Reading comprehension in the spirit of the 2021–2026 papers — a technology article (12 marks)
I. READING COMPREHENSION. Read the text below carefully, then answer the questions that follow it.
1. When the rains failed for the third summer in a row, seventeen-year-old Yasmine Hamdi watched her father walk through the family's olive grove at dawn, pushing a finger into the earth to decide whether to open the water tank. "He was guessing," she says, "and every guess cost us water we did not have." Yasmine, who lives in a farming village near Sidi Bouzid, decided that guessing could be replaced by a machine. Using a second-hand phone charger, a cheap moisture probe and a small circuit board she had ordered online, she built a device that measures how wet the soil is at three depths and sends the result to her father's phone as a text message twice a day.
2. The first version did not survive a week. Ants got into the box, and the probe rusted after one heavy dew. Instead of giving up, Yasmine posted her failed design on an internet forum for young makers and asked for criticism. Within days, an engineer in Portugal suggested a plastic food container as a waterproof case, and a retired electrician from Sfax showed her how to coat the probe so that it would last. "I learnt more from the people who told me what was wrong than from the ones who said it was clever," she admits. The second version has now been working in the grove for fourteen months without repair.
3. The results have convinced even the neighbours who laughed at "the girl with the box". Because the family now waters only when the sensor shows that the roots need it, they used about a third less water last season, and the olive harvest was larger than in the two previous years. Each sensor costs around 60 dinars to build, far less than the imported systems sold to large farms, which can cost twenty times as much. Eleven farmers in the village have asked Yasmine to build one for them, and she has trained two friends to help her assemble them in the evenings.
4. Not everyone thinks a teenager's invention can change farming. An agricultural adviser from the regional office points out that a sensor tells farmers when to water but cannot create water where the wells have run dry. Yasmine agrees, and that is exactly why she refuses to sell her design to a company that has offered to buy it: if a sensor cannot bring new water, it must at least be cheap enough for the small farms that have the least. Instead, she has published the plans free of charge so that anyone with basic tools can copy them. "Technology is not magic," she says. "It is just a better way of paying attention. If it only helps rich farms, it has missed its target." This summer, she hopes to add a small solar panel so that the device no longer needs a battery.
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 teenager who
a- sold a farming invention to a large company.
b- designed a cheap device to help farmers use less water.
c- convinced the regional office to dig new wells.
2. Complete the gapped passage below with three words from paragraph 2. One blank, ONE word. (3 marks)
Yasmine's first sensor was a failure: its probe ① ____________ after only a few days. Rather than abandon the project, she asked other makers online for ② ____________. Their advice worked: the new version has been in use for more than a year without any ③ ____________.
3. For each of the following statements, pick out ONE detail from the text showing that it is FALSE. (3 marks)
a. Yasmine's sensor sends its readings to her father only when he asks for them. (parag. 1)
b. Yasmine's sensor costs about the same as the systems sold to large farms. (parag. 3)
c. Yasmine is planning to make money by selling her design to a company. (parag. 4)
4. Pick out words / expressions meaning nearly the same as: (2 marks)
a. already used by somebody else (parag. 1): ____________
b. persuaded (parag. 3): ____________
5. What do the underlined words in the text refer to? (2 marks)
a. "they" (parag. 3): ____________
b. "that" (parag. 4): ____________
6. Give a personal justified answer to the following question. (1 mark)
Do you think Yasmine was right to publish her plans free of charge instead of selling them? Why? Why not?
I think that Yasmine ____________ right to publish her plans free of charge because ____________.
Voir la correction commentéeAprès avoir posé votre démarche
Idea: every item except the last one is closed: the mark goes to a word or a span taken from the paragraph the item names. Read the questions before the text — they tell you where each answer is. 12 marks: 1 + 3 + 3 + 2 + 2 + 1.
1. Idea: the gist option must cover the whole text, not one paragraph. Option a is contradicted by paragraph 4 (she refuses to sell), option c confuses the adviser's remark with an action.
Answer: b- designed a cheap device to help farmers use less water.
2. Idea: the three words are all in paragraph 2, in the order of the passage; each blank takes exactly one word, and the grammar of the passage decides its form (a past participle, a noun after for, a noun after any).
Answers: ① rusted ② criticism ③ repair.
0 mark: failed in blank ① (paragraph 2 uses it only as an adjective, her failed design; what the probe did was rust), or advice in blank ② (the word is in the passage, not in paragraph 2).
3.a Idea: the changed element is frequency — only when he asks against an automatic schedule.
Answer: "sends the result to her father's phone as a text message twice a day".
0 mark: "He was guessing". It is in paragraph 1, but it describes the father before the sensor existed and says nothing about how the readings arrive.
3.b Idea: the changed element is a comparison of prices. Look for the sentence that compares the two costs.
Answer: "far less than the imported systems sold to large farms" (or "which can cost twenty times as much").
0 mark: "Each sensor costs around 60 dinars to build" on its own. It gives a price, but without the comparison it does not show that the two prices are different.
3.c Idea: the changed element is the decision — selling against refusing. The paragraph mentions a company, which is the trap.
Answer: "she refuses to sell her design to a company that has offered to buy it" (or "she has published the plans free of charge").
0 mark: "a company that has offered to buy it" cut from its verb. Without she refuses to sell, the span only shows that someone wanted to buy, which fits the false statement.
4. Idea: the definition gives the grammar of the answer; replace the definition by your word in a sentence to test it.
Answers: a. second-hand b. convinced.
Used alone loses the mark for a: the text says second-hand phone charger, and already used by somebody else is exactly that compound adjective.
5. Idea: a reference word points back to a precise antecedent — a noun group or, for that, a whole idea stated just before.
Answers: a. "they" refers to Yasmine's family (the family who now waters only when the sensor says so). b. "that" refers to the fact that a sensor tells farmers when to water but cannot create water where the wells have run dry (the adviser's point, which Yasmine accepts).
0 mark for b: the company or the design. That follows Yasmine agrees, so it points to what she agrees with.
6. Idea: any position is accepted if the reason supports it and does not contradict the text.
Model answers: I think that Yasmine was right to publish her plans free of charge because small farmers who cannot pay imported systems can now build the sensor themselves and save water. / I think that Yasmine was not right to publish her plans free of charge because the money from the company could have paid for the solar version and for many more sensors.
What loses the mark: Yes, she was right with no reason, or a reason that contradicts the stance.