Roll No. ………………...

Mandalay University of Foreign Languages

Department of English
2023-2024 Academic Year
Second Semester Examination, September, 2024
First Year ENG 1001B
(For Non-English Specialization) English II
Time Allowed: (3) hours
Answer ALL questions.
Write only the answers in the answer booklet. Do not copy out the questions.
I. Read the text and answer the questions.
Social media, magazines and shop windows bombard people daily with things to buy,
and British consumers are buying more clothes and shoes than ever before. Online shopping
means it is easy for customers to buy without thinking, while major brands offer such cheap
clothes that they can be treated like disposable items – worn two or three times and then
thrown away.
In Britain, the average person spends more than £1,000 on new clothes a year, which
is around four per cent of their income. That might not sound like much, but that figure hides
two far more worrying trends for society and for the environment. First, a lot of that
consumer spending is via credit cards. British people currently owe approximately £670 per
adult to credit card companies. That’s 66 per cent of the average wardrobe budget. Also, not
only are people spending money they don’t have, they’re using it to buy things they don’t
need. Britain throws away 300,000 tons of clothing a year, most of which goes into landfill
sites.
People might not realise they are part of the disposable clothing problem because they
donate their unwanted clothes to charities. But charity shops can’t sell all those unwanted
clothes. ‘Fast fashion’ goes out of fashion as quickly as it came in and is often too poor
quality to recycle; people don’t want to buy it second-hand. Huge quantities end up being
thrown away, and a lot of clothes that charities can’t sell are sent abroad, causing even more
economic and environmental problems.
However, a different trend is springing up in opposition to consumerism – the ‘buy
nothing’ trend. The idea originated in Canada in the early 1990s and then moved to the US,
where it became a rejection of the overspending and overconsumption of Black Friday and
Cyber Monday during Thanksgiving weekend. On Buy Nothing Day people organise various
types of protests and cut up their credit cards. Throughout the year, Buy Nothing groups
organise the exchange and repair of items they already own.
The trend has now reached influencers on social media who usually share posts of
clothing and make-up that they recommend for people to buy. Some YouTube stars now
encourage their viewers not to buy anything at all for periods as long as a year. Two friends
in Canada spent a year working towards buying only food. For the first three months they
learned how to live without buying electrical goods, clothes or things for the house. For the
next stage, they gave up services, for example haircuts, eating out at restaurants or buying
petrol for their cars. In one year, they’d saved $55,000.
The changes they made meant two fewer cars on the roads, a reduction in plastic and
paper packaging and a positive impact on the environment from all the energy saved. If
everyone followed a similar plan, the results would be impressive. But even if you can’t
manage a full year without going shopping, you can participate in the anti-consumerist
movement by refusing to buy things you don’t need. Buy Nothing groups send a clear
message to companies that people are no longer willing to accept the environmental and
human cost of overconsumption.

I. (A) Match the correct definition of each phrase. (5 marks)

Vocabulary Definitions
1. …… overconsumption a. to hit someone with a lot of something, without pausing
2. …… to bombard b. to appear
3. …… to spring up c. the act of spending more money than you should
4. …… overspending d. using too much of something
5. …… an influencer e. someone who uses social media to advertise products to their
followers
I. (B) Read the text and write T for (True) and F for (False). (5 marks)
1. People buy clothes because they want to throw them away.
2. The writer thinks it is worrying that people spend money on things they do not need.
3. The amount the average Briton owes on credit cards is one third of the amount they spend
on clothes each year.
4. The two friends who did the ‘buy nothing’ experiment only bought food for 12 months.
5. If everyone followed the Buy Nothing idea, the environment would benefit.
I. (C) Read the text and fill in the following blanks. (5 marks)
1. Fast ………… is made quickly and cheaply.
2. There is a worrying trend for more consumers ……………… on credit cards.
3. Giving clothes to charity ……………… does not completely solve the problem.
4. Make sure you only donate clothes that people will want to buy second-……………… .
5. A lot of clothes donated to charity cannot be reused and end up in landfill……………… .
I. (D) Write a summary on the given passage. (5 marks)
II. Match Column A with Column B to make the sentences complete. (5 marks)
Column A Column B
1. If you study hard for your examination, if you sit out in the sun for a long time
2. If it does not rain, if you do not give them water
3. It is bad for your skin he will go to the cinema
4. Your bank card won’t work you will pass with high marks
5. Plants die if you don’t have enough money in your
account
III. Complete the sentences with the quantifiers. (5 marks)
1. There are ……………… recycling bins in each office.
2. We do not use ……………..aluminium foil because cling film is better.
3. I only get ………………exercise at the gym each week.
4. We try to reuse a ……………of our paper as well as recycling it.
5. There are ………………ink cartridges in that box.

IV (A). Write a letter to your friend who gets holidays for three days to invite him or
her to come and enjoy the barbecue with friends. (10 marks)

IV(B). Write an essay on “The Biggest and Most Colorful Party in Myanmar”.
(15 marks)