PREVIOUS QUESTION (SAMPLE) PAPER

MAY/JUNE 2019

This examination paper consists of 8 pages.

INSTRUCTIONS
This examination paper is divided into three sections:

SECTION A: Multiple Choice Questions

SECTION B: Short Answer Questions
SECTION C: Essay Question

ANSWER ALL QUESTIONS IN SECTIONS A AND B. CHOOSE ONE OF THE

TOPICS IN SECTION C AND WRITE AN ESSAY.

Open Rubric
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SECTION A: MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS

NB: Please note that both Sections A and B are based on the passage below.
Read the following passage and the answer the questions that follow.

Answer ALL questions in this section. Read Text A “My Bully, My Best Friend” by
Gaetz et al. 2018 and answer the questions that follow. Write only the question number
and the letter you consider as the correct answer (Example: 1. C).

Text A:
My Bully, My Best Friend
Yannick LeJacq

Yannick LeJacq is a freelance writer and photographer living in New York City. His work has
appeared in Kill Screen, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, and other publications. In the
following essay, he relates his personal experience about bullying.

1. The first time someone called me a “faggot” I didn’t hear it at all. That’s because my head
was being slammed against a locker, the syllables crashing together like cymbals in my
ear. In the locker room after lacrosse, Fred, tall clear-skinned, and golden, would snap at
my ankles with his stick. I lived the next months in fear. Before the start of high school, I
asked my brother if he could teach me how to punch somebody. But I didn’t have to learn.
Fred left our school. I heard his dad was seen screaming in the office about what a screw-
up his son was, a detail I relished with a grim smile. Mostly, I was relieved Fred was gone,
and I could stop jumping every time I heard a locker slam.

2. Life was good. It got even better when I met John during soccer practice. He was quirky;
he wore the same pair of purple sweatpants to school every day, and he joked about how
much he masturbated. We became best friends.

3. I was happy to have someone to sit with at lunch, but eventually John started to do
something I didn’t understand — he would constantly tell me I was gay. He wrote it on my
textbook in biology, where we sat together, and he would whisper it while pointing at me.
At that point, I was 14 and barely knew what sex was beyond the definitions I’d gleaned
from health class and pornography. But I knew that “gay” meant more than having sex with
men. “Gay” was a word that boys tossed around like hot potato, everyone hurling the insult
in the vain hope it wouldn’t stick to them. It was a word to be feared, but still buoyant
enough not to always be taken seriously. I figured John was using it playfully, among
friends, the way he would also call me “Jew.”

4. A few weeks later, John invited me to join an online conference using our school’s in-
house email system for a movie he wanted to make. The film was about one of our heavier
friends, Drew, escaping from fat camp. Fat. Gay. Jew. The words were piling up, but I
didn’t care. I had finally wedged my foot in the door. We went over to John’s house to mess
around with a camera one Saturday, but all we ended up filming was
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Drew chasing a line of bagels rolling down the street while chanting “donut, donut, donut!”
Instead, the conference became a place to jab at each other while sitting on school
computers. Eventually, John started making more of his gay jokes.

5. At first I was flattered. This was still a form of attention. And, frankly, I craved attention.
But things got weird around spring break. John wrote stories about me taking little boys
and animals into the woods to have sex with them and other stories about me being
molested by priests and loving it.

6. Finally, I asked him to stop. The insults meant nothing, I told him in an email, but I would
bow out of the group. Still, I stayed up late at night at the family computer, reading and re-
reading more elaborately crafted insults and waiting for the page to refresh. “Since Yannick
isn’t reading any more,” he posted, “I can now say, ‘Yannick is GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY
GAY GAY GAY’ .” It went on like that for a while. The other boys just laughed.

7. One morning, I checked my email in the school library and saw a note from our IT adviser.
He had discovered the online conference. The news spread quietly through the
administration, which did its best to stop any further damage. A faculty member reminded
kids during Monday announcements to be mindful of the correspondence we keep on the
school’s email. John was identified as the ringleader and quietly whisked away for
probation. I was rushed in to meet with the head of the upper school, my old lacrosse
coach. He asked me that bland, unanswerable question, “Are you OK?” Tears were in his
eyes as he apologized for what the school had let happen to me.

8. There’s a weird tension once authorities become involved in teenage arguments. It was a
relief that someone finally made it stop. But it was equally bizarre to hear our conversations
reinterpreted by adults who were trying to determine the arbitrary moment when a cruel
jest slid into unacceptable hatred.

9. The night the news broke at school, John’s mother called me. She was livid with him, she
said, and didn’t understand why someone would do something like this. She couldn’t say
she was sorry enough. I stammered out the same response I would learn to tell everybody.
“It’s OK, I’m fine.” Then she put John on the phone. It was the first time we’d spoken since
an army of adults swarmed around us. It was the last time we would really speak for almost
three years.

10. “Yannick?” John’s voice was frail, as if he was barely finished crying. I thought about his
parents standing above him as he sat on the couch in his living room, face buried in his
palms, trying to explain things he couldn’t and didn’t want to. It was the same position I
was in earlier that day, the same position I would be in many times in the coming weeks.
“I’m really sorry."

11. “It’s OK,” I said. “I’m fine.”

12. “I really don’t know why I did that. I don’t know what I was thinking — I wasn’t really
thinking, was I?” he asked to his mother. “Still friends?” he asked me.

13. “Still friends.”

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14. We both knew the words were hollow. I switched seats in biology, and we avoided each
other. My mother called John a monster. My brother fumed about how the school needed
to expel him. Everyone wanted me to be angry, but all I wanted was to have my friend
back.

15. Hating Fred was much simpler. The violence of getting your head kicked into a locker is
so obvious, and I could redirect it. At night, I would stare at the knife rack in my kitchen
and wonder what it would be like to make one of us bleed. But John hadn’t hurt me in a
way I understood. So I did my best to disappear. I spent days down in the photo lab,
bringing my lunch there to avoid the cafeteria. I took as many classes as I could. I
pretended to search through my locker until the hallway was empty so I could walk to class
alone. I tied and retied my shoes. Then the next fall, I dropped out of soccer. The coach
didn’t ask why.

16. John went to the varsity team and became class president. Every time he did something
remotely public, someone would whisk me into an office and ask how I felt. “It’s OK,” I
would say. “I’m fine.” For a long time, I didn’t hate the people in high school so much as I
loathed the school itself.

17. We can gaze aghast at the horror of bullies every time a new tragedy surfaces, but asking
where this violence truly comes from is much more difficult. Years later, after my school
recorded its first case of cyber-bullying, the same administrator who cried in front of me in
his office did his best to stop the school’s Gay Straight Alliance from hosting a queer prom.
Lower-school parents, he explained to my friend who was planning the event, had seen
posters in the high school hallways and didn’t want their children to be affected.

Extracted from: Gaetz, L., Phadke, S. and Gillet, A.,Hammond, A., and Martala, M. (2018).
Academic English: Reading and Writing Across Disciplines. Pearson Education Limited:
Essex. pp.246-248.

Answer all questions in this multiple choice. Write only the question number and
the letter you consider as the correct option.

1. In paragraph 1, what does “faggot” mean?

a. A female homosexual.
b. A male homosexual.
c. A soft-bodied legless larva of a fly or other insect, found in decaying matter.
d. Someone who is lonely.

2. How did Yannick react when he was first called “gay” by John (see paragraph
3)?
a. Confused.
b. Afraid.
c. Humiliated.
d. Unbothered.
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3. In paragraph 4, the writer says, “I had finally wedged my foot in the door.” What
is he referring to in that statement?
a. His foot was stuck under the door.
b. He felt he finally belonged to a group of friends.
c. He had managed to stop the door from opening.
d. He had managed to close the door to prevent Drew from entering.

4. What is the topic sentence in paragraph 7?

a. “One morning, I checked my e-mail in the school library and saw a note from
our IT adviser”.
b. “He had discovered the online conference”.
c. “Tears were in his eyes as he apologized for what the school had let happen
to me”.
d. “John was identified as the ringleader and quietly whisked away for
probation”.

5. What does it mean for words to be “hollow” (paragraph 14)?

a. The words have holes in them.
b. The words are damaged.
c. The words are meaningless.
d. The words are deep.

6. How does Yannick feel about John in paragraph 14?

a. He felt he was a mean monster.
b. He felt the school needed to expel him.
c. He felt extremely angry and ignored him.
d. He wanted everything to go back to normal.

7. Why could Yannick not hate John (paragraph 15)?

a. Hating Fred was much simpler.
b. Because Fred slammed his head against a locker.
c. John had not hurt him in any way.
d. John was his best friend.

8. Describe Yannick in paragraph 15.

a. An introvert.
b. An extrovert.
c. Pessimistic.
d. Optimistic.
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9. What was the social issue between John and Yannick?

a. Peer pressure.
b. Bullying.
c. Verbal abuse.
d. Discrimination.

10. What technique does the writer use in the following line:
“We can gaze aghast at the horror of bullies every time a new tragedy surfaces,
but asking where this violence truly comes from is much more difficult”
(paragraphs 17).
a. He is making an emotional appeal.
b. He is considering both sides of the issue.
c. He is identifying cause and effect.
d. He is developing his argument.

[2 x 10 = 20 marks]

SECTION B: SHORT ANSWER QUESTIONS

Answer ALL questions in this section. Refer to Text A “My Bully, My Best Friend” by
Gaetz et al. (2018) when answering these questions. Your answer should be in a
paragraph of 100 words for each question.

1. How does the title “My Bully, My Best Friend” help you to understand the
psychological state of mind of a bullied child? You may provide some of your own
examples to explain your answer. (10 marks)

2. Discuss how bullying affects young children (consult paragraphs 11-16)? Consider
how bullying affects the victims into adulthood? (10 marks)

3. According to the last paragraph, “asking where this violence comes from is much
more difficult”. In your own words, what do you think contributes to a child becoming
a bully? What can schools do to assist children who are bullied? (10 marks)
[10 x3 = 30 marks]
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SECTION C: ESSAY QUESTION

Choose ONE of the following essay topics and write an essay of no more than 500
words in length (1 ½ to 2 pages). You may refer to Text A, Text B and/or Text C to
enhance your answer.
a) Research has been conducted on statistics and figures of cyberbullying, for
example Liebenberg (2018) below: To what extent does social networking
contribute to cyber bullying? In your argument, you should clearly state your point
of view and provide reasons to support your perspective.
OR
b) Van Hee (2018) observes that social media has both positive and negative
attributes in the workplace. Critically discuss/evaluate the pros and cons of social
media, in your essay, you should use as least 2/3 case studies and explain your
point of view/stance/position.
Write an expository/discursive essay in which you indicate your views on the issue.

Take note of the following guidelines when writing your essay:

 Your essay should comprise of an introduction, body paragraphs and a

conclusion.
 Your paragraphs should be brief and should include a topic sentence.
 Your writing should remain formal.
 Adhere to the stipulated word count.
 Use the references as indicated at the end of each text.

Text B:
Bullying is not a new phenomenon and cyberbullying has manifested itself as soon as digital
technologies have become primary communication tools. On the positive side, social media
like blogs, social networking sites (e.g. Facebook), and instant messaging platforms (e.g.
WhatsApp) make it possible to communicate with anyone and at any time. Moreover, they are
a place where people engage in social interaction, offering the possibility to establish new
relationships and maintain existing friendships. On the negative side however, social media
increase the risk of children being confronted with threatening situations including grooming
or sexually transgressive behaviour, signals of depression and suicidal thoughts, and
cyberbullying. Users are reachable 24/7 and are often able to remain anonymous if desired:
this makes social media a convenient way for bullies to target their victims outside the school
yard.

Extracted from: Van Hee, C. et al. (2018). Automatic detection of cyberbullying in social media
text. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0203794. Accessed 2019, January 16.
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Text C:
This study indicated that most of the total sample reported having internet access at home
and owned their own cell phones. This study showed that 29% of the sample admitted that
they had been cyberbullied and 13% of the sample admitted that they had been perpetrators
of cyber bullying. However, 78% of the total sample population reported knowing someone
who had been cyberbullied. This indicates that the prevalence of cyber bullying among Grade
7 to 9 learners in selected private schools in Gauteng is high, but yet in line with international
reports…

Regarding awareness of school programmes to prevent cyber bullying, 40% of learners were
not aware of any programmes at their school. Learners reported that parents mostly talk to
them about online safety but only 28% of learners said their parents talk to them about cyber
bullying. In this study, approximately a quarter of the total sample population stated that they
did not know what to do if they were cyberbullied.

Extracted from: Liebenberg, A. (2018). The Prevalence of Cyber bullying in Gauteng private
schools among Grade 7 to 9 learners. A research report submitted in partial fulfilment of the
requirements for the degree of Masters in Educational Psychology in the Humanities Faculty,
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. pp. 1-2.

[50 marks]
TOTAL MARKS FOR THIS EXAMINATION: [100 MARKS]

©
UNISA 2019