Musterprüfung
2 English – a worldwide success story
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English today is spoken on every continent. It
is the most important or the official language
in over 60 countries. It is the main language of
business people and the one most often used in
international tourism. About 85% of all
messages sent on the Internet are in English.
But it was not always so. English began life as a
small group of dialects somewhere in the mists
of North Germany. When its speakers moved
to Britain in the 5th century, it was still only
one language among many. After 1066, when
the Normans conquered England, the upper
classes spoke French, and English became the
language of the lower
classes for the next two
hundred years. English
began to spread outside
Europe in the 16th
century, first to colonies
in North America, in the
18th century to India, and
in the next century to
Africa, Australia and New
Zealand.
English became important
in the 19th century
because it was the
language of the British
Empire. When the British Empire became the
Commonwealth in the 20th century and most
of the colonies became independent, English
was still used by many Commonwealth
countries, e.g. India or Nigeria, because many
different languages are spoken in these
countries. In 2000 Nigeria had about 45
million people who spoke English as their first
language, and India had almost 35 million
people whose second language was English.
This is also true for the former US colony of the
Philippines, where about 31 million speak
English as their second language.
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mist Nebel
Norman Normanne/in
to conquer erobern
13 upper classes Oberschicht
17 to spread sich verbreiten
39 former ehemalig
42 to remain verbleiben
50 native speaker Muttersprachler/in
English also remained important in the 20th
century because it was the language of the
world’s leading economic power, the United
States. Today the US, with about 230 million
people who speak English as their first
language, contains nearly four times as many
English speakers as Britain (60 million), the
next largest country with a large number of
native speakers of the language. And Britain
itself has almost twice as many native speakers
as Australia and Canada together, which both
have about 16 million each. Worldwide, about
400 million people speak English as their first
language.
It is therefore not surprising that so many
people want to learn English. In Europe
alone, about 80% of young people who learn a
foreign language choose English. They learn it
because they may need it later in their jobs, or
when travelling, or because they want to read
books or magazines, listen to pop songs or
watch films in English. And Europe is a typical
example of an international trend: English is
especially popular in countries like China and
Indonesia, with their huge populations. So a
language which 500 years ago was only used by
a few million people in Britain is now spoken
or learned by about a quarter to a third of the
world’s population. Quite a success story!
12
(472 words)
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A TEXT-BASED TASKS
14 pts
Be careful with your spelling. For parts A to D you get 15 points extra for correct spelling.
1 Understanding the text
Answer the questions using the information in the text. You do not need to write
complete sentences.
3 pts
1 When did French become the language of the upper classes in England?
2 When did English begin to spread to Africa, Australia and New Zealand?
3 Why was English still used in countries like India and Nigeria after they became independent?
2 Answering questions
Answer the questions in complete sentences.
6 pts
1 Why do so many people in the Philippines speak English?
2 Why is English the main language of business people?
3 Why do German pop groups often sing in English? (You won’t find the answer in the text.)
3 Asking questions
You have been listening to a talk on how English became a world language. You didn’t
always understand the speaker. Ask five questions, using different question forms.
B USE OF LANGUAGE
16 pts
1 Working with words
Explain three of the following words. You can use complete sentences or synonyms.
1 message (l. 6)
2 independent (l. 31)
6 pts
3 popular (l. 65)
4 huge (l. 66)
2 Vocabulary and grammar
Read the text and write down the words in brackets in the correct form.
Sometimes people ______________ me, “Why should I learn a foreign
language? I’m not interested in __________ abroad anyway. I can’t get
the food I like, everything is ______________ expensive, and people
abroad usually ______________ tourists anyway.”
But even if you don’t go abroad, languages are important. They’ve
often been useful for me when I ______________ talk to foreigners at
work. And today, _______________ foreign TV programmes isn’t
__________ with a satellite dish. Millions of people ____________ it
every year. Today videos and computer programs help you to learn
the pronunciation more __________, which is important if you want
to speak the language _____________.
2
5 pts
1
2
3
4
10 pts
(ask)
(go)
(extreme)
(not/like)
5 (must)
6 (watch)
7 (hard)
9 (easy)
10 (proper)
8 (do)
C CREATIVE WRITING
38 pts
1 Describing a situation
Imagine and describe a situation where two people from different countries don’t speak
each other’s language and therefore use English to talk to each other.
Write about 50 words.
6 pts
2 What would you say?
Choose two of the following situations and write down what you would say.
Write about 50 words altogether.
6 pts
a An Australian friend wants to know the words of a song which is sung in English by a German
group, The Company. Try to help your friend.
b A group of French tourists want to know where the post office is in your town.
c Some American teenagers are looking at a sign in a park which says ‘Ballspielen verboten’.
They obviously don’t understand the sign and are going to play baseball. Explain the sign
to them and tell them why they shouldn’t play baseball there.
d Two English tourists want to go to a café. Suggest one and say why it is good.
3 What would you suggest?
Imagine a friend of yours is having problems with English. What would you suggest
that the friend should do to improve her/his English? Write down four suggestions.
6 pts
You could start like this: You could/should …
4 Writing a text
Choose either a or b. Write about 120 words.
20 pts
a Write an e-mail
You have joined an international chat group on the Internet. Introduce yourself to the group,
telling them about your home town and what you do in your spare time. Write in English, of
course!
b Write a letter
Your British penfriend wants to visit Germany next
year. His German is very poor, but he thinks that he
won’t have to speak German because most Germans
speak English anyway.
Write a letter to your penfriend and try to convince
him that he needs to improve his German. Mention
everyday situations when it is important to speak
German, e.g. staying at a campsite, shopping, asking
for directions.
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D SKILLS AND TECHNIQUES
1 Pass on the information
Your father is trying to help you with your English. He has bought a British newspaper
and has found an interesting article, ‘Delhi calling’. You start reading the article
together. Your father is getting quite frustrated because there are several things he
doesn’t understand. Help him by answering his questions in German.
27 pts
10 pts
It is 6.30 pm in an office in Delhi. A group of young Indians are talking on the phone. Their
customers, however, are a long way away, in a place where it is still lunchtime and probably cold.
The customers are in Britain and have rung a number in the United Kingdom to check their
mobile phone bills or to ask about a new product. Most of them do not know that they are talking
to an Indian call centre, Spectramind, thousands of kilometres away. This is not surprising, as the
staff at Spectramind do a 20-hour course in British culture. They watch videos of British soap
operas to get used to regional accents. They learn about Yorkshire pudding, and if a caller says
something about David Beckham or the Queen, the Indian staff are sure to have an answer.
Nothing is left to chance.
“They get a two-hour seminar on the royal family,” says Spectramind’s Raman Roy. “We
download the British newspapers every morning from the Internet to see what our customers are
reading. And we also explain about the weather, because British people refer to the subject so
often. It is a science,” he adds proudly.
And it is. So much so that Britain’s 3500 call centres are worried that their jobs will disappear
completely. A report last month said that Indian call centres were better than British centres. They
were cheaper and they had better technology and smarter staff.
Dein Vater will wissen, …
1 … warum britische Kunden/innen bei Spectramind anrufen.
2 … warum sich die indischen Mitarbeiter/innen von Spectramind britische Seifenopern anschauen.
3 … woher die indischen Mitarbeiter/innen so viel über die königliche Familie wissen.
4 … warum die indischen Mitarbeiter/innen über das Wetter in Großbritannien Bescheid wissen müssen.
5 … warum die britischen Callcenter sich Sorgen machen.
2 Use a dictionary
a Use the dictionary extract on page 18 to find the German equivalents of the English
phrases underlined below. Then complete the German sentences.
6 pts
(3 pts)
1 They talked over the problem at lunch.
2 Karen, can I talk to you for a minute?
3 They talked him into telling them where he had hidden the stolen money.
a Sie _____________ beim Mittagessen __________________________.
b Karen, kann ich einen Augenblick ___________________________?
c Sie ___________________________ , ihnen zu verraten, wo er das gestohlene Geld versteckt hatte.
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b Use the dictionary extract to find the English equivalents of the German phrases
underlined below. Then complete the English sentences.
(3 pts)
1 Meine Oma und mein Opa ziehen aufs Land.
2 Die Bundesrepublik Deutschland besteht aus 16 Ländern.
3 Der Kapitän ging an Land.
a My grandma and grandpa are moving ________________________.
b The Federal Republic of Germany consists of 16 _____________.
c The captain went ______________.
3 Translate into German
Translate lines 56 to 66 (“It is therefore … huge populations.”) into German.
E SPELLING CHECK
1 Test your spelling
Fill in the missing letters. The German words in brackets will help you.
11 pts
10 pts
5 pts
1 I’ve got very bad pains in my stom_____ after all that hot Indian food. (Magen)
2 My favourite food is s_____ages and chips. (Würstchen)
3 The food on this men___ looks very expensive. Shall we go to a cheaper restaurant?
(Speisekarte)
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4 I don’t think it’s ne______ary to buy so many clothes, do you? You don’t really need them.
(notwendig)
5 If things had devel____ed differently, maybe French would have become the world’s first
language. (sich entwickeln)
2 Scrambled letters
Arrange the scrambled letters so that they form a word.
PERKSEAS
CLOINSEO
DAYBROKE
TARGIMMINS
LAGUBILIN
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2
3
4
5
Many ______________ of English don’t know any foreign language.
Zimbabwe and Cameroon used to be British ______________.
My computer _______________ is broken, so I can’t type anything.
Many ___________________ to Britain already speak some English.
Somebody who speak two languages equally well is _______________.
5 pts