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Maryknoll Convent School

(Secondary Section)
Form 6 Mock Examination February 2020
English Language
Paper 1 3 Reading

Name:___________________________( ) Time allowed: 1 hour 30 minutes

Class: Form 6 ( ) Weighting: 20% of subject mark

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Reading Passages
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INSTRUCTIONS

1. Write all your answers in the Question-Answer Book.

2. DO NOT write any answers in this booklet because they will not be marked.
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3. Please note: there are no Texts 2, 3 and 4

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PART A
Read Text 1 and answer questions 1–16 in the Question-Answer Book for Part A.
Text 1

How algorithms are controlling your life

And why you should probably pay closer attention.
By Sean Illing

[1] Algorithms are a black box. We can see them at work in the world. We know that they9re shaping
outcomes all around us, but most of us have no idea what they are 4 or how we9re being influenced by them.

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5 [2] Algorithms are invisible pieces of code that tell a computer how to accomplish a specific task. Think of it
as a recipe for a computer: an algorithm tells the computer what to do in order to produce a certain outcome.
Every time you do a Google search, check your Facebook feed or use GPS navigation in your car, you are

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interacting with an algorithm.

[3] Hello World is a new book by Hannah Fry, a mathematician at University College London. In it, she
10 argues that we should not think of algorithms as either good or bad. Instead, we should be paying much
closer attention to the people programming them. I contacted Fry to talk about how algorithms are quietly
changing the rules of human life and whether the benefits of algorithms ultimately outweigh the costs.
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Extract from the interview:

How are algorithms changing human life?

15 [4] In all sorts of ways, really. From what we choose to read and watch to who we choose to date, algorithms
are increasingly playing a huge role. And it9s not just the obvious cases, like Google search algorithms or
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Amazon recommendation algorithms. We9ve invited these algorithms into our courtrooms and our hospitals
and our schools, and they9re making these tiny decisions on our behalf that are subtly shifting the way our
society is operating.

20 Do you think our trust in algorithms is misplaced? Are we making a mistake by handing over so much
decision-making power to these programs?
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[5] That9s a difficult question. We9ve got a really complicated relationship with machines. On the one hand,
we sometimes do misplace our trust in them. We expect them to be almost godlike 4 to be so perfect that we
will blindly follow them wherever they lead us. But at the same time, we have a habit of dismissing an
25 algorithm as soon as it9s shown to be slightly flawed. So if Siri gets something wrong, or if our GPS app
miscalculates the traffic, we think the whole machine is just rubbish. But that doesn9t make any sense.

[6] Algorithms are not perfect, and they often contain the biases of the people who create them, but they9re
still incredibly effective and they9ve made all of our lives a lot easier. So I think the right attitude is
somewhere in the middle: we shouldn9t blindly trust algorithms, but we also shouldn9t dismiss them
30 altogether.

What advantages do we gain by relying so heavily on algorithms?

[7] Humans are quite bad at a lot of things. We9re bad at being consistent. We9re bad at not being biased. We
get tired and sloppy. Algorithms possess none of those flaws. They9re incredibly consistent. They never get
tired, and they9re absolutely precise. The problem is that algorithms don9t understand context or nuance.
35 They don9t understand emotion and empathy in the way that humans do.

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Do you think the people creating these algorithms — the engineers at Google or Facebook or wherever
— fully understand what they9re creating?

[8] They9re starting to care a lot about the implications of this stuff. Facebook used to have the motto 8move
40 fast and break things9, and that was the attitude of much of the tech world. But the tide has shifted in the last
couple of years. There9s been a wake-up call for a lot of these people as the unintended consequences of
these creations have become much clearer.

[9] Every social media platform 4 every algorithm that becomes part of our lives 4 is part of this massive
unfolding social experiment. Billions of people around the world are interacting with these technologies,
45 which is why the tiniest changes can have such a gigantic impact on all of humanity. And these companies
are starting to recognise this and take it seriously.

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You say that algorithms themselves are neither good nor bad, but I want to push you on this a bit.
Algorithms can produce unexpected outcomes, especially machine-learning algorithms that can
program themselves. Since it9s impossible for us to anticipate all of these scenarios, can9t we say that
some algorithms are bad — even if they weren9t designed to be?

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[10] That9s a good question. We have to think of these technologies, especially machine-learning and
artificial intelligence, as more like the invention of electricity than the invention of the light bulb. By that I
mean we don9t know how these things are going to be used and in what situations or what context. But
electricity in its own right isn9t good or bad 4 it9s just a tool that can be used in an infinite number of ways.
55 Algorithms are like that too. I haven9t come across an algorithm that was 100 percent bad or good. I think the
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context and everything around it is the thing that makes the difference.

Do you worry that the proliferation of algorithms is eroding our ability to think and decide for
ourselves?

[11] There are places where that is clearly happening 4 where the role of humans has been sidelined 4 and
60 that9s a really dangerous thing to allow to happen. But I also don9t think that it needs to be like that. Humans
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and machines don9t have to be opposed to one another. We have to work with machines, acknowledging that
they are flawed, just as we are, and that they will make mistakes, just as we do.

[12] We don9t have to create a world in which machines are telling us what to do or how to think 4 although
we may very well end up in a world like that. I9d much prefer a world in which humans and machines 4
humans and algorithms 4 are partners.
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At the end of the day, are algorithms solving more problems for human beings than they9re creating?

[13] Yes, I think they9re solving more problems than they9re creating. I9m still mostly positive about this
stuff. I9ve worked in this area for over a decade, and there are huge upsides to these technologies. Algorithms
are being used to help prevent crimes and help doctors get more accurate cancer diagnoses, and in countless
70 other ways. All of these things are really, really positive steps forward for humanity. We just have to be
careful in the way that we employ them. We can9t do it recklessly. We can9t just move fast 4 and we can9t
break things.

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PART B2
Read Text 5 and answer questions 44–64 in the Question-Answer Book for Part B2.

Text 5

8We spoke English to set ourselves apart9:

How I rediscovered my mother tongue
While I was growing up in Nigeria, my parents never spoke their native Igbo language to us,
but later it became an essential part of me, writes Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani.

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[1] When I was a child, my great-grandmother came to live with my family in Umuahia in south-eastern
Nigeria. Daa9s favourite pastime turned out to be watching American wrestling matches on TV. She had
5 lived almost an entire lifetime with no television, and yet no other entertainment on the channels caught her

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fancy. She stared agape, chuckled loudly and gasped as Mighty Igor and his ilk beat each other up on the
small screen. Daa also enjoyed telling stories, but apart from common words like 8TV9 and 8rice9, she knew
no English. Her only language was Igbo. This meant her storytelling sessions often involved vivid
gesticulations and multiple repetitions so that my siblings and I could understand what she was trying to
10 say, or we could say something that she understood.
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[2] None of us children spoke Igbo, our local language. Unlike the majority of the parents in our
hometown, mine had chosen to speak only English to their children. Guests had to adjust to the fact that we
were an English-speaking household 4 with varying degrees of success. Our helpers were also encouraged
to speak English. Many arrived from their remote villages unable to utter a single word of the foreign
15 tongue, but as the weeks rolled by, they began to string complete sentences together with less contortion of
their faces. My parents also spoke to each other in English 4 never mind that they had grown up speaking
Igbo with their families. On the rare occasion they spoke Igbo, it was a clear sign they were conducting a
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conversation in which the children were not supposed to participate.

[3] Over the years, I endured people teasing my parents 4 usually behind their backs 4 for this decision,
20 accusing them of desiring to turn their children into white people. I read how Idi Amin, the notorious
former Ugandan president, brazenly addressed the United Nations in his mother tongue in the 1970s; how
the Congolese dictator Mobutu Sese Seko showed allegiance to his local language by dumping his
European names; and how the internationally acclaimed Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong9o 4 after a
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successful career writing in English 4 decided to switch almost entirely to writing in his native Gikuyu.
25 Upholding one9s mother tongue over English appeared to be the ultimate demonstration of one9s love for
their own people and country.

[4] Lee Kuan Yew, the first prime minister of Singapore, thought differently. When he replaced Chinese
with English as the official medium of instruction in his country9s schools, activists accused him of trying
to suppress Singaporean culture. The media portrayed him as 8the oppressor in a government of
30 <pseudo-foreigners who forget their ancestors=9. However, he believed that the future of his country9s
children depended on their having a command of the language of the latest textbooks, which would
undoubtedly be English.

[5] 8With English, no race would have an advantage,9 he wrote. 8English as our working language has ...
given us a competitive advantage because it is the international language of business and diplomacy, of
35 science and technology. Without it, we would not have many of the world9s multinationals and over 200 of
the world9s top banks in Singapore. Nor would our people have taken so readily to computers and the
Internet.9 Within a few decades of independence from Britain in 1965, Singapore had risen from poverty
and disorder to become an economic powerhouse. The country9s transformation under Lee9s guidance is
often described as dramatic.

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40 [6] My parents shared Lee9s convictions. They hoped that English would give their children an advantage
in life. However, as potent as that reason might have been, my father admitted to me that it was secondary
4 he had an even stronger motivation for preferring English. 8We spoke it to set ourselves apart,9 he said.
8Those of us who were educated wanted to distinguish ourselves from those who had money but did not go
to school.9

45 [7] A perennial issue among the Igbo of south-eastern Nigeria is the battle between the mind and the purse.
All over Nigeria, the Igbo are recognised for their entrepreneurial spirit and business acumen. Since
pre-colonial times, most of the country9s successful traders and transporters have been Igbo. Many of them
began as apprentices and worked their way up, never bothering with school. The Igbo are also known for
ostentatiousness 4 those with great wealth usually find it difficult to be silent about it. While the moguls
50 flaunted their cash, the educated members of my parents9 generation flaunted their degrees, many from
British and American institutions for learning. They might not have had the cash to fling at the masses
during public functions or to acquire fleets of cars, but they could speak fluent English 4 an asset not

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available for sale in stores.

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* * *

[8] My difficulty in communicating with Daa was not the only disadvantage of being unable to speak Igbo
55 as a child. Each time it was my turn to stand and read from an Igbo textbook, the other pupils burst into
giggles at my use of the wrong tones on the wrong syllables. Again and again, the teachers made me repeat.
Each time, the class9s laughter was louder. However, I went on to get the highest scores in Igbo tests
because they were written 4 they did not require the ability to pronounce words accurately. The rest of the
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class were relaxed in their understanding of the language. I considered Igbo foreign to me, and approached
60 the subject studiously. I read Igbo literature and watched Igbo TV programmes. After studying Igbo until
the end of secondary school, I was confident enough to register the language as one of my university
entrance exam subjects.

[9] Everyone thought me insane. Taking a major local language exam as a prerequisite for university
admission was not child9s play. Only two students in my entire school had chosen to take Igbo in these
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65 exams. However, my Igbo score turned out to be good enough to land me a place to study psychology at
Nigeria9s prestigious University of Ibadan. At last, I began to speak the language. In Ibadan, away from
Igbo land and from the laughing voices, I was finally free to open my mouth and express the words that had
been bottled up inside my head for so many years 4 the words that I had heard people in the market speak,
the words that I had read in books and heard on TV, the words that my father had not permitted around the
70 house.
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[10] Thus, in a strange land, far away from home, I finally became fluent in my native language. Today,
few people can tell from my pronunciation that I grew up not speaking Igbo. Strangely, whenever I am in
the presence of anyone who knew me as a child 4 back when my parents did not permit me to speak Igbo
4 my eloquence in the local tongue often regresses. I stammer, falter, repeat myself. Perhaps my tongue is
75 tied by the recollection of their mockery.

END OF READING PASSAGE

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