TEXT ANALYSIS

One December afternoon Paul Helm was pruning the patch of floral odds and ends that had
entitled Bonnie Clutter to membership in the Garden City Garden Club. It was a melancholy
task, for he was reminded of another afternoon when he’d done the same chore. Kenyon had
helped him that day, and it was the last time he’d seen Kenyon alive, or Nancy, or any of them.
The weeks between had been hard on Mr. Helm. He was “in poor health” (poorer than he
knew; he had less than four months to live), and he was worried about a lot of things. His job,
for one. He doubted he would have it much longer. Nobody seemed really to know, but he
understood that “the girls,” Beverly and Eveanna, intended to sell the property—though, as
he’d heard one of the boys at the café remark, “ain’t nobody gonna buy that spread, long as
the mystery lasts.” It “didn’t do” to think about—strangers here, harvesting “our” land. Mr.
Helm minded—he minded for Herb’s sake. This was a place, he said, that “ought to be kept in a
man’s family.” Once Herb had said to him, “I hope there’ll always be a Clutter here, and a
Helm, too.” It was only a year ago Herb had said that. Lord, what was he to do if the farm got
sold? He felt “too old to fit in somewhere different.”

Still, he must work, and he wanted to. He wasn’t, he said, the kind to kick off his shoes and sit
by the stove. And yet it was true that the farm nowadays made him uneasy: the locked house,
Nancy’s horse forlornly waiting in a field, the odor of windfall apples rotting under the apple
trees, and the absence of voices—Kenyon calling Nancy to the telephone, Herb whistling, his
glad “Good morning, Paul.” He and Herb had “got along grand”—never a cross word between
them. Why, then, did the men from the sheriff’s office continue to question him? Unless they
thought he had “something to hide”? Maybe he ought never to have mentioned the Mexicans.
He had informed Al Dewey that at approximately four o’clock on Saturday, November 14, the
day of the murders, a pair of Mexicans, one mustachioed and the other pockmarked, appeared
at River Valley Farm. Mr. Helm had seen them knock on the door of “the office,” seen Herb
step outside and talk to them on the lawn, and, possibly ten minutes later, watched the
strangers walk away, “looking sulky.” Mr. Helm figured that they had come asking for work and
had been told there was none. Unfortunately, though he’d been called upon to recount his
version of that day’s events many times, he had not spoken of the incident until two weeks
after the crime, because, as he explained to Dewey, “I just suddenly recalled it.” But Dewey,
and some of the other investigators, seemed not to credit his story, and behaved as though it
were a tale he’d invented to mislead them. They preferred to believe Bob Johnson, the
insurance salesman, who had spent all of Saturday afternoon conferring with Mr. Clutter in the
latter’s office, and who was “absolutely positive” that from two to ten past six he had been
Herb’s sole visitor. Mr. Helm was equally definite: Mexicans, a moustache, pockmarks, four
o’clock. Herb would have told them that he was speaking the truth, convinced them that he,
Paul Helm, was a man who “said his prayers and earned his bread.” But Herb was gone. In Cold
Blood, Truman Capote

1.State the type and genre of text this is.

2. Talk about the communicative functions found in the text.

3. Analyse the use of the narrator in the text.

4. Comment on characterisation in the extract.

5. Explain the meaning and morphology of the following words from the text.

• Forlornly
• Wind fall

• Pockmarked

• Sulky

6. What word type is 'yet' (2nd line, 2nd paragraph)? Give synonyms.

7. How do you think did Mr Helm and Mr Clutter knew each other? Give reasons for your
answer.

8. What do you think 'the mystery' is (mentioned in line 10)? Give reasons for your answer.

9. Syntactic analysis. It was a melancholy task, for he was reminded of another afternoon when
he’d done the same chore

10. Write a paragraph that could follow this extract.

TRANSLATION – ENGLISH TO SPANISH

Deep Space

Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi opus Interestellar looks set to be his most ambitious – and emotional
–adventure yet. Total Film joins the director and his crew on a voyage beyond the infinite.
Words Matt Mayhem.

I didn’t say too much?” asks Matthew McConaughey for reassurance, shooting a sideways
glance. Yep, this is definitely a Christopher Nolan film, and plot details are going to be more
closely guarded than state secrets. But then, Nolan’s never had trouble whipping up a frenzy
for his films without deluging the internet with spoilers. Remember the impact of that tilting
glass of water in the Inception teaser?

The location of our interviews isn’t doing anything to quell the notion of clandestine
operations and top-secret missions. It’s June 2014, and we’re at Quixote Studios, West
Hollywood (the cast took part in publicity shoots earlier this morning), sitting in a hastily
assembled set-up with temporary blackout drapes hung to create a private meeting area. Stills
on display give little away: space-suited astronauts trek over craggy, icy landscapes (shot in
Iceland, doubling for a planet beyond our solar system); Cooper (McConaughey) surveys a
cornfield; Jessica Chastain’s labcoated scientist examines an algebra-smothered blackboard.
Even before McConaughey started carefully modulating his answers there was an air of
mystery, but the vibe in the room is warm and open: there’s a tangible buzz of enthusiasm for
the film to be discussed (in not too much detail of course).

Rewind to 2006, and Interstellar was brought about by producer Lynda Obst, who had the idea
of incorporating renowned astrophysicist Kip Thorne’s theories on wormholes and black holes
into a screenplay, which Steven Spielberg was set to direct. Nolan’s brother Jonah was brought
in to write the screenplay (bringing the film’s orbit onto Nolan’s radar). “Interstellar was
something he’d been aware of for a long time, because his brother had written it,” explains
Emma Thomas, Nolan’s long-time producing partner (and wife). “They talk about their work
with each other all the time.” The film stalled in development for several years with Spielberg
attached, until Nolan came onboard after completing his genre-redefining Dark Knight trilogy,
fusing his own original space-movie idea with his brother’s script to create a new version of
Interstellar.

Total Film | December 2014

TRANSLATION – SPANISH TO ENGLISH

El vuelo 115 de Ladeco, procedente de Asunción, Paraguay, estaba a punto de aterrizar con
más de una hora de retraso en el aeropuerto de Santiago de Chile. A la izquierda, a casi siete
mil metros de altura, el Aconcagua parecía un promontorio de acero bajo el fulgor de la luna.
El avión se inclinó sobre el ala izquierda con una gracia pavorosa, se enderezó luego con un
crujido de metales lúgubres, y tocó tierra antes de tiempo con tres saltos de canguro. Yo,
Miguel Littín, hijo de Hernán y Cristina, director de cine y uno de los cinco mil chilenos con
prohibición absoluta de regresar, estaba de nuevo en mi país después de doce años de exilio,
aunque todavía exiliado dentro de mí mismo: llevaba una identidad falsa, un pasaporte falso, y
hasta una esposa falsa. Mi cara y mi apariencia estaban tan cambiadas por la ropa y el
maquillaje, que ni mi propia madre había de reconocerme a plena luz unos días después.

Muy pocas personas en el mundo conocían este secreto, y una de ellas iba en el mismo avión.
Era Elena, una militante de la resistencia chilena, joven y muy atractiva, designada por su
organización para mantener las comunicaciones con la red clandestina interior, establecer los
contactos secretos, determinar los lugares apropiados para los encuentros, valorar la situación
operativa, concertar las citas, velar por nuestra seguridad. La aventura de Miguel Littín
Clandestino en Chile, Gabriel García Márquez

USE OF ENGLISH

1.Think of one word only which can be used appropriately in all three sentences.

1. If you _____________ all those books from your desk, you'll have a lot more room. / After
the heavy snowfall last week, snow-ploughs had to be called in to _____________ the main
roads. / When the jury heard the new evidence, they'll have no option but to _____________
him of the charge of murder.

2. With the help of a team of psychologists, the police are trying to _____________ up with a
profile of the killer. / After decades of totalitarian rule, it will not ne an easy matter for that
country to _____________ a more democratic society. / We must _____________ on our
recent successes in the area of research and development if we are to develop into a leading
international company.

3. The bank's regulations state clearly that you must show your id whenever you want to
_____________ any money. / After two months of hard fighting, it seems very unlikely that the
attacking army will admit defeat and _____________. / Unless you are prepared to face a
lengthy court case, you will have to _____________ that negative remark you made.

4. I wish you would _____________ up all your clothes and put them away in the cupboard. /
Come on, children! Sit up straight and _____________ your arms. / In order to protect the
delicate manuscript, we decided to _____________ it carefully in a larger piece of silk.
5. According to the forecast, there's going to be a _____________ of really hot weather next
month. / I had a dizzy _____________ this morning, but I think I've got over the worst of my
illness and can return to work. / The villagers were so supersticious that they believed a
_____________ to have been responsible for the death of their animals.

6. The _____________ colours she uses in all her paintings make them difficult to miss at an
exhibition. / He gave us such a _____________ account of his journey across the desert that
we could almost feel the heat and the dust. / I have a very _____________ memory of the
time I spent as a child with my mother in France.

7. Don't be surprised if the managers _____________ your suggestion as being unrealistic. /

The judge may decide to _____________ the case owing to the lack of evidence. / It's quite
likely that Mr Hawkins will _____________ his secretary if he finds out about her part in the
theft.

2. Fill in the blanks with ONE word

HERBS

Over the last hundred years, (0) much of the art of using herbs in cooking and medicine has
been lost, especially in industrialised societies. Until recently, (1) ………….. people in the
crowded cities had the space to grow plants or vegetables, and so (2) ………….. in the country
did knowledge of herbs linger on. (3) ………….. the advent of refrigeration, however, (4) …………..
meant that the strong smell of old meat no (5) ………….. had to be disguised, and the
appearance of packaged food and easily available medicines, the growing of herbs declined
rapidly. Nowadays there is (6) ………….. anyone who does not have a small patch of garden, or a
(7) ………….. sill or balcony large (8) ………….. for a pot or two of herbs. These facts, coupled with
the beginnings of a revolt (9) ………….. standardised foods and perhaps also a mistrust of the
side (10) ………….. of some of today’s medicines, mean that herbs have taken (11) ………….. a
new popularity. The culinary uses of herbs are endless and they can be used (12) ………….. good
effect all year round, (13) ………….. dried form or cut fresh. (14) ………….. aids to beauty and for
medicinal (15)………….., there is now a vast range available.

3. Choose the correct word to fill in the blanks.

Interview with Austen Grove Austen Grove, whose new novel A Dublin Childhood took the
publishing world by (1) ….. last week, is intensely wary of publicity. During interviews he
unfailingly (and quite maddening) (2) ….. his right to refuse to answer questions he perceives
as being too personal. And that, I’m afraid, is most questions. His interview with me didn’t (3)
….. to be any different. ‘I’m a very shy man at heart, you know’, he pointed out on first meeting
me. My evident disbelief in the truth of this remark was greeted by a wry smile. ‘I’ve always
found it difficult to relate to other people. Even when I was studying in Dublin with a (4) ….. to
becoming an actor one day, I was regarded as being extremely antisocial and eccentric. I (5) …..
up against all sort of problems, which were the result entirely of my feeling ill at ease with
other peopleFortunately for me -and for the rest of the world, I suppose- I dropped acting and
became a writer of novels instead. Being in the (6) ….. now doesn’t come easily’.

1 A force B tempest C storm D thunder

2 A keeps B displays C holds D exercises

3 A turn out B end up C finish up D wind up

4 A purpose B target C goal D view

5 A came B made C got D took

6 A headlight B limelight C floodlight D twilight