OLIMPIADA NAȚIONALĂ DE LIMBA ENGLEZĂ

ETAPA LOCALĂ
8 FEBRUARIE 2025
CLASA a XII-a- SECTIUNEA B

SUBIECTUL I - USE OF ENGLISH (40 points)

I. Read the paragraphs below and do the tasks. (10x1p= 10 points)

It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed. With the brass nozzle in his
fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his head,
and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning
to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history. With his symbolic helmet numbered 451 on his stolid
head, and his eyes all orange flame with the thought of what came next, he flicked the igniter and the house
jumped up in a gorging fire that burned the evening sky red and yellow and black. He strode in a swarm of
fireflies. He wanted above all, like the old joke, to shove a marshmallow on a stick in the furnace, while the
flapping pigeon-winged books died on the porch and lawn of the house. While the books went up in sparkling
whirls and blew away on a wind turned dark with burning.

Montag grinned the fierce grin of all men singed and driven back by flame. He knew that when he returned
to the firehouse, he might wink at himself, a minstrel man, in the mirror. Later, going to sleep, he would feel
the fiery smile still gripped by his face muscles, in the dark. It never went away, that. smile, it never ever went
away, as long as he remembered. He hung up his black-beetle-coloured helmet and shined it, he hung his
flameproof jacket neatly; he showered luxuriously, and then, whistling, hands in pockets, walked across the
upper floor of the fire station and fell down the hole. At the last moment, when disaster seemed positive, he
pulled his hands from his pockets and broke his fall by grasping the golden pole. He slid to a squeaking halt,
the heels one inch from the concrete floor downstairs. He walked out of the fire station and along the midnight
street toward the subway where the silent, air-propelled train slid soundlessly down its lubricated flue in the
earth and let him out with a great puff of warm air an to the cream-tiled escalator rising to the suburb.
Whistling, he let the escalator waft him into the still night air. He walked toward the comer, thinking little at
all about nothing in particular. Before he reached the corner, however, he slowed as if a wind had sprung up
from nowhere, as if someone had called his name. The last few nights he had had the most uncertain feelings.(
Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451:The temperature at which book-paper catches fire and burns).

A. Choose the right synonym for the words given below, according to their meaning in the text. (3p)

1. stolid A. inexpressive B. solid C. unrestrained

2. singed A. saturated B. scorched C. soaked
3. minstrel A minister B. eavesdropper C. bard

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B. Rephrase the following sentences so as to preserve the meaning, using the word given without changing it. You
must use between three and six words, including the word given. (3p)

1.Montag wouldn’t have realised how empty his life was if Clarisse hadn’t asked him a significant question.
BEEN
If it……………………… , Montag wouldn’t have realised how empty his life was.

2. As soon as the Japanese finished researching they discovered apps as the most popular method of learning
languages.
HAD
No ………………………….than they discovered apps as the most popular method of learning languages.

3. Governments should not be allowed to control what people read and think. ACCOUNT
On………………………………………. to control what people read and think.

C. Four words have been removed from the summary of the text above. Choose the right words to fill
in the summary. (4 points)

mysterious, unconscious, recollection, explore, interpret, fleeting, aware, vivid

Dreams remain a 1) ________ phenomenon that has intrigued humans for centuries. Scientists and
psychologists continue to 2) ________ their significance, offering various explanations. While some believe
dreams represent suppressed thoughts, others see them as the brain’s way of processing memories. Some
individuals even experience 3) ________ dreams in which they are completely 4) ________ of their dreaming
state.

II. For questions 1-5, think of one word only which can be used appropriately in all sentences.
(5x2p=10 points)

1. You can’t buy a single bottle of wine here – we only sell it by the ______.
The lawyer presented a convincing _______ to defend her client.
Our mother has a ______ of pneumonia.
2. She showed great ________ in dealing with the problem.
The storm caused a _______ outage in the entire city.
That lens has a _______ of 10x.
3. The speaker tried to _______ the audience with his emotional story.
The accident did not _______ his ability to walk.
The ________ of the car hitting the tree killed the driver.
4. The sudden noise made her ______ down her cup in surprise.
Don’t worry, I will get my _______ of tools and fix it!
This jelly will _______ in four hours.
5. The movie _______ an emotional response in the audience.
The alarm was _______ by a sudden movement.
The new policy ______ a wave of complaints from employees.
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III. Read the text below. Use the word given in capitals at the end of some of the lines to form a word
that fits in the space in the same line. (10x1p=10p)

An underground film is a motion picture made and distributed outside the

commercial film industry, usually as a(n)
(1)…………………………..expression of its maker. Underground films CREATE
display greater (2)……………………………….in form, technique, and content FREE
than films directed toward a mass audience. The term came into common use in
the 1950s, when the greater (3)……………………………. of good-quality 16 AVAILABLE
millimetre film stock and (4)…………………………permitted an increasing
number of professionals to engage in cinema art. The term was also EQUIP
(5)…………………………to earlier films that were considered too APPLY
(6)…………………………for the general public. As opposed to a high-budget EXPERIMENT
film maker, the underground film maker (7)……………………………uses
such production methods as filming with a 16 millimetre or 8 millimetre camera, ORDINARY
which are quite (8)……………………………. . The film vary EXPENSE
(9)…………..………………in length. During the 1920s, film making was CONSIDER
stimulated by the Dadaist, Cubist, and Surrealist movements. Little of
comparative interest was produced until the late 1950s, when a host of new
cinema artist arose in the United States. Unlike their
(10)………………………………they were strongly influenced by the RUN
techniques and personal expression of anti-commercial art films by directors
such as Federico Fellini.

IV. For questions 1-10, read the text below and look carefully at each line. Some of the lines are correct and some
have a word that should not be there. If a line is correct, put a tick (√) by the number of the line on your answer
sheet. If a line has a word which should not be there, write the word down next to the number of the line on your
answer sheet. (10x 1p=10p)

The oldest exam certificate

0√ The oldest exam certificate ever found in Britain is a fascinating

object made of bronze. It dates back from almost two thousand
00 from years to the era when the country was under Roman rule. The
1. _______ name of the soldier to whom it was been awarded is no longer
2. _______ visible. However, enough of the text can be read out to reveal what
3. _______ the unnamed soldier had done in the form of academic work. Over
4. _______ twenty-five years he attended to a number of lessons while
5. _______ serving in a Roman legion. These twenty-five-year diplomas were
6. _______ very valuable, such as they were proof not only of academic skills,
7. _______
but also of citizenship. Anyone who in possession of a certificate
8. _______
9. _______ like this could claim all a range of rights and privileges. Thus,
10. _______ efforts to educate up common soldiers were made by the Roman
Empire.

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SUBIECTUL B – INTEGRATED SKILLS (60 points)

Read the text below and do the tasks that follow.

I. You are going to read an article on long-distance walking. Five paragraphs were removed from it. Choose
from A-F the one which fits each gap (1-5). There is one extra paragraph which you do not need to use (5 x 2p =
10 points).

Long-distance walking

Long-distance walking is a subject that has long interested me as a journalist, but that is also of concern to geographers,
poets, historians and film students. In recent years the film industry has produced Wild, an account of the writer Cheryl
Strayed's walk along the 4,000 km Pacific Crest Trail, and an adaptation of Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods, in which
the writer attempts to hike the 3,300 km Appalachian Trail.

[1] …

For Bryson, it was simply a response to a small voice in his head that said, 'Sounds neat! Let's do it.' For Strayed, whose
memoir inspired Wild, the reasons were more complex. Battered by a saddening series of personal problems, she walked
the trail in the hope that the experience would provide a release.

[2] …

For me, the attraction of such walks has nothing to do with length for its own sake and everything to do with the fact
that long trails invariably provide a journey with a compelling academic structure. Many long walks tick the geographic
box, not least the Appalachian and Spain's GR11 trails, which are both defined by great mountain ranges that guarantee
topographical appeal.

[3] …

Such links to the past are to be found on shorter walks, but on a longer trail the passing of the days connects us more
profoundly to the same slow, enforced journeys made by travellers before cars, planes or trains. They also reconnect us
to the scale of our world - a kilometre, never mind 100, means something when you walk it. But what of the more
specific pleasures of a long walk?

[4] …

Strayed shares this idea, writing that her trek 'had nothing to do with backpacking fads or philosophies of any particular
era or even with getting from point A to point B. It had to do with how it felt to be in the wild. With what it was like to
walk with no reason other than to witness the accumulation of trees and meadows, streams and rocks, sunrises and
sunsets.'

[5] …

These are what Bryson is referring to when he says, about trekking, that you have 'no engagements, commitments,
obligations or duties … and only the smallest, least complicated of wants'. In Wanderlust: A History of Walking, the
author Rebecca Solnit explores another of hiking's pleasures - the way it allows us to think. Walking is slow, she writes;
‘... the mind, like the feet, works at about three miles an hour...' As the ancient historian Jerome once said: 'to solve a
problem, walk around.' In my experience, though, the longer you walk, actually the less you think. A trek often begins
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with me teasing at some problem, but by journey's end, walking has left my mind curiously still. As the Danish
philosopher Kierkegaard put it, 'I have walked myself into my best thoughts,' but 'I know of no thought so burdensome
that one cannot walk away from it.'

A Mine begin with the allure of beautiful landscapes, a notion nurtured by 19th-century Romantic poets such as
Wordsworth and Coleridge, both 'walkers' in the modern sense at a time when walking usually suggested vagrancy
or poverty. They helped suggest the idea that Nature, far from being a malign force, can be a balm for the soul.

B Having spent most of my spare time tackling long-distance trails, including the Pacific Crest Trail and sections of
Spain's 800-km GR11, I am ideally placed to explore the question: what is it that inspires people to hike thousands
of kilometres?

C The scenic highlights of those recent long walks are many. On longer walks the landscape's effect, as Strayed
suggests, is cumulative: the countryside changes over time, sometimes subtly, often dramatically. Having reached a
summit or crossed a pass, a sense of ownership or belonging begins to develop.

D What's more, to walk for long periods is to escape jobs, people and life's minutiae for routines of a different, more
nourishing kind. The effects of solitude, like those of landscape, accrue over time. Simple pleasures and modest
imperatives become the most important things in life - chocolate, dry clothes, blister-free feet.

E But any long walk is also the sum of its parts, and in the Pyrenees these parts often consist of ancient paths between
settlements. Time and again on the GR11, I walked along part- cobbled paths, edged with crumbling walls and
terraces, the work of centuries lost in a generation.

F Between the two extremes, doing it for fun and the journey of self-discovery and healing, are countless other
motivations and pleasures that draw us to the outdoors and the ancient imperative of covering immense distances on
foot.

II. Starting from the reading text above, do the following task:

As the representative of the Student Council, write a proposal to your head of school, urging that a high-school student’s
portfolio should include a number of different outdoor activities every year, such as long-distance walking and any other
similar activities that you might want to suggest. In your proposal, highlight the benefits of the activities you are
suggesting and their impact on the students’ performance.

Write your proposal. (250-280 words) (50 points)