MT 31-DSE

ENG LANG
HONG KONG DIPLOMA OF SECONDARY EDUCATION EXAMINATION
PAPER 4
MOCK TEST 31
ENGLISH LANGUAGE PAPER 4

PART A Group Interaction

This Letter to the Editor appeared in a newspaper in Hong Kong:

Re: Hong Kong minibus hits two double-deckers on congested road

In early October, a minibus struck two double-decker buses, injuring twenty-six people—including children.
This tragedy comes right on the heels of a fatal crash in September that killed three people and injured a
further thirty-one people. Both of these accidents were tragic, of course. The larger tragedy is that both of
them may have been preventable.
Hong Kong bus drivers start at just HK$13,000 per month. A recent survey completed by real estate
company Century 21 Canada found that Hong Kong came in as the most expensive place to buy property in
the world. For renters, a small 350-square-foot apartment might go for HK$10,000; even a tiny subdivided
flat could cost between HK$3500 and HK$7000.
It’s no surprise that the bus companies are facing a labour shortage, nor it is a surprise that many drivers opt
to work overtime in order to supplement their meagre base wages. Many drivers work up to 14 hours a day
or 360 hours a month, the equivalent of almost two full-time jobs, just to make ends meet.
Tired drivers mean more accidents. This is a matter of labour fairness and of public safety.
Thankfully, there is a solution. Citizens of Hong Kong should lobby for maximum daily hours for bus
drivers—10 hours is what the district council is calling for—and drivers should be paid a much higher base
wage.
—Jamie Lam

You are members of a group that is going to give a presentation on whether Hong Kong bus drivers
should be paid more, and whether a law limiting daily bus driving hours should be passed. You may
want to talk about:
 public safety benefits of limiting the daily hours a bus driver can work
 advantages of raising bus driver wages
 disadvantages of raising bus driver wages and limiting the daily hours a bus driver can work
 anything else you think is important

PART B Individual Response

1. Would you want to work as a bus driver in Hong Kong?
2. How should legislators, bus drivers and bus company owners decide on the maximum daily number of
hours a bus driver can work?
3. Can you think of solutions to the bus driver problem other than raising wages and limiting working
hours?
4. When should the government intervene in labour issues like the one between the bus drivers and the bus
company owners?
5. When a bus driver gets into an accident, should they lose their job?
6. What are some other ways to improve road safety in Hong Kong?
7. Who should be held responsible when a bus driver working overtime gets into an accident?
8. What do you think a bus driver should do if they realize, while working, that they are too tired to be
driving?
(S5) MT 31-DSE-ENG LANG 4–1 1 DO NOT TAKE
© Oxford AWAY
University Press
Written by Andrea Bennett (5.1/2017-18)
This mock test may be adapted by teachers. OUP accepts no responsibility for changes made to original materials.
 Possible answers
Part A
S1: Hi everyone! OK, so we’re responsible for
giving a presentation about whether Hong
Kong drivers should be paid more, and
whether Hong Kong should pass a law that
limits the daily number of hours a bus driver
can work. Where should we start?
S2: I think the answers to these questions are
easy! Yes, they should be paid more, and yes,
we should pass the law. Neither of these
decisions should be controversial for anyone.
S1: Be that as it may, we still need to give a
presentation!
S3: I disagree that the decisions are
uncontroversial. There are lots of things that
you need to consider.
S2: Like what?
S3: Well, right now it’s really cheap to take buses.
They are an affordable method of transport for
poor people in the city who need to get to
work. If the bus drivers are going to be paid
more money, where will that money come
from?
S4: That’s a good point. We haven’t been given
any information about how profitable the bus
companies are. If the owners of the company
are making really big profits, then wage
increases could come out of the profits. But if
they have a narrow profit margin, then the
companies might need to raise the rates that
they charge passengers. Passengers would
probably be mad about that.
S1: Would you pay more to take the bus if you
knew that it would have a positive impact for
the drivers?
S2: I would. But I’m also in a position where I
could pay more.
S1: I agree. I would pay a little more if I knew that
the money was going to the drivers.
S4: Hmm. One potential solution, then, could be to
develop bus passes for low-income people. If a
person or a family earned less than a certain
amount of money per year, then they could get
bus passes for less than the people who could
afford to pay more.
S3: That could be hard to implement. How would
the bus companies determine someone’s
income?
S4: Well, there are a few different ways. Income tax
statements, for one.
S1: I think we’re getting a little off-track here! I like
the idea of offering a low-income bus pass and
I think we could offer that as a solution to
needing to raise the bus fees in our
presentation. We probably don’t need to get
into exactly how we would do that.
S3: You’re right! I like to really think things
through, sorry.
S1: Is there anything else we need to consider
when it comes to deciding on whether or not to
raise drivers’ salaries, or are we all in
agreement that we should?
S4: I think that we can make a more positive case
for it.
S1: What do you mean?
(S5) MT 31-DSE-ENG LANG 4–2
This mock test may be adapted by teachers. OUP accepts no responsibility for changes made to original materials.
S4: We haven’t talked about this yet, but one of the
reasons that drivers are working long hours is
so that they can make enough money to
survive. This has a negative public health
impact.
S2: Yes, go on.
S4: If we decide we want to limit the amount of
daily hours or weekly hours that drivers can
work, and we don’t increase their salaries, then
they will probably just have to get second jobs.
S1: Oh, so they might still end up being tired while
driving anyway.
S3: Also, the article said that there aren’t enough
bus drivers because the wages are too low. So
if we choose to limit hours and not raise
wages, there might be no one left to drive
some of the bus routes.
S4: Exactly. Also, I like to read about economics in
my spare time, and I know that when people
who don’t make a lot of money get paid a bit
more money, it’s good for society overall.
Really wealthy people tend to save a lot of
money or invest it, but people on the lower end
of the income scale usually put the money
right back into the economy. They buy more
food and clothing, maybe find better housing,
and spend more money on activities, like going
to the cinema, that they couldn’t previously
afford.
S1: I’m not sure I follow? How would we make this
an argument in our presentation?
S4: It’s a social benefit of increasing wages. If we
are worried that increasing the wages would
negatively impact other people who work
service or labour jobs, then this is a
counterargument, because the increased
wages would have a positive benefit for those
people in the long run.
S1: Oh, I get it. I think there’s an expression for
that, ‘a rising tide lifts all boats’.
S3: Cool. I like that. Are there any other arguments
we could make in favour of raising driver
wages? Or any arguments against raising
driver wages that we should anticipate?
S1: Those are good questions. I think it seems like
we are definitely in favour of arguing for
raising driver wages. I can’t think of any other
arguments for or against that we should
include, though.
S2: Me neither. But I’ve been in favour since the
beginning!
S4: That’s all I can think of for now.
S1: OK, let’s move on to discussing limiting driver
hours. What are the benefits of limiting driver
hours?
S2: I think we should argue for limiting the daily
number of driver hours to 10 hours a day, and
also making sure that drivers get enough
breaks while they are driving. The major
argument is that this is vital to public safety.
Tired drivers get into accidents.
S3: Yes, I agree that the main argument needs to
focus on public safety. We could list the
number of people who have been injured or
killed during these accidents in our
presentation. Those numbers speak for
themselves. I can’t imagine losing a friend or
family member like that.
2 © Oxford University Press
 S1: OK, I think we all agree that we’ll focus on that.
S4: It’s something that council is calling for, too.
We could also mention that.
S2: We could also look up some statistics to back
up our claim. Maybe there are statistics about
driving tired?
S1: That’s a good idea. I’ll make a note to do that.
S4: We already talked about this, but I think our
presentation should focus on limiting driving
hours first, then talk about raising wages. If we
limit hours, we also need to raise wages.
S1: You’re right. We can do it in that order.
S3: The other thing we need to address when it
comes to limiting hours is the labour shortage
of bus drivers.
S1: Yes, that might be a reason not to limit hours.
S4: We could suggest phasing in the limited hours
and immediately increasing the wages. So, first
we go to twelve hours a day, then in a couple
months, ten hours. That would give the
companies time to hire more drivers, and more
drivers would be interested in the work
because it would pay more and be less tiring.
S1: That’s a great idea. I think we’ve figured this
presentation out. Good work, everyone!
(S5) MT 31-DSE-ENG LANG 4–3
This mock test may be adapted by teachers. OUP accepts no responsibility for changes made to original materials.
Part B, Question 5
I think it is hard to answer with ‘yes’ or ‘no’ because
not all accidents are the fault of the driver. Also,
some accidents that are the fault of the driver—like
just barely hitting a parked car while turning a
corner—are not serious accidents, as they don’t
result in injury to pedestrians or people riding the
bus. It’s also important to balance safety with
fairness. Many people make mistakes in their jobs
without losing them, but people who work in jobs
where they are responsible for the health and safety
of others need to be more careful to make sure that
they do not hurt or injure others. If a driver has
made a needlessly reckless driving choice, or if
they have been drinking alcohol before or during
work, then they should lose their job. If a driver is
too tired to drive, and gets into a serious accident,
they should maybe lose their job. However, they
should be able to call in ‘tired’ (like calling in sick),
during a shift if they realize they can’t drive, and
they should be paid for the full shift. This solution
would balance fairness and safety.
3 © Oxford University Press