Lycée Georges MABIGNATH REPUBLIQUE GABONAISE

DEPARTEMENT D’ANGLAIS Union-Travail-Justice

DEVOIR COMMUN D’ANGLAIS (niveau 1ere)

I/ TEXT COMPREHENSION
Read the text below carefully, then answer the following questions Out of
8 points
TEXT : The oldest tea in Britain
The oldest tea in Britain, a box of leaves and flowers neatly labelled " a sort of tea from China" more
than 300 years ago, has turned up in the stores of the Natural History Museum in London. When it was
brought back by james Cunninghame, a Scottish surgeon and amateur naturalist in the late 17th century,
tea was still a fabulous rarity, sold at between six and 60 shillings a pound, 10 times the price of even
the best coffee. Cunninghame was a passionate plant hunter and may have collected his samples at Amoy
in Fujian province, or on the island of Chusan where he described tea growing wild and the local farmers
preparing the leaves for the drink. Academics from Queen Mary University London uncovered his
samples while researching the history of the exotic import which rapidly became the British national
drink, for a book to be published this summer. They yearned to taste it but were not allowed to touch
the tea. Instead, the glass lid of the small cardboard box was lifted, and they were permitted to sniff the
contents. "It had a very faint scent of hay", his co-author Richard Coulton said. However, he added : "
fresh tea really doesn’t last very long- I doubt very much that it would be drinkable." Cuninghame
corresponded with an even more passionate and far wealthier medicine man and plant collector, Hans
Sloane. Sloane had introduced England to another exotic brew. By adding milk to ground cocoa beans
from Jamaica he reduced the bitterness and gave birth to drinking chocolate. Like chocolate, tea was
first promoted for its medicinal value. From the start despite, or because of, the enormous cost, tea
drinking spread rapidly among the wealthy. By 1660 Samuel Pepys recorded : " I did send for a cup of
tea (a china drink) of which I never had drank before." The porcelain cups and tea pots came in with the
leaves, used as ballast to counteract the problem for shippers of a very bulky but very light cargo. The
drink became cheaper in the 19th century when the East India company began to import in bulk tea
grown on land it controlled in India, instead of entering into fractious negotiations with chinese
merchants. Tea became an emblem of domestic virtue and temperance though the temperance movement
was initially suspicious of its dangerously stimulant qualities and the tea break the joyful mandatory
pause in an exhausting day’s industrial labour.
Maev Kennedy, the Guardian, May 26, 2015

Vocabulaire : yearned : avoir vraiment envie de ; hay : herbes sèches ; fractious : ici compliqué ;
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 A/ GLOBAL COMPREHENSION

a) circle the correct answer (0,5×4=2pts)

1- this text is taken from

a) a magazine b) a website c) a newspaper d) an unknown source

2- the genre of the text is

a) informative b) descriptive c) argumentative d) injunctive

3- this text deals with

a) tea in Britain b) the coca cola story c) hot chocolate d) coffee in Britain

4- the author of the text is

a) not mentioned b) Maev kenedy c) a group of scientist d) Maev Kennedy

B/ DETAILED COMPREHENSION

a) find in the text the synonyms of (0,5×2= 1pt)

1- Sobriety……………………………………. ; 2- Inhale……………………………………….

And the antonyms of (0,5×2=1pt)

1- Abundance……………………………………… ; Removing…………………………………..

b) say whether the following statements are true or false ; justify your answer by quoting from
the text, indicate the line(s) [T/F 0,25 ; quotation 0,5 ; line(s) 0,25] 4pts

Statement T F Quotation Line(s)

Chocolate was first promoted for its

Tea first spread among the middle

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 II/ PERSONAL PRODUCTION
Topic : From the reading of the text explain with your own words the evolution of tea Out of
6 points
consumption (150-200words)

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 III/ LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE Out of
6 points
1- ask question corresponding to the words underlined (1×4=4pts)
a) He went to paris to learn French
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b) She likes Cassava
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c) Mr Koumba is tall with black eyes
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d) She lives at Rio
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2- Put the verbs in parenthesis into the correct form and tense (0,5×4=2pts)

a) Paul (to read) a Shakespeare at the moment

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b) England (buy) tea to china in the 17th century

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c) She (not/ to know) the name of the teacher

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d) where you (go) last night ?

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