UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY, JAMAICA

SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

THE LANGUAGE, TECHNOLOGY AND RESEARCH CENTRE
PROFICIENCY TEST IN ENGLISH 2019

PAPER TWO Time Allowed: 30 mins

SECTION A: READING COMPREHENSION Recommended Time: 30 mins

Instruction: Read the two passages carefully and answer all questions. For each question, shade
in the bubble representing the letter selected.

Passage 1
In Jamaica, violence begins with the very young
Adapted from: Mariko Kagoshima
Published in the Sunday Gleaner May 5, 2019

1. It has been a difficult time recently as we all come to terms with a series of very distressing
reports about children being brutally attacked, raped, or murdered. On top of this, the
society continues to struggle with the alarming prevalence of violence across the country.
There are so many questions about how senseless all the violence seems and what it will
take to stop the bloodshed. If coming to terms with pervasive violence is jarring for us as
adults, consider how unsettling and difficult it is for children who are steeped in it.

2. As Jamaican children grow up, they see or experience violence in every setting of their
young lives. Almost 80 percent of children witness violence in their community or their
home. Sixty-five percent of students report that they are bullied at school, and sixty-eight
of every 100,000 children are victims of violent crimes. At home, eight out of 10 Jamaican
children under age 15 are subjected to violent punishment, which includes psychological
aggression (shouting, name-calling, etc) and physical punishment.

3. Children are being fed a daily diet of violence- and it begins when they are very young.
Ninety-one percent of Jamaican children under four years old have been slapped, 88
percent have been shouted at, 34 percent have been hit with an implement of some sort,
27 percent have been pinched, and 25 percent, shaken. These are toddlers exploring the
world. They are learning to walk and talk. When they are harmed in these ways, they are
also learning that violence is a way to express anger or to solve problems.

4. Data show that caregivers violently punish very young children – between the tender ages
of two and four – more than older children. Children in the poorest families are almost
five times as likely as those in the wealthiest to suffer severe physical punishment. Also,
boys are violently punished more than girls. This means that children who are most likely
to be verbally abused and physically hurt in severe ways in the earliest years of their lives
are boys, ages two to four, who are growing up in the poorest households.

NON-VIOLENT WAYS

5. Let’s be very clear. We know that young children test limits and boundaries in ways that
can be frustrating, even though they are normal. We understand that children need to be
taught what is right and wrong, starting in their early years. What we cannot support is
using violence – however slight – to discipline children. In a society that’s grappling with
violence, we must consider that the way we treat our young has long-lasting implications.

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 Are we saying that every young child who is physically punished will become violent or
consider violence acceptable? Not by any means.

6. However, when children begin to experience violence so early at home, and continue to
witness or experience violence within their communities and schools, we must think
about how these multiple layers of violence in childhood contribute to wider violence in
the society.

7. The experiences of our youngest children speak volumes about where we need to focus
interventions. We need to help parents and caregivers – who we know are usually well-
intentioned – to learn non-violent ways to discipline young children.

Questions

1. Which factor accounts for what the writer calls ‘a difficult time recently’?
(a) increasing reports of violence against children
(b) brutal response to violent crime
(c) children are perpetrators of violence
(d) security forces ignore violent crime against children

2. Which of the following factors is apparently not linked to violence against the
young?
(a) gender
(b) age
(c) social class
(d) guilt

3. Which method of punishment is not used significantly to reprimand children?

(a) shouted words
(b) blow or pinch
(c) reward denial
(d) shaking

4. Choose the meaning which could best replace implications in paragraph 5.

(a) suggestions
(b) hidden meanings
(c) significances
(d) results

5. According to the article, how is the violence encountered by children most

likely to affect them?
(a) make them criminals
(b) influence them to condone violence
(c) teach them right from wrong
(d) interest them in violent entertainment

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Passage 2

The ‘Chinese dream’ is now destined to take the world by storm

Adapted from: Dr. David C. Hill
Daily Observer Editorial, Monday May 6, 2019

1. In 1992 our foundation first started monitoring China and its economic growth and where
many economists and so-called leading global institutions that concentrated on
technological innovation argued with us that China would have to settle in being a second-
rate economy forever, however hard they tried, with poverty for the many and population
growth dragging them down continually.

2. How very wrong they were. And, unlike most of these world-leading institutions who did
not understand the psyche of the Chinese brain and especially the capabilities of the
minds of their engineers, we were privileged to have in contrast a direct insight through
our global membership to the unfolding future of the Chinese at close hand, where one
of our members had been the vice- premier of China for 13 years, president of their
Chinese Academy of Engineering, and was basically the mastermind of China’s long term
‘blueprint’.

3. Indeed, he was and still is the real source of the Chinese transformation in their
technological and economic miracle, and his thinking has driven China to what it is today
and what it will be tomorrow. For, in this respect, the great outcome of this endogenous
thinking by such eminent Chinese engineers in the 21st century, that we shall see
emerging over the next 25 years, in what the Chinese call the Belt and Road Initiative,
which will, make the Silicon Valley look like a minor event in world history.

4. But what we learn at the time and thereon of all these so-called informed and illustrious
institutions, in which tens of billions are ploughed every year, was that they were not the
innovative and masterful predictors of the future by any means, and that since 1992,
Western economies to a great extent have basically lost their way in the economic league,
turning more to military wars than to the real wars that they should have concentrated
on – such as the global economic wars of this century and beyond – where they will be
far more devastating than conventional wars as they are never-ending.

5. Time will tell, but the Chinese dream is now destined to take the world by storm for the
next few centuries, at least through ignorance of those that rule us, and our political
classes have allowed this to happen over the last 30 years.

6. This unfortunately, is predestined now through the Belt and Road Initiative and the
Chinese will definitely take no economic prisoners other than to economically enslave
them, of course in global terms.

7. It is time, therefore, that our politicians get a sense of reality and what is on the horizon.

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QUESTIONS

1. What lack, according to this article, did those monitoring China’s development in the
1990s identify as most limiting to the country’s growth?
(a) leading economists
(b) technological innovation
(c) small population
(d) poverty of ideas.

2. By contrast, to what characteristic of the Chinese people does the article attribute the
the transformation predicted for that country?
(a) military wars
(b)political power
(c) mental outlook
(d) engineering skills

3. Which of these weaknesses does the article not pinpoint as limiting the growth of
Western governments and institutions?
(a) lack of innovation
(b) lack of understanding
(c) lack of focus
(d) lack of financial resources

4. Another word or phrase which may be used for predestined (paragraph 6) is:
(a) decided by earlier factors
(b) fateful outcome
(c) already justified
(d) seen as happening

5. Who does the writer refer to as “wrong” in paragraph two line one?
(a) the Chinese
(b) investors
(c) economists
(d) the foundation

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SECTION B GRAMMAR Time Allowed: 30 mins

Instruction:

Please answer all questions on the red side of the computerized sheet provided. Shade in the
space representing the number selected.

Some Jamaicans know very little about the postal service in their country. The postal service is
the government agency 1 -------------- has responsibility for handling the mail. Its job is 2 ------------
------ letters and packages to people and businesses all over the world. The main goal of this
agency is to see that one’s mail gets to its destination 3 -----------possible. People 4 ------------------
the postal service to deliver important letters and even valuables, 5 ------------- time and to the
right person.

1. 1. where 2. that 3.having 4. that’s

2. 1. delivery of 2. to delivers 3. to delivering 4. to deliver
3. 1. as soon as 2. sooner than 3. soon 4. very soon
4. 1. relying on 2. relies on 3. rely on 4. relied on
5. 1. to 2. for 3. over 4. on

We can probably use our dreams once we 6………... not to be afraid of them. If we are
able to think about our dreams comfortably, we will be able to 7 ………. those that seem
totally irrelevant to our lives. On the other hand, we will be able to explore those that 8
………. us and those that seem to be connected with the ways we think and act when we
are awake —with our conscious lives. Or we might use our dreams to expose problems that
we have refused to accept 9 ………… and this 10 ………... us to take positive action and
solve them.

6. 1. learn 2. are aware 3. try 4. understand

7. 1. dissect 2. dispose 3.discard 4. dispel
8.1. fascinates 2. fascinate 3.fascinated 4. fascinating
9.1. conscientiously 2. conscience 3. conscious 4. consciously
10.1. might have led 2. might lead 3. may be led 4. might lead

END OF PAPER