, energetic and effective.
[7] ______________
On the other side of the equation, the EU helped Britain to resolve the dilemmas laid out in the 1971
white paper that argued for membership of the Common Market. If it rejected this opportunity, “in a
single generation we should have renounced an imperial past and rejected a European future... Our power
to influence the [European] Communities would steadily diminish, while the Communities’ power to affect
our future would as steadily increase.”
[8] ______________
Being in the EU really did allow Britain to transcend its imperial past and imagine a European future for
itself. It did ensure that the inevitable influence of a bigger political and economic bloc to its east was
tempered by the ability to have an equal and respected voice within that bloc. It gave Britain a way of
being in the world that did not depend on past greatness.
[9] ______________
And the EU helped the UK to settle by far its biggest internal problem: the conflict in Northern Ireland.
The EU’s direct involvement in the peace process may have been marginal. Its indirect impact was
immeasurably large.
When Britain and Ireland joined together in 1973, relations between them were very poor, under constant
strain from the pressure of the Troubles. It was through working closely together in the EU that the two
countries learned to behave as friends and equals, without resentment on the one side or condescension
on the other. It was the assumption of continuing common EU membership that made it possible, in
1998, to construct a peace agreement that could build political reconciliation on a foundation of economic
and social integration.
The tedium, frustration and rancour of the past four years have wiped our memories of the historic and
hopeful things that British membership of the EU allowed to happen. Anti-EU rhetoric in Britain has
encouraged a notion in Europe that the EU will be better off without these surly and obstreperous
malcontents.
But, as another great English poet, John Donne, put it, also in funereal mode, “If a clod be washed away
by the sea, Europe is the less”. Britain may have been cloddish at times in its decades of membership,
but Europe is the less for its being washed away. And Britain is the less for allowing itself to be so. The
marks of engagement remain on both bodies and they are not wounds. They are the memories of mutual
achievements, of the good that men and women did for each other. At no time in its history has Britain
shaped the continent so profoundly without war. At no time in its history has it been able to behave
towards its neighbours so much as an equal, so little as a victim of delusions of grandeur.
[10] ______________
At another moment of finality, the Beatles chose as their last words: “And in the end/ The love you take/
Is equal to the love you make.” Britain took from the EU and made it in equal measure. There should be
no good riddance, just a heavy-hearted, deeply regretful so long, it’s been good to know you.

Source: The Guardian

 Junta de Andalucía Pruebas Específicas de Certificación 2020/2021

TAREA 3
Read the following text and answer the questions on pages 8 and 9.

BREAK RULES, CLEAN UP GUTTERS: THE TO-DO LIST OF A ROOKIE MAYOR IN SIERRA LEONE

Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr walks up the stairs from her office in Freetown, Sierra Leone, to her car when she
notices that the sky has darkened and is starting to open up. Tiny drops of rain fall. Within seconds
they've become large and squishy, splashing against the concrete – and she has forgotten her rain boots.
Her hot pink slingbacks won't make it through a downpour.

Aki-Sawyerr, who was elected mayor of Freetown in May and is the city's first female mayor in nearly 40
years, asks her driver to take a detour on the way to an outdoor meeting with market women. She is
hoping to find a street vendor selling rubber sandals. As the car weaves through sheets of rain, she spots
overflowing gutters and makes frantic calls to members of her team back in the office.

Aki-Sawyerr, 50, is obsessed with garbage, rain and the intersection of the two in Freetown. The city is
the capital of Sierra Leone, a small West African country that is ranked 184 out of 189 on the U.N.'s
Human Development Index, meaning it has some of the worst health, economic and social indicators of
any country in the world.

Freetown is beautiful — and chaotic. Its inhabitants are slammed between rolling green hills and the
Atlantic Ocean. During the country's nearly decade-long civil war, which ran from 1991 to 2002, people
from Sierra Leone's hinterlands fled to the seaside capital for shelter and services. In the war's aftermath,
the migration continued, as people looked for jobs in a perpetually weak economy. As Freetown has
grown, it has increasingly been characterized by densely packed neighborhoods composed of tiny tin-
roofed homes that sit in precarious places, such as on the sides of Freetown's hills or along the ocean.

The country's six-month-long rainy season, mixed with a barely functioning waste collection system and
overcrowded streets, annually creates disasters of differing magnitudes. The city, home to 1.5 million of
the country's 7.5 million people, made headlines in August 2017 when a landslide killed more than 1,000
people. Flash floods regularly close shops; vehicles get stuck navigating the city's washed-out and
potholed streets; and trash gets flushed from cluttered roadside gutters into people's homes. Cholera is
an annual threat, especially in poor neighborhoods that are most likely to be overcrowded and least
likely to have any sanitation system to speak of.

The August 2017 landslide was a wake-up call for the country. It was attributed to not only torrential
rains but a mix of overcrowding, poor public infrastructure, little oversight of rapid new construction in
environmentally sensitive areas, and deforestation. After the disaster, the government realized that not
only human lives were at stake. Even big donors like the International Monetary Fund saw Sierra Leone's
fragile environment as a potential damper on the country's already anemic economy.

Aki-Sawyerr says she made the decision to run for mayor after overseeing Operation Clean Freetown, a
government effort that was part of a large post-Ebola recovery program that started in 2016. The project
aimed to "[reduce] the risk of epidemics by improving solid waste management in the city." She expanded
this work as mayor. Her first task in office was to identify the locations with the most egregiously clogged
 Junta de Andalucía Pruebas Específicas de Certificación 2020/2021

gutters that were missed in Operation Clean Freetown and have them cleared. Plastic, dead animals,
medical waste and food were removed so water could flow.

But clearing up gutters was just a first step. Aki-Sawyerr aims to build a functioning waste collection
system, rather than having the majority of Freetown's residents simply dispose of waste wherever they
can — on the side of the road or in piles around their neighborhoods. She also aims to increase access
to toilets, an ambitious goal given that only 13 percent of Sierra Leoneans have access to clean, safe
facilities, according to the World Health Organization.

Aki-Sawyerr is familiar with Freetown's dysfunction, having grown up in the thick of it. She was born just
after Sierra Leone gained independence from the British and a year after Siaka Stevens became prime
minister. His nearly 20-year rule would become known for corruption and mismanagement, gutting the
country's public institutions and ultimately plunging the country into war.

Using the business know-how she gained in the U.K.'s private sector, she took a leadership position with
the National Ebola Response Center in January 2015, overseeing the country's response and facilitating
coordination between the government, donors and dozens of NGOs.

The city was essentially broke when Aki-Sawyerr took office in May, a result of tax codes that hadn't
been updated for decades and poor tax collection efforts. Aki-Sawyerr is aiming to find ways to boost
coffers. She not only hopes to update tax codes but wants to introduce new revenue generation schemes,
such as parking fees. She has also instituted mobile payment for local taxes and is soliciting money from
private companies for specific projects.

Aki-Sawyerr's no-nonsense, results-driven approach makes her stand out. And some Freetown City
Council members have turned up their noses at the team she has brought in: well-dressed young people
who type on Excel spreadsheets, talk through ideas with the help of brightly colored sticky notes posted
on whiteboards and answer a slew of text and WhatsApp messages and phone calls in a bustling corner
of her mayoral suite.

But she isn't apologetic. At a meeting with other local officials — mainly men in sleek suits — she lets
her colleagues know she won't be pushed around. When a high-level minister notes that a new budget
from the government should be out by Friday, Aki-Sawyerr responds, "then we'll expect the money by
Monday." Everyone laughs. She doesn't.
Source: npr.org
 Junta de Andalucía Pruebas Específicas de Certificación 2020/2021

TASK 2
Read the text about Brexit on pages 3 and 4, and choose one of the headings A-J as a title for each
of paragraphs 1-10. Item 0 is an example. You will get 1 point per correct answer.

. ANSWER

A. No grudges bore

B. Conflict Resolution

C. UK citizens misled

D. Too much to lose

E. Destructive break-up

F. The Misfit

G. The Great Paradox

H. Positive Balance

I. Humbling Experience

J. Rejection of harmonisation policies

K. Always look on the bright side 0 

MARK / 10
 Junta de Andalucía Pruebas Específicas de Certificación 2020/2021

TAREA 3
Read the text about Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, the mayor of Freetown, on pages 5 and 6. Choose the
best option (A, B, C or D) to complete each sentence. Write your answer in the box provided. Only
one of the answers is correct. The first one (0) is an example. You will get 1 point per correct answer.

RESPUESTA
0. As Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr is leaving work...

A
A. a storm breaks out.
B. it is twilight.
C. she slips on appropriate footwear.

the pavement isn’t waterlogged.
.

1. On her way to a meeting with female stallholders, she has her chauffeur...
A. change course.
B. make a u-turn.
C. pull off for a rest.
D. take a back road.
2. In the 90s, Sierra Leoneans...
A. flocked from the south to the coastal capital.
B. were engulfed in a civil war.
C. moved up on the U.N.'s Human Development Index.
D. built settlements in the valleys around the city.
3. The disasters suffered by the population...
A. stem from a combination of man-made and natural factors.
B. trigger disease outbreaks in sparsely populated areas.
C. have no discernible bearing on the road network.
D. are behind the loss of a thousand lives per year.
4. The August 2017 landslide...
A. exposed the government's push to privatise weak public infrastructure.
B. has prompted international donors to invest in the national economy.
C. was an eye-opener on environmental costs of economic growth.
D. is solely due to the torrential rains.
5. Aki-Sawyerr's decision to enter the mayoral race was made...
A. to bring her expertise in waste management into play to safeguard public health.
B. following the explicit approval of her predecessor in the mayorship.
C. as a run-up to the oversight of Operation Clean Freetown.
D. during the last Ebola pandemic in 2016.
6. Operation Clean Freetown...
A. secured sanitation facilities for the majority of Sierra Leoneans.
B. carried out a comprehensive clean-up of clogged gutters.
C. was a steppingstone in the roll-out of a systematic waste collection plan.
D. was sponsored by the World Health Organization.
7. Aki-Sawyerr's childhood...
A. had the backdrop of the country's independence and its political aftermath.
B. occurred in the years leading up to Siaka Stevens' first term in office.
C. was marked by a thriving period in the region.
D. was affluent and uneventful.
8. Freetown's economic collapse...
A. could be averted because of Aki-Sawyerr's fiscal policy.
B. was brought about by Aki-Sawyerr's efforts to boost the coffers.
C. will be intensified by the updating of tax codes.
D. rebooted the economic cycle and fed back into the pension system.
 Junta de Andalucía Pruebas Específicas de Certificación 2020/2021

9. The working team recruited by Aki-Sawyerr...

A. is mainly composed of seasoned professionals.
B. has garnered the wholehearted endorsement of the council members.
C. is not to the liking of some of their fellow council members.
D. eschews the use of new technologies and of WhatsApp.
10. Aki-Sawyerr's stance towards her critics...
A. is nonchalant.
B. remains firm.
C. signals atonement.
D. is highly veiled.

MARK / 10