Reading comprehension — the first and the last item (3 marks)
I. READING COMPREHENSION. Read the text below carefully, then answer the questions that follow it.
1. When the call centre where she had worked for six years closed in March 2021, Salma Jaziri, then 29, went back to her family's house near Zaghouan with no plan at all. Behind the house stood her grandfather's forty beehives, most of them empty since his death. "Everyone told me to sell the land and look for another office job in Tunis," she says. "I opened the first hive instead, mostly out of curiosity."
2. The first winter was a disaster. Salma had taught herself beekeeping from videos, and she opened the hives too often in the cold. By February, she had lost half of her colonies. Her neighbours, most of them farmers, shook their heads. One of them, an old beekeeper called Hedi, did not. He came every Sunday for a year and showed her how to read a frame, when to leave the bees alone and how to move the hives to the thyme hills in spring.
3. Four years later, the forty hives have become two hundred and ten. Salma sells thyme and rosemary honey in three shops in Tunis and at the Sunday market in Zaghouan, and she has hired two young women from the village. "I pay them what I would pay a man," she says, "because the bees do not care who opens the box."
4. Last spring, Salma started a free course for anyone in the region who wants to keep bees. Twenty-three people signed up, many of them unemployed graduates. Hedi, now eighty-one, still comes on Sundays. "I lost many hives in my life," he tells the beginners. "The good beekeeper is not the one who never loses a colony. It is the one who opens the box again the next spring."
Practice text written in the style of the adapted press articles of the bac papers.
COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS
1. Tick (✓) the most appropriate option. (1 mark)
The text is mainly about a woman who
a. lost half of her colonies during her first winter. ☐
b. rebuilt a neglected family activity through patience and help. ☐
c. gave up beekeeping to go back to an office job. ☐
2. Tick (✓) the most appropriate quote that could serve as a title for the text. (1 mark)
a. “Honey catches more flies than vinegar.” ☐
b. “Fall seven times, stand up eight.” ☐
c. “Too many cooks spoil the broth.” ☐
3. Give a personal justified answer to the following question. (1 mark)
If you lost your job, would you take over a family activity as Salma did? Why? Why not?
If I lost my job, I (would / would not) …………… take over a family activity because ……………
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Idea: items 1 and 2 are about the whole text, not about one paragraph. Before you tick anything, tell the story in one line — situation, problem, action, outcome: a woman loses her job, takes over her grandfather's neglected hives, fails in her first winter, learns from an old beekeeper and succeeds. The right option matches that line. The other options match one paragraph, or nothing in the text. Tick one box only: two ticks cannot be marked as one answer.
1 Idea: label the three options before choosing.
a. lost half of her colonies during her first winter — true, but it is paragraph 2 only: too narrow. This is the classic trap, because it is copied almost word for word from the text ("she had lost half of her colonies").
b. rebuilt a neglected family activity through patience and help — it covers the whole story: the empty hives (paragraph 1), the failure and Hedi's help (paragraph 2), the two hundred and ten hives (paragraph 3) and the free course (paragraph 4).
c. gave up beekeeping to go back to an office job — contradicted: she refused another office job ("I opened the first hive instead") and never gave up.
Answer: b.
2 Idea: a quote used as a title is a gist item in disguise. First write the plain meaning of each saying, then compare that meaning with your one-line story. Never choose a saying because it shares a word with the text.
a. Honey catches more flies than vinegar means that you get more from people by being kind than by being harsh. It shares the word honey with the text, but the text is not about politeness: word trap, idea absent.
b. Fall seven times, stand up eight means that you keep going after every failure. That is Salma's story (she lost half of her colonies and went on) and Hedi's last lesson ("the one who opens the box again the next spring").
c. Too many cooks spoil the broth means that too many helpers ruin a task. The text shows the opposite: Hedi's help saved the project, and Salma now hires and trains other people: contradicted.
Answer: b.
3 Idea: the official keys accept any personal answer that is plausible and justified, as long as there is no contradiction between the answer and its justification. So complete the printed frame with one clear choice, then give one reason that supports that choice — from the text or from your own experience.
Accepted: « If I lost my job, I would take over a family activity because I would already know the work, and I could keep my family's activity alive, as Salma did with her grandfather's hives. »
Accepted too: « If I lost my job, I would not take over a family activity because a beginner can lose a lot of money in the first year, as Salma lost half of her colonies, and I would rather use my own qualifications. »
0 mark: « If I lost my job, I would not take over a family activity because it is a good way to earn a living. » The reason argues for taking it over, so it contradicts the choice. Not accepted either: « I would, because Salma is nice. » The reason says nothing about whether taking over a family activity is a good choice, so the answer is not justified.