INGLÉS

qwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqw
ertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwert
yuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyui
opasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopa
MODELOS DE EXAMEN BECAS
sdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdf
IDIOMA INGLÉS
ghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghj
FACULTAD DE DERECHO UBA
DEPARTAMENTO DE IDIOMAS
klzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklz
xcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcv
bnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbn
mqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmq
wertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwe
rtyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwerty
uiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuio
pasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopas
dfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfg
hjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjk
lzxcvbnmrtyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbn
mqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmq
wertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwe
rtyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwerty
uiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuio
pasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopas
FACULTAD DE DERECHO
UNIVERSIDAD DE BUENOS AIRES
Nombre y Apellido: _________________________________
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Identify each page of the exam. Write your full name on it in BLOCK
CAPITALS.
2. The exam consists of two parts: Part A: (Reading Comprehension and

Writing Exercises); Part B: Listening Comprehension and Writing.
3. Pay attention to time requirements. The maximum time allowed to

complete the exam shall be 2 hours and 30 minutes. After the time
allowed has elapsed, you will have to hand in all papers whether
complete or incomplete. Thus it is important to time yourself. After
the time allowed for each part has elapsed the examiner will collect
the papers whether complete or incomplete.
4. Read carefully the instructions provided for each activity, so that you
do exactly as you are requested.
5. I you will have to strictly respect the number of words requested for
any given writing exercise. It is essential that you shape your writing
to accomplish that objective without exceeding the number of words
allowed.
6. Do not write in pencil, write clearly, using block capitals if possible.

Identify each page. Place your signature on each page.
7. You will have to pass an oral test provided you first score successfully
in the written exam.
1
FACULTAD DE DERECHO
Part A: Reading Comprehension
Turning Japanese- The absence of leadership in the West is

frightening—and also rather familiar
The Economist Jul 30th 2011
A GOVERNMENT’S credibility is founded on its commitment to honour its debts. As a

result of the dramas of the past few weeks, that crucial commodity is eroding in the
West. The struggles in Europe to keep Greece in the euro zone and the brinkmanship in
America over the debt ceiling have presented investors with an unattractive choice:
should you buy the currency that may default, or the one that could disintegrate?
In the early days of the economic crisis the West’s leaders did a reasonable job of
clearing up a mess that was only partly of their making. Now the politicians have
become the problem. In both America and Europe, they are exhibiting the sort of
behaviour that could turn a downturn into stagnation. The West’s leaders are not willing
to make tough choices; and everybody—the markets, the leaders of the emerging world,
the banks, even the voters—knows it. It is a mark of how low expectations have sunk
that the euro zone’s half-rescue of Greece on July 21st was greeted with relief. As The
Economist went to press, it still was not clear on what terms America’s debt limit would
be raised, and for how long. Even if the current crises abate or are averted, the real
danger persists: that the West’s political system cannot take the difficult decisions
needed to recover from a crisis and prosper in the years ahead.
The world has seen this before. Two decades ago, Japan’s economic bubble popped;
since then its leaders have procrastinated and postured. The years of political paralysis
have done Japan more harm than the economic excesses of the 1980s. Its economy has
barely grown and its regional influence has withered. As a proportion of GDP, its gross
public debt is the highest in the world, twice America’s and nearly twice Italy’s. If
something similar were to happen to its fellow democracies in Europe and America, the
consequences would be far larger. No wonder China’s autocrats, flush with cash and an
(only partly deserved) reputation for getting things done, feel as if the future is on their
side.
Though both about debt, the arguments in Europe and America have very different
origins. The euro crisis was brought on by investors with genuine worries about the
solvency of several euro-zone countries. By contrast the stand-off in Washington is a
political creation, thrust upon initially incredulous investors. Increasing America’s
overdraft beyond $14.3 trillion should have been relatively simple. But Republican
congressmen, furious about big government, have recklessly used it as a political tool to
embarrass Barack Obama.
The similarity between the European and American dramas lies in the protagonists’
refusal to face reality. European politicians, led by Angela Merkel, have gone to absurd
lengths to avoid admitting two truths: that Greece is bust; and that north Europeans
(and Mrs. Merkel’s thrifty Germans in particular) will end up footing a good part of the
bill, either by transferring money to the south or by bailing out their own banks.
They have failed to undertake a serious restructuring: the current rescue package
reduces Greece’s debt, but not by enough to give it a genuine chance of recovery. As a
result, Greece, and maybe other peripheral European countries too, will need another
bail-out sooner or later. Just as in Japan, politicians have failed to make the structural
labour- and product-market reforms essential to spurring growth. If this deal spawns a
fiscal union within Europe, as it may well, that will not be because Mrs. Merkel and her
peers took a bold, strategic and transparent decision to create one, but because they
ran away from more immediate forms of pain .
America’s debt debate seems still more kabuki-like. Its fiscal problem is not now—it
should be spending to boost recovery—but in the medium term. Its absurdly complicated
tax system raises very little, and the ageing of its baby-boomers will push its vast
entitlement programmes towards bankruptcy. Mr. Obama set up a commission to
examine this issue and until recently completely ignored its sensible conclusions. The
president also stuck too long to the fiction that the deficit can be plugged by taxing the
rich more: he even wasted part of a national broadcast this week bashing the wealthy,
though the Democrats had already withdrawn proposals for such rises.
Yet Mr. Obama and his party seem a model of fiscal statesmanship compared with their
Republican opponents. Once upon a time the American right led the world when it came
to rethinking government; now it is an intellectual pygmy. The House Republicans could
not even get their budget sums right, so the vote had to be delayed. A desire to curb
Leviathan is admirable, but the tea-partiers live in a fantasy world in which the
2
FACULTAD DE DERECHO
deficit can be reduced without any tax increases: even Mr. Obama’s attempts to
remove loopholes in the tax code drive the zealots into paroxysms of outrage.
In both Europe and America electorates seem to be turning inward. There is the same
division between “ins” and “outs” that has plagued Japan. In Europe one set of middle-
class workers is desperate to hang on to protections and privileges: millions of others are
stuck in unprotected temporary jobs or are unemployed. In both Europe and America
well-connected public-sector unions obstruct progress. And then there is the greatest
(and also the least sustainable) division of all: between the old, clinging tightly to
entitlements they claim to have earned, and the young who will somehow have to pay
for all this.
Sometimes crises beget bold leadership. Not, unfortunately, now. Japan has mostly been
led by a string of weak consensus-seekers. For all their talents, both Mr. Obama and Mrs.
Merkel are better at following public opinion than leading it.
The problem lies not just in the personalities involved, but also in the political
structures. Japan’s dysfunctional politics were rooted in its one-party system: petty
factionalism has survived both the Liberal Democratic Party’s resounding defeat in 2009
and the recent tsunami. In America’s Congress the moderate centre —conservative
Democrats and liberal Republicans—has collapsed, in part because partisan redistricting
has handed over power to the extremes. In Europe national politicians, answerable to
their own electorates, are struggling to confront continent-wide problems.
Autocrats need not sneer at the troubles of Western democracies. The problems the
latter face would tax any government; and, as the Asian financial crisis a decade ago
showed, dictatorships are often worse at distributing pain. Moreover, Western politics is
less broken than many allege. Since 2009 Congress has passed a huge stimulus and the
health-care bill, both controversial yet also evidence that the legislature can get things
done. For all their petty foolishness, the Republicans are bringing issues like tax reform
and entitlements into the national debate. Outside the euro zone—in Britain, and in the
Baltic republics, for instance—politicians have implemented reforms and austerity
programmes with admirable speed.
Our views on what the West should do will be painfully familiar to readers. Europe’s
politicians need to implement not just a serious restructuring of the peripheral
countries’ debts but also a serious reform of their economies, to clean out cronyism,
corruption and all the inefficiencies that hold back their growth. America’s Democrats
need to accept entitlement cuts and Republicans higher taxes. Independent commissions
should set electoral boundaries. And so on.
Japan’s politicians had umpteen chances to change course; and the longer they avoided
doing so, the harder it became. Their peers in the West should heed that example.
a) Answer the following questions. Try to use your own words
1) Which of the following proverbs best depicts the situation for investors in the
first paragraph? Justify your choice in no more than 50 words.
a. A bird in hand is worth two in the bush.
b. Every cloud has a silver lining.
c. Between a rock and a hard place.
d. One good turn deserves another.
3
FACULTAD DE DERECHO
2. In general terms, what should leaders of Western countries do to cope with the
crises in America and Europe?
3. How can the Japanese experience be compared to that of Western countries?
4. Is China in a similar situation? Why / Why not?
4
FACULTAD DE DERECHO
5. What does the author mean when he says :

“North Europeans will end up footing a good part of the bill either by
transferring money to the south or by bailing out their own banks”?
“A desire to curb Leviathan is admirable, but the tea-partiers live in a fantasy

world in which the deficit can be reduced without any tax increases...”
6. How do Republicans and Democrats in the USA differ in finding a way out of the
crisis? Explain their points of view.
5
FACULTAD DE DERECHO
PART B: COMPOSITION EXERCISES

1) LISTENING COMPREHENSION : You will hear a passage and afterwards you will have to
write a summary of the same in no more than two hundred and fifty (250) words. Do not include in
your rendering any details of your own. The rendering must reflect the passage which was read out.
Therefore, all information by you included which is not related to the passage will be disregarded in
the correction process.
6
FACULTAD DE DERECHO
2)WRITING : In no more than 250 words express your opinions or reflections on one of the
following topics.
1) Has global terrorism had a material impact on civil rights? Why?
2) Has the global economic crisis had a material impact on business environments? Why?
7
FACULTAD DE DERECHO
INSTRUCTIONS
8. Identify each page of the exam. Write your full name on it in BLOCK
CAPITALS.
9. The exam consists of two parts: Part A: (Reading Comprehension and

Writing Exercises); Part B: Listening Comprehension and Writing.

11. Read carefully the instructions provided for each activity, so that
you do exactly as you are requested.
12. I you will have to strictly respect the number of words requested
for any given writing exercise. It is essential that you shape your
writing to accomplish that objective without exceeding the number of
words allowed.
14. You will have to pass an oral test provided you first score
successfully in the written exam.
8
FACULTAD DE DERECHO
The next crisis.

Sponging boomers
The economic legacy left by the baby-boomers is leading to a battle between

the generations
ANOTHER economic mess looms on the horizon—one with a great wrinkled

visage. The struggle to digest the swollen generation of ageing baby-boomers
threatens to strangle economic growth. As the nature and scale of the problem
become clear, a showdown between the generations may be inevitable.
After the end of the second world war births surged across the rich world.
Britain, Germany and Japan all enjoyed a baby boom, although it peaked in
different years. America’s was most pronounced. By 1964 individuals born after
the war accounted for 41% of the total population, forming a generation large
enough to exert its own political and economic gravity.
These boomers have lived a charmed life, easily topping previous generations in
income earned at every age. The sheer heft of the generation created a
demographic dividend: a rise in labour supply, reinforced by a surge in the
number of working women. Social change favoured it too. Households became
smaller, populated with more earners and fewer children. And boomers enjoyed
the distinction of being among the best-educated of American generations at a
time when the return on education was soaring.
Yet these gains were one-offs. Retirements will reverse the earlier labour-force
surge, and younger generations cannot benefit from more women working. There
is room to raise educational levels, but it is harder and less lucrative to improve
the lot of disadvantaged students than to establish a university degree as the
norm for good ones, as was the case after the war. In short, boomer income
growth relied on a number of one-off gains.
Young workers also cannot expect decades of rising asset prices like those that
enriched the boomers. Zheng Liu and Mark Spiegel, economists at the Federal
Reserve Bank of San Francisco, found in 2011 that movements in the price-
earnings ratio of equities closely track changes in the ratio of middle-aged to old
workers, meaning that the p/e ratio is likely to fall. Having lived through a
spectacular bull market, boomers now sell off assets to finance retirement,
putting pressure on equity prices and denying young workers an easy route to
wealth. Boomers have weathered the economic crisis reasonably well. Thanks
largely to the rapid recovery in stockmarkets, those aged between 53 and 58 saw
a net decline in wealth of just 2.8% between 2006 and 2010.
More worrying is that this generation seems to be able to leverage its size into
favourable policy. Governments slashed tax rates in the 1980s to revitalise
lagging economies, just as boomers approached their prime earning years. The
average federal tax rate for a median American household, including income and
payroll taxes, dropped from more than 18% in 1981 to just over 11% in 2011. Yet
sensible tax reforms left less revenue for the generous benefits boomers have
continued to vote themselves, such as a prescription-drug benefit paired with
inadequate premiums. Deficits exploded. Erick Eschker, an economist at
Humboldt State University, reckons that each American born in 1945 can expect
nearly $2.2m in lifetime net transfers from the state—more than any previous
cohort.
Boomers’ sponging may well outstrip that of younger generations as well. A study
by the International Monetary Fund in 2011 compared the tax bills of a cohort’s
members over their lifetime with the value of the benefits that they are forecast
to receive. The boomers are leaving a huge bill. Those aged 65 in 2010 may
receive $333 billion more in benefits than they pay in taxes, an obligation 17
times larger than that likely to be left by those aged 25.
9
FACULTAD DE DERECHO
Sadly, arithmetic leaves but a few ways out of the mess. Faster growth would
help. But the debt left by the boomers adds to the drag of slower labour-force
growth. Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, two Harvard economists, estimate
that public debt above 90% of GDP can reduce average growth rates by more
than 1%. Meanwhile, the boomer era has seen falling levels of public investment
in America. Annual spending on infrastructure as a share of GDP dropped from
more than 3% in the early 1960s to roughly 1% in 2007.
Austerity is another option, but the consolidation needed would be large. The
IMF estimates that fixing America’s fiscal imbalance would require a 35% cut in
all transfer payments and a 35% rise in all taxes—too big a pill for a creaky
political system to swallow. Fiscal imbalances rise with the share of population
over 65 and with partisan gridlock, according to other research by Mr Eschker.
This is troubling news for America, where the over-65 share of the voting-age
population will rise from 17% now to 26% in 2030.
That leaves a third possibility: inflation. Post-war inflation helped shrink
America’s debt as a share of GDP by 35 percentage points . More inflation might
prove salutary for other reasons as well. Mr Rogoff has suggested that a few years
of 5% price rises could have helped households reduce their debts faster. Other
economists, including two members of the Federal Reserve’s policymaking
committee, now argue that with interest rates near zero, the Fed should tolerate
a higher rate of inflation to speed up recovery.
The generational divide makes this plan a hard sell. Younger workers are
typically debtors, who benefit from inflation reducing real interest rates. Older
cohorts with large savings dislike it for the same reason. A recent paper by the
Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis suggests that as a country ages, its tolerance for
inflation falls. Its authors theorise that a central bank could use inflation to
achieve some generational redistribution. Yet pressure on the Fed to cease its
expansionary actions has been intense, and led by a Republican Party
increasingly driven by boomer preferences.
The political power of the boomers is formidable. But sooner or later, it cannot
escape the maths.
The Economist- Sept 29th 2012
10
FACULTAD DE DERECHO
1.- According to the article, why is an economic crisis looming?
2.- How has the situation developed so far?
3.- Which of the two opposing sides seems to be stronger? Why?
4.- How can this crisis be tackled? (in not more than 75 words)
11
FACULTAD DE DERECHO
5.- Explain the meaning of the following sentences. Use your own words.
a) The struggle to digest the swollen generation of ageing baby-boomers threatens to
strangle economic growth.
b) Boomers’ sponging may well outstrip that of younger generations as well.
c) The political power of the boomers is formidable. But sooner or later, it cannot escape the
maths.
12
FACULTAD DE DERECHO

1) LISTENING COMPREHENSION : You will hear a passage and afterwards you will have to
write a summary of the same in no more than two hundred and fifty (250) words. Do not include in
your rendering any details of your own. The rendering must reflect the passage which was read out.
Therefore, all information by you included which is not related to the passage will be disregarded in
the correction process.
13
FACULTAD DE DERECHO
2)WRITING : In no more than 250 words express your opinions or reflections on one of the
following topics.
1) Has the development of technology had an impact on the right to Privacy? Why?
2) Has the European crisis had an impact on international commerce? Why?
14
FACULTAD DE DERECHO
INSTRUCTIONS
15. Identify each page of the exam. Write your full name on it in
BLOCK CAPITALS.
16. The exam consists of two parts: Part A: (Reading Comprehension

and Writing Exercises); Part B: Listening Comprehension and Writing.

words allowed.
15
FACULTAD DE DERECHO
Keeping the mighty honest: A new wave of press barons should not
allow newspapers to become niche products
THIS summer Lexington visited William Randolph Hearst’s castle at San Simeon.
For a reporter it was a bittersweet moment: a reminder of an age when
newspapers threw off profits so vast that an American press magnate could
scavenge the globe for endangered treasures, prising heirlooms from Old World
nobles before shipping them by the ton to his Californian lair.
Today, all is stood on its head. Once-profitable journals are bleeding money and
readers. America’s grandest media dynasties seem as embattled as inter-war
European aristocrats, and the endangered relics being snapped up are
newspapers, as 21st-century tycoons dream of playing the press baron
August 5th saw the snaffling of the Washington Post by the founder of
Amazon.com, Jeff Bezos. It followed a series of newspaper sales to very rich
men, in which scores of titles from the Boston Globe to the Richmond Times-
Dispatch have changed hands. The Post deal dwarfs the rest. The newspaper’s
longtime owners, the Graham family, may never have rivalled Hearst for
grandiosity: no private zoo for them, or egging America into a small war with
Spain, as Hearst once did. But by breaking the Watergate scandal that toppled
President Nixon, the Post durably marked relations between voters, politicians
and the press.
The Post’s proprietor through those turbulent days, Katharine Graham, held a
double place in Washington’s hierarchy: at once regal Georgetown hostess and
scrappy newshound, ready to hold the establishment to account. That is a very
American position. Elsewhere in Europe, government contracts and subsidies
ensure that press barons will only defy the mighty so far.
Graham braved threats even while playing tennis or dining with government
bigwigs (she carefully fed intelligence to her reporters afterwards). Before her
death in 2001 she presided over years of hefty profits, helped by near-
monopolies over Washington’s morning-news and print-advertising markets.
Her successors struggled as the internet broke monopolies of all sorts. The Post is
being sold after years of plunging print circulation and a disastrous decision to
act like a local newspaper (bosses even closed bureaus in New York and Chicago).
The story is the same everywhere, and the collapse in newspapers’ paid
circulations already triggers contempt. At the White House, aides routinely bully
or ignore once-mighty papers; they have lost their fear of them. It is the same in
Downing Street or the Elysée Palace. But the best newspapers, even as they shed
readers, still retain power to cow politicians.
The Post is being bought because it matters. In recent weeks it has embarrassed
Barack Obama’s government with scoops about spying on phone and e-mail
records, and shaken Virginia’s Republican governor with revelations about gifts
from a donor. Such bipartisan muckraking remains a noble calling, and—though
techno-Utopians may scoff—there are specific ways in which general newspapers
are better at it than the most terrier-like internet sleuths.
Newspapers properly strike fear into elected politicians in two ways. First, by
having the gumption and the manpower to reveal wrongdoing. The web is
brilliant at this, too—though some of the biggest online stories of recent years
were broken by dead-tree-and-ink reporters, whose outlets still have resources
that often-parasitic news websites lack. But second, newspapers wield clout by
16
FACULTAD DE DERECHO
weight of numbers. Cheer the arrival of philanthro-proprietors by all means. But

that model will not work if these are not so much publishers as indulgent super-
readers, leaving titles to pin their survival, in effect, on a paying circulation of
one.
After covering politics from four continents, your columnist can report that size
matters. A mediocre paper with millions of readers intimidates politicians more
than a high-quality tiddler. In specific ways politicians are impressed by news
organisations that attract every day a critical mass of ordinary folk with a
bundled offering: sports for some, business for others, and politics for a few
obsessives. Such newspapers usefully oblige politicians to tailor messages for an
audience not made up of single-issue types or partisans. That is one reason why
traditional papers have influence: to dismiss them is to dismiss a community of
voters.
Washington’s best-read websites do not achieve this. Though useful,

Politico.com, the insiders’ favourite, turns the work of government into a who’s-
up-who’s-down contest: politics over policy, recent over important. Others are
proudly partisan, creating echo chambers that admit no contrary facts or
opinions.
The press needs punters, as well as patrons
There is no reason to think that today’s magnates are entering the newspaper
business to kill it: funding a decent title should not daunt a billionaire. Mr. Bezos
spent about one-hundredth of his fortune buying the Post for $250m. He
promised that the paper’s values will not change, indeed declaring himself
“ready” should someone threaten to put his body-parts through a wringer. Some
sceptics worry about tycoon-owners pursuing corporate or political interests.
They should pop along to Hearst Castle, to remind themselves that self-
interested press barons are hardly a novelty.
With luck high-tech types such as Mr Bezos can dream up digital wheezes that
attract new readers, while preserving the best of general-interest newspapers—
their breadth, and the serendipity of stumbling on unexpected articles or
opinions. If new proprietors merely finance niche outlets with ever-tinier
circulations, their money might do more good elsewhere. Mr Bezos has invested
in space travel, for instance. Hearst would have loved that.
August 10th, 2013

The Economist - Lexington /blogspot

1.- According to the article, what challenge(s) are newspapers confronted with
nowadays?
17
FACULTAD DE DERECHO
2.- How did “The Post” gain its reputation?
3.- How does the article depict Graham?
4.- Why are newspapers still influential when it comes to political issues?
18
FACULTAD DE DERECHO
5.- What does Mr. Bezos stand for? Why?
b) Paraphrase the following sentences
1.- Such bipartisan muckraking remains a noble calling, and—though techno-

Utopians may scoff—there are specific ways in which general newspapers are
better at it than the most terrier-like internet sleuths.
2.- The web is brilliant at this, too—though some of the biggest online stories of
recent years were broken by dead-tree-and-ink reporters, whose outlets still
have resources that often-parasitic news websites lack. But second,
newspapers wield clout by weight of numbers.
19
FACULTAD DE DERECHO
c) Choose the correct answer:
a) The word “prising” means:

expressing approval and admiration
proclaiming or describing the glorious attributes (with homage and
thanksgiving)
forcing open by levering/ extracting with difficulty
asking or determining the price of something.
none of the above
b) The word “lair” means:

heir
owner
partner
hideaway
none of the above
c) The word “newshound” is synonymous with:

newshawk
newsmaker
newsletter
newsmonger
none of the above
d) The word “gumption” means:

financial resources
courage
luck
technology
none of the above
e) The word “cow” means:

persuade
bribe
lure
fund
none of the above.
20
FACULTAD DE DERECHO

1) LISTENING COMPREHENSION : You will hear a passage and afterwards you will have
to write a summary of the same in no more than two hundred and fifty (250) words. Do
not include in your rendering any details of your own. The rendering must reflect the
passage which was read out. Therefore, all information by you included which is not
related to the passage will be disregarded in the correction process.
21
FACULTAD DE DERECHO
2)WRITING : In no more than 250 words express your opinions or reflections on one
of the following topics.
1) Are openware courses a feasible learning option? Why?
2) Is the “Cloud” a safe place to safeguard privacy? Why?
22
FACULTAD DE DERECHO
INSTRUCTIONS
22. Identify each page of the exam. Write your full name on it in
BLOCK CAPITALS.
23. The exam consists of two parts: Part A: (Reading Comprehension

and Writing Exercises); Part B: Listening Comprehension and Writing.

words allowed.
23
FACULTAD DE DERECHO
Keeping the mighty honest: A new wave of press barons should not
allow newspapers to become niche products
THIS summer Lexington visited William Randolph Hearst’s castle at San Simeon.
For a reporter it was a bittersweet moment: a reminder of an age when
newspapers threw off profits so vast that an American press magnate could
scavenge the globe for endangered treasures, prising heirlooms from Old World
nobles before shipping them by the ton to his Californian lair.
Today, all is stood on its head. Once-profitable journals are bleeding money and
readers. America’s grandest media dynasties seem as embattled as inter-war
European aristocrats, and the endangered relics being snapped up are
newspapers, as 21st-century tycoons dream of playing the press baron
August 5th saw the snaffling of the Washington Post by the founder of
Amazon.com, Jeff Bezos. It followed a series of newspaper sales to very rich
men, in which scores of titles from the Boston Globe to the Richmond Times-
Dispatch have changed hands. The Post deal dwarfs the rest. The newspaper’s
longtime owners, the Graham family, may never have rivalled Hearst for
grandiosity: no private zoo for them, or egging America into a small war with
Spain, as Hearst once did. But by breaking the Watergate scandal that toppled
President Nixon, the Post durably marked relations between voters, politicians
and the press.
The Post’s proprietor through those turbulent days, Katharine Graham, held a
double place in Washington’s hierarchy: at once regal Georgetown hostess and
scrappy newshound, ready to hold the establishment to account. That is a very
American position. Elsewhere in Europe, government contracts and subsidies
ensure that press barons will only defy the mighty so far.
Graham braved threats even while playing tennis or dining with government
bigwigs (she carefully fed intelligence to her reporters afterwards). Before her
death in 2001 she presided over years of hefty profits, helped by near-
monopolies over Washington’s morning-news and print-advertising markets.
Her successors struggled as the internet broke monopolies of all sorts. The Post is
being sold after years of plunging print circulation and a disastrous decision to
act like a local newspaper (bosses even closed bureaus in New York and Chicago).
The story is the same everywhere, and the collapse in newspapers’ paid
circulations already triggers contempt. At the White House, aides routinely bully
or ignore once-mighty papers; they have lost their fear of them. It is the same in
Downing Street or the Elysée Palace. But the best newspapers, even as they shed
readers, still retain power to cow politicians.
The Post is being bought because it matters. In recent weeks it has embarrassed
Barack Obama’s government with scoops about spying on phone and e-mail
records, and shaken Virginia’s Republican governor with revelations about gifts
from a donor. Such bipartisan muckraking remains a noble calling, and—though
techno-Utopians may scoff—there are specific ways in which general newspapers
are better at it than the most terrier-like internet sleuths.
Newspapers properly strike fear into elected politicians in two ways. First, by
having the gumption and the manpower to reveal wrongdoing. The web is
brilliant at this, too—though some of the biggest online stories of recent years
were broken by dead-tree-and-ink reporters, whose outlets still have resources
that often-parasitic news websites lack. But second, newspapers wield clout by
24
FACULTAD DE DERECHO
weight of numbers. Cheer the arrival of philanthro-proprietors by all means. But

that model will not work if these are not so much publishers as indulgent super-
readers, leaving titles to pin their survival, in effect, on a paying circulation of
one.
After covering politics from four continents, your columnist can report that size
matters. A mediocre paper with millions of readers intimidates politicians more
than a high-quality tiddler. In specific ways politicians are impressed by news
organisations that attract every day a critical mass of ordinary folk with a
bundled offering: sports for some, business for others, and politics for a few
obsessives. Such newspapers usefully oblige politicians to tailor messages for an
audience not made up of single-issue types or partisans. That is one reason why
traditional papers have influence: to dismiss them is to dismiss a community of
voters.
Washington’s best-read websites do not achieve this. Though useful,

Politico.com, the insiders’ favourite, turns the work of government into a who’s-
up-who’s-down contest: politics over policy, recent over important. Others are
proudly partisan, creating echo chambers that admit no contrary facts or
opinions.
The press needs punters, as well as patrons
There is no reason to think that today’s magnates are entering the newspaper
business to kill it: funding a decent title should not daunt a billionaire. Mr. Bezos
spent about one-hundredth of his fortune buying the Post for $250m. He
promised that the paper’s values will not change, indeed declaring himself
“ready” should someone threaten to put his body-parts through a wringer. Some
sceptics worry about tycoon-owners pursuing corporate or political interests.
They should pop along to Hearst Castle, to remind themselves that self-
interested press barons are hardly a novelty.
With luck high-tech types such as Mr Bezos can dream up digital wheezes that
attract new readers, while preserving the best of general-interest newspapers—
their breadth, and the serendipity of stumbling on unexpected articles or
opinions. If new proprietors merely finance niche outlets with ever-tinier
circulations, their money might do more good elsewhere. Mr Bezos has invested
in space travel, for instance. Hearst would have loved that.
August 10th, 2013

The Economist - Lexington /blogspot

1.- According to the article, what challenge(s) are newspapers confronted with
nowadays?
25
FACULTAD DE DERECHO
2.- How did “The Post” gain its reputation?
3.- How does the article depict Graham?
4.- Why are newspapers still influential when it comes to political issues?
26
FACULTAD DE DERECHO
5.- What does Mr. Bezos stand for? Why?
b) Paraphrase the following sentences
1.- Such bipartisan muckraking remains a noble calling, and—though techno-

Utopians may scoff—there are specific ways in which general newspapers are
better at it than the most terrier-like internet sleuths.
2.- The web is brilliant at this, too—though some of the biggest online stories of
recent years were broken by dead-tree-and-ink reporters, whose outlets still
have resources that often-parasitic news websites lack. But second,
newspapers wield clout by weight of numbers.
27
FACULTAD DE DERECHO
c) Choose the correct answer:
f) The word “prising” means:

expressing approval and admiration
proclaiming or describing the glorious attributes (with homage and
thanksgiving)
forcing open by levering/ extracting with difficulty
asking or determining the price of something.
none of the above
g) The word “lair” means:

heir
owner
partner
hideaway
none of the above
h) The word “newshound” is synonymous with:

newshawk
newsmaker
newsletter
newsmonger
none of the above
i) The word “gumption” means:

financial resources
courage
luck
technology
none of the above
j) The word “cow” means:

persuade
bribe
lure
fund
none of the above.
28
FACULTAD DE DERECHO

1) LISTENING COMPREHENSION : You will hear a passage and afterwards you will have
to write a summary of the same in no more than two hundred and fifty (250) words. Do
not include in your rendering any details of your own. The rendering must reflect the
passage which was read out. Therefore, all information by you included which is not
related to the passage will be disregarded in the correction process.
29
FACULTAD DE DERECHO
2)WRITING : In no more than 250 words express your opinions or reflections on one
of the following topics.
30

INGLÉS

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

INGLÉS

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

qwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqw

2. The exam consists of two parts: Part A: (Reading Comprehension and

3. Pay attention to time requirements. The maximum time allowed to

6. Do not write in pencil, write clearly, using block capitals if possible.

Part A: Reading Comprehension

Turning Japanese- The absence of leadership in the West is

A GOVERNMENT’S credibility is founded on its commitment to honour its debts. As a

a) Answer the following questions. Try to use your own words

3. How can the Japanese experience be compared to that of Western countries?

4. Is China in a similar situation? Why / Why not?

5. What does the author mean when he says :

“A desire to curb Leviathan is admirable, but the tea-partiers live in a fantasy

PART B: COMPOSITION EXERCISES

9. The exam consists of two parts: Part A: (Reading Comprehension and

10. Pay attention to time requirements. The maximum time allowed to

Part A: Reading Comprehension

The next crisis.

The economic legacy left by the baby-boomers is leading to a battle between

ANOTHER economic mess looms on the horizon—one with a great wrinkled

The Economist- Sept 29th 2012

a) Answer the following questions. Try to use your own words

1.- According to the article, why is an economic crisis looming?

2.- How has the situation developed so far?

3.- Which of the two opposing sides seems to be stronger? Why?

b) Boomers’ sponging may well outstrip that of younger generations as well.

PART B: COMPOSITION EXERCISES

16. The exam consists of two parts: Part A: (Reading Comprehension

17. Pay attention to time requirements. The maximum time allowed to

Part A: Reading Comprehension

weight of numbers. Cheer the arrival of philanthro-proprietors by all means. But

Washington’s best-read websites do not achieve this. Though useful,

The press needs punters, as well as patrons

August 10th, 2013

a) Answer the following questions. Try to use your own words

2.- How did “The Post” gain its reputation?

3.- How does the article depict Graham?

5.- What does Mr. Bezos stand for? Why?

b) Paraphrase the following sentences

1.- Such bipartisan muckraking remains a noble calling, and—though techno-

c) Choose the correct answer:

a) The word “prising” means:

b) The word “lair” means:

c) The word “newshound” is synonymous with:

d) The word “gumption” means:

e) The word “cow” means:

PART B: COMPOSITION EXERCISES

23. The exam consists of two parts: Part A: (Reading Comprehension

24. Pay attention to time requirements. The maximum time allowed to

Part A: Reading Comprehension

weight of numbers. Cheer the arrival of philanthro-proprietors by all means. But

Washington’s best-read websites do not achieve this. Though useful,

The press needs punters, as well as patrons

August 10th, 2013

a) Answer the following questions. Try to use your own words

2.- How did “The Post” gain its reputation?

3.- How does the article depict Graham?

5.- What does Mr. Bezos stand for? Why?

b) Paraphrase the following sentences

1.- Such bipartisan muckraking remains a noble calling, and—though techno-

c) Choose the correct answer:

f) The word “prising” means:

g) The word “lair” means:

h) The word “newshound” is synonymous with:

i) The word “gumption” means: