Ministero dell’Istruzione e del Merito
PL0I - ESAME DI MATURITÀ
Indirizzo: LICEO
LINGUISTICO
(Testo valevole per tutti gli indirizzi del settore LINGUISTICO)
Disciplina: LINGUA E CULTURA STRANIERA (INGLESE)
IL CANDIDATO DEVE SVOLGERE TUTTE LE ATTIVITÀ COMPRESE NELLA PROVA
PART 1 – COMPREHENSION AND INTERPRETATION
QUESTION A
Read the following text
It was always the same, Claire’s poetry class, and it was always a pleasure. Each student’s poem was only a slight variation on the poem they had brought in the week before, and all poems were consistently met with Claire’s useful mix of violent affection and genuine insight. So Ron’s poems were always about modern sexual alienation, and Daisy’s poems were always about New York, Chantelle’s were always about the black struggle, and Zora’s were the kind 5 that appear to have been generated by a random word-generating machine. It was Claire’s great gift as a teacher to find something of worth in all these efforts and to speak to their authors as if they were already household names in poetry-loving homes across America. And what a thing it is, at nineteen years old, to be told that a new Daisy poem is a perfect example of the Daisy oeuvre, that it is indeed evidence of a Daisy at the height of her powers, exercising all
the traditional, much loved, Daisy strengths!
Claire was an excellent teacher. She reminded you how noble it was to write poetry; how miraculous it should feel to communicate what is most intimate to you, and to do so in this stylized way, through rhyme and metre, images and ideas. After each student had read their work, and it had been discussed seriously and pertinently, Claire would finish by reading a
poem by a great, usually dead poet, and encourage her class to discuss this poem no differently than they had discussed the others.And in this way one learned to imagine continuity between one’s own poetry and the poetry of the world. What a feeling! You walked out of that class if not shoulder to shoulder with Keats and Dickinson and Eliot and the rest, then at least in the same echo chamber, in the same roll-call of history. The transformation was most
noticeable on Carl. Three weeks ago he had attended his first class wearing a comic sceptical slouch. He read his lyrics in a grumpy mumble and seemed angered by the interested appreciation with which they were met. ‘It’s not even a poem,’ he countered. ‘It’s rap.’ ‘What’s the difference?’ Claire asked. ‘They two different things,’ Carl had argued ‘two different art forms. Except rap ain’t no art form. It’ just rap’. […]
The first thing Claire did with Carl’s rap that day was show him of what it was made. Iambs, spondees, trochees, anapaests. Passionately Carl denied any knowledge of these arcane arts. […]
‘But the grammar of it,’ Claire had explained, ‘is hard-wired in your brain. You’re almost thinking in sonnets already. You don’t need to know it to do it – but that doesn’t mean you’re not doing
it’. This is the kind of announcement which cannot help but make you feel a little taller the next day when you’re in the Nike store asking your customer if they want to try the same sneaker in a size 11. ‘You’ll write me a sonnet, won’t you?’ Claire had asked Carl sweetly. In the second class she asked him, ‘How about that sonnet Carl?’ He said, ‘It’s cooking. I’ll let you know when it’s ready’.
Ministero dell’Istruzione e del Merito
Indirizzo: LICEO LINGUISTICO
(Testo valevole per tutti gli indirizzi del settore LINGUISTICO)
Disciplina:
LINGUA E CULTURA STRANIERA (INGLESE)
So in this, the fourth session, he went and brought her a sonnet. Just as she said. Fourteen lines with ten syllables (or beats, as Carl could not help but think of them) a line. (569 words)
Zadie Smith,
On Beauty, 2005
Say whether each of the following statements is True (T) or False (F). Put a cross in the correct box in the table below and quote the first four words of the sentence where the piece of information is found
1. The students always brought the same poem
2. Claire made students feel they were already poets
3. Claire analysed the students’ poems for them
4. Initially Carl seemed to be a reluctant, rebellious, student
5. Claire says you can do things instinctively without having, consciously, ever learned them
Answer the following questions. Use complete sentences and your own words.
6. “Claire was an excellent teacher”. Explain, in your own words, what she did in class to support and encourage students and how, or why, it may have helped them.
7. Carl tells Claire the sonnet is “cooking”. Explain what he means when he says this.
8. What type of narrator and point of view are used in this excerpt?
Ministero dell’Istruzione e del Merito
PL0I - ESAME DI MATURITÀ
Indirizzo: LICEO LINGUISTICO
(Testo valevole per tutti gli indirizzi del settore LINGUISTICO)
Disciplina: LINGUA E CULTURA STRANIERA (INGLESE)
QUESTION B
Read the following text
What are GMOs and why do they exist?
According to the EU, a GMO is "an organism, with the exception of human beings, in which the genetic material has been altered in a way that does not occur naturally by mating and/or natural recombination". Until very recently, GMOs were transgenic: an artificial gene was introduced into the organism. But now new techniques have been developed which directly modify an organism’s DNA, without inserting new external genes. These techniques are called
new generation GMOs, or new genomics techniques (NGTs).
The first steps in genetic engineering were taken in 1973 by two US biochemists Boyer and Cohen, who inserted DNA from one bacterium into another. However, humans have been trying to modify the genomes of plants and animals for millennia, trying to create new varieties that are better suited to their needs. Some of the food we consume today is the result of this
selective breeding. Broccoli, once was Brassica Oleracea, a wild cabbage. The plant was edible, but bitter, so farmers selected and replanted seeds with a sweeter taste to gradually emphasise the sweet trait.
One research scientist, sees GMOs as just an additional, newer technique that can be used by farmers to change the characteristics of certain crops, to help them adapt to changing climates
and extreme weather, to use less water, less pesticides and herbicides, and so on.
In 2023, the United States was the largest producer of GMOs, with 74.4 million hectares dedicated to GM crops; Brazil followed with 66.9 million hectares and Argentina with 23.1 million, Europe, however, had only 48,000 hectares dedicated to GMO crops and most of these were in Spain, where over 95% of European GM cultivation takes place. MON 810 maize,
a GM maize, is the only crop so far approved for commercial cultivation in the EU.
Several EU countries like France and Germany have banned the cultivation of GMOs because of concerns about the environmental impact and health risks of these crops. However, they are not GMO-free. Despite national bans on the cultivation of GMOs for food, EU countries import GMOs for animal feed. However, the EFSA, the EU agency that assesses risks, analyses the
effects of the new traits on human and animal health and on the environment, before they can be sold in Europe.
But GMOs remain controversial. There is a difference between scientific opinion and public opinion. In 2021, a survey revealed that 81% of a sample of Italian agricultural scientists believed that GMOs are generally safe to eat, but only 54% of the Italian public agreed. In
2024, 34 Nobel Prize winners called on the EU, in an open letter, to change its policy on GMOs, and let scientists develop GM crops that can withstand the deepening climate crisis. However, organisations like the European Network of Scientists for Social and Environmental Responsibility (ENSSER) are still concerned about the impact of GMOs on biodiversity and human health.
(480 words)
Adapted from https://theweek.com/science/pros-cons-gmos-genetically-modified-crops
Ministero dell’Istruzione e del Merito
PL0I - ESAME DI MATURITÀ
Indirizzo: LICEO LINGUISTICO
(Testo valevole per tutti gli indirizzi del settore LINGUISTICO)
Disciplina: LINGUA E CULTURA STRANIERA (INGLESE)
Choose the answer which fits best according to the text. Circle one letter.
1. A GMO is an organism
a. whose genetic material has been altered deliberately
b. whose genes have evolved by chance
c. in which genetic material has altered naturally
d. that has no genes
2. Humans have been changing the traits of plants and animals
a. since 1973
b. for thousands of years
c. since genetic engineering was invented
d. to create entirely new species
3. Selective breeding is
a. a way of strengthening an organism
b. is used to enhance a desired trait
c. a new, invasive practice for changing an organism’s traits
d. banned by many countries
4. France has banned GMO crops
a. so it will be a totally GMO free state
b. for environmental and trade reasons
c. for environmental and health reasons
d. to stop GMO products entering France
5. In 2024, 34 Nobel Prize winners asked the EU to allow scientists to develop GM. What was their main reason for asking?
a. To stop being dependent on food imports to feed the population
b. To reduce the cost of having to import food
c. To develop the EU agricultural sector
d. To develop crops able to withstand the worsening climate
Ministero dell’Istruzione e del Merito
PL0I - ESAME DI MATURITÀ
Indirizzo: LICEO LINGUISTICO
(Testo valevole per tutti gli indirizzi del settore LINGUISTICO)
Disciplina: LINGUA E CULTURA STRANIERA (INGLESE)
Answer the following questions. Use complete sentences and your own words.
6. What are the main reasons for developing GMOs today?
7. Despite the activities of the EFSA, organisations like the ENSSER are still concerned about the impact of GMOs in the EU. What issues worry them most?
PART 2 – WRITTEN PRODUCTION
Complete both Task A and Task B
TASK A
“If the reading revolution represented the greatest transfer of knowledge to ordinary men and women in history, the screen revolution represents the greatest theft of knowledge from ordinary people in history. For centuries, almost all educated and intelligent people have believed that literature and learning are among the highest purposes and deepest consolations of human existence.
[…] The greatest novels and poems enrich our sense of the human experience by imaginatively putting us inside other minds and taking us to other times and other places. By reading non-fiction science, history, philosophy, travel writing we become deeply acquainted with our place in the extraordinary and complicated world we are privileged to inhabit. Smartphones are robbing us of these consolations.”
[James Marriott, The dawn of the post-literate society, Cultural Capital]
Discuss the topic by supporting your ideas with suitable examples from your reading and personal experience. Write a 300-word essay.
TASK B
“The Olympics and Paralympics are a beacon of hope. A celebration of human potential – of teamwork, fair play and mutual respect. Through dedication and perseverance, we see what a united world can be and what humanity can achieve when we strive for our very best.”
[António Guterres, Secretary-General’s message to the Opening of the XXV Olympic Winter Games, 2026]
Write a 300-word article for your school journal in which you develop the topic and express your own personal views.
Durata massima della prova: 6 ore.
È consentito l’uso di dizionari bilingue e monolingue. Non è consentito lasciare l’Istituto prima che siano trascorse 3 ore dall’inizio della prova