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PLU411S - PRINCIPLES OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE USE - 1ST OPP - JUNE 2023 |
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n Am I BI A u n IVER s I TY
OF SCIEnCE Ano TECHnOLOGY
FACULTY OF COMMERCE, HUMAN SCIENCESAND EDUCATION
DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATION AND LANGUAGES
QUALIFICATION: VARIOUS SUBJECTS
QUALIFICATION CODE: VARIOUS LEVEL: 4
COURSE CODE: PLU411S
COURSE NAME: PRINCIPLESOF ENGLISH LANGUAGE USE
SESSION:
JUNE/JULY 2023
PAPER:
THEORY
DURATION:
3 HOURS
MARKS:
100
FIRST OPPORTUNITY EXAMINATION QUESTION PAPER-FM AND PM
EXAMINER(S)
Dr J. lndongo
Dr E. lthindi
Dr. R. Nekongo
Ms C. Sibalatani
MODERATOR:
Mr. C Gwasira
1. Answer ALL the questions.
2. Write clearly and neatly.
3. Number the answers clearly.
INSTRUCTIONS
THIS QUESTION PAPER CONSISTS OF 10 PAGES (Including this front page)
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SECTIONA: READINGCOMPREHENSION
(30 Marks)
Read the following text and answer the questions that follow.
Did they ever find Malaysian Airlines Flight 370?, by Sophie Hanson
1
It is one of aviation's greatest mysteries. On March 8, 2014, an everyday commercial aircraft
took off from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing only to vanish off radar screens. So, did they ever find Malaysian
Airlines Flight 370? And if not, what are the prominent theories surrounding its disappearance?
2
It is the subject of Netflix's MH 370: The Plane That Disappeared documentary, which debuted
nine years after the Boeing 777 seemingly dropped off the face of the earth with 12 crew members
and 227 passengers on board. A multi-national investigation into the incident was launched and the
streaming giant interviewed aviation journalists and on line sleuths to deliver their opinions.
3
The bulk of the plane's hull has never been found but pieces of debris that washed up on an
Australian beach in October 2020 were believed to be pieces of MH370. Parts of the wreckage have
also been found on African coastlines and islands in the Indian Ocean. In January 2023, British
aerospace engineer Richard Godfrey completed an analysis of such debris and confirmed it to be
pieces of the missing plane.
4
"The location of where the piece of debris was found in Antsiraka Beach in Madagascar, where
a total of 20 items of floating debris from MH370 have been found in Madagascar and 4 on the same
Antsiraka Beach, confirms the likelihood that this new item of floating debris is also from MH370. Out
of the items washed ashore in Madagascar and officially analysed, six items have been determined to
be almost certain, highly likely or likely from MH370 by the authoriti~s," Godfrey said per Airline
Ratings.com.
5
Considering that MH370 ended its flight in the South Indian Ocean, the location of this recent
find is consistent with the drift path modeling produced by the University of Western Australia and
the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial ResearchOrganisation.
6
Unfortunately, it is likely we shall never know for sure what has happened with MH370. The
plane took off from Kuala Lumpur at 12.41 am local time and around three minutes later, it lost all
contact with traffic control. Officials say the plane's transponder was turned off over the South China
Sea. The last voice contact was at 1:19 am Malaysian time and at 2:22 am, about 230 miles from
Penang, it disappeared. Cyndi Hendry, who worked for Tom nod, a satellite imagery company, says in
the Netflix series that she was randomly assigned satellite imagery by Tom nod. "The satellite images
were empty. It was just the blackness of the sea. Then you press next, more black scans. So much
black. And then finally, there is something white," she said.
7In the Netflix documentary, there are some prevailing theories. The first, and a theory held by the
then-Prime Minister of Australia, was that the pilot Shah committed a mass-murder suicide by taking
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the plane down into the Indian Ocean. Australia led the hunt for the missing jet but ended it in 2017
after it proved unsuccessful.
8
"Good night, Malaysia 370," Shah told air traffic controllers as they ready to relay
communications duties to the Vietnamese. Those were his final words before the plane lost all radar
contact less than two minutes later. The documentary series had another look at the evidence found
on Shah's computer in 2016, which showed that he had done a simulation of the plane's suspected
flight path a mere month before MH370 took off. It is not exactly a smoking gun, though.
9
"It is very odd you would have a simulation end with fuel exhaustion in the Southern Indian
Ocean," Mike Exner of Independent Group, a watchdog of aviation experts that was established to
figure out the flight's final moments, admitted to the New York Post in March 2023. "I do not think
taking the simulator data by itself proves a whole lot. The simulator data is not the whole puzzle, it is
just one piece in the puzzle that fits."
10 Aviation journalist Jeff Wise, whose theories on the missing flight were considered
controversial among experts, said the Shah suicide theory would require an "aggressive and
sophisticated" plot to overpower and lock his co-pilot out of the cockpit and cut radar
communications. The final report on MH370 found that "there is no evidence to suggest any recent
behavioural changes for the pilot."
11 Another assumption is that one of the superpower countries had something to do with the
tragedy but obviously, it is just a theory. The plane was apparently carrying a huge amount of
electronics and the idea is that a superpower country shot it down in a bid to seize the equipment
which was bound for China. French journalist Florence de Changy said MH370 had 2.5 tons of
electronic devices on board, and China was very eager to acquire highly sensitive technology in the
field of surveillance. This could be at the heart of what happened to MH370.
12
Harry Hewland, the producer of the Netflix documentary on MH370, says, "More than
anything, we want to pull the hidden truths about MH370 out from the carpet under which they have
been swept. We want to remind people that this is still a story with no ending, a mystery that has not
been solved, that somebody out there knows more than the world has been told."
13
Despite international search efforts, years of searching the missing plane and tens of millions
of dollars spent to find the plane, the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 remains one of
aviation's greatest mysteries.
Adapted from: https://stylecaster.com/did-they-ever-find-malaysia-airlines-flight-370/
1. What mystery surrounds the disappearance of the Malaysian Airlines Flight 370?
(2)
2. What is being referred to as "the streaming giant" in the second paragraph of the text? (2)
3. Mention any three places where pieces of the Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 are believed to
have been found.
(3)
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4. Mention any three technical challenges that have contributed to the inability of the search
teams and organisations to trace the missing plane, as illustrated in Paragraph 6.
(3)
5. What was the intended destination of MH370?
(2)
6. What evidence is there to support the theory that MH370 crashed in the South Indian
Ocean?
(3)
7. Explain the following statements in your own words.
7.1 It is not exactly a smoking gun. (Paragraph 8)
(2)
7.2 It is just one piece in the puzzle that fits. (Paragraph 9)
(2)
8. What was the mandate of Independent Group of which Mike Exner was a member?
(2)
9. Mention two controversial theories arising from the Netflix documentary regarding the
disappearance of MH370.
(2 x 2 = 4)
10. Why does Jeff Wise oppose one of the controversial theories in Question 9 above? Give one
reason.
(2)
11. Vocabulary.
11.1 Find a word in Paragraph 3 that is synonymous with the word wreckage that is
underlined and written in bold.
(1)
11.2 Find a word in the passage that has the same meaning as the following words.
a. investigators (Paragraph 2)
(1)
b. dominant (Paragraph 7)
(1)
SECTIONS: GRAMMAR
{30 Marks)
Read the following passage and answer all the questions below.
How is the education sector responding to COVID-19?
1. In response to 1.1 significant demand, many online learning platforms are offering free
access to 1.2 their services, including platforms like BYJU'S,a Bangalore-based educational
technology and on line tutoringl.3 firm founded in 2011, which is now the world's most highly
valued edtech company. Since announcing free live classes on its Think and Learn app, BYJU's
1.4 has seen a 200% increase in the number of new students using its product, according to
Mrinal Moh it, 1.5 the company's Chief Operating Officer.
2. Tencent classroom, 2.1 meanwhile, has been used 2.2 extensively since mid-February 2.3
after the Chinese government instructed a quarter of a billion full-time students to resume
their studies through online platforms. This resulted in the largest "online movement" in the
history of education with approximately 730,000, or 81% of K-12 students, attending classes
via the Tencent K-12 Online School in Wuhan.
3. Other companies are bolstering capabilities to provide a one-stop shop for teachers and
students. For example, Lark, a Singapore-based collaboration suite initially developed by
ByteDance as an internal tool to meet its own exponential growth, began offering teachers
and students unlimited video conferencing time, auto-translation capabilities, real-time co-
editing of project work, and smart calendar scheduling, amongst other features. To do 2.4 so
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2.5 quickly and in a time of crisis, Lark ramped up its global server infrastructure and
engineering capabilities to ensure reliable connectivity.
4. Alibaba's distance learning solution, DingTalk, had to prepare for a similar influx: "To
support large-scale remote work, the platform tapped Alibaba Cloud to deploy more than
100,000 new cloud servers in just two hours last month - setting a new record for rapid
capacity expansion," according to DingTalk CEO,Chen Hang.
5. 1. Someschool districts are forming unique partnerships,like the one between The Los Angeles
Unified SchoolDistrict and PBSSoCal/KCETand they offer local educational broadcastswith separate
channels focused on different ages. Media organizations such as the BBC are also powering
virtual learning; Bitesize Daily, launched on 20 April, is offering 14 weeks of curriculum-based
learning for kids across the UK with celebrities like Manchester City footballer Sergio Aguero
teaching some of the content.
What does this mean for the future of learning?
6. While some believe that the unplanned and rapid move to online learning - with no
training, insufficient bandwidth, and little preparation - will result in a poor user experience
that is unconducive to sustained growth, others believe that a new hybrid model of education
will emerge, with significant benefits. "I believe that the integration of information technology
in education will be further accelerated and that online education will eventually become an
integral component of school education," says Wang Tao, Vice President ofTencent Cloud and
Vice President of Tencent Education.
7. There have already been successful transitions amongst many universities. For example,
Zhejiang University managed to get more than 5,000 courses online just two weeks into the
transition using "DingTalk ZJU". 2. The Imperial College London started offering a course on
the science of coronavirus, which is now the most enrolled class launched in 2020 on
Coursera.
8. Many are already touting the benefits: Dr Amjad, a Professor at The University of Jordan
who has been using Lark to teach his students says, "It has changed the way of teaching. It
enables me to reach out to my students more efficiently and effectively through chat groups,
video meetings, voting and also document sharing, especially during this pandemic. 3. .MY
students also find it is easier to communicate on Lark. I will stick to Lark even after coronavirus,
I believe traditional offline learning and e-learning can go hand by hand."
Adapted from: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/coronavirus-ed
covid 19-onli ne-d igita I-learning/
ucation-globa 1-
1. Identify the part of speech of each balded word in paragraph 1.
(5)
1.1 significant
1.2 their
1.3 firm
1.4 has
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1.5 the
2. Specify what kind of adverbs the underlined and italized words in paragraphs 2 and 3 are.
(5)
2.1 meanwhile
2.2 extensively
2.3 after
2.4 so
2.5 quickly
3. What verb tense is the sentence below?
(1)
Sentence: Other companies are bolstering capabilities to provide a one-stop shop for
teachers and students.
4. Write the sentence in question 3 above in the following tenses:
4.1 Present perfect simple
(2)
4.2 Past perfect continuous
(2)
4.3 Future perfect continuous
(2)
5. Write the sentence written in bold in paragraph 4 in the following forms:
Sentence: Alibaba's distance learning solution, DingTalk, had to prepare for a similar influx.
5.1 Question form
(2)
5.2 Negative form
(2)
6. Subject verb agreement
First, identify and write down the subject and the verb in the following sentence.
Then, indicate whether the subject and the verb in the following sentence agree or disagree.
Sentence: There have already been successful transitions amongst many universities.
Subject:
Verb:
(2)
Agree or Disagree:
(1)
7. You were taught 4 different types of sentence structure. Write down the type of sentence
structure of underlined sentences numbered 1-3 in the passage above. e.g simple sentence,
compound sentence, etc.
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7.1 Some school districts are forming unique partnerships, like the one between The Los Angeles
Unified School District and PBSSoCal/KCETand they offer local educational broadcasts with separate
channels focused on different ages.
(2)
7.2 The Imperial College London started offering a course on the science of coronavirus, which
is now the most enrolled class launched in 2020 on Coursera.
(2)
7.3 My students also find it is easier to communicate on Lark.
(2)
SECTIONC: ESSAYAND PARAGRAPHANALYSIS
[30 Marks]
Analyse the essay below and answer all the questions that follow.
TikTok is owned by a Chinese company but does not exist in China
1. TikTok is fighting to stay alive in the United States as pressure builds in Washington to ban the app
if its Chinese owners do not sell the company. But the wildly popular platform, developed with
homegrown Chinese technology, is not accessible in China. In fact, it has never existed there.
Instead, there is a different version of TikTok, a sister app called Douyin. Both apps are owned by
Beijing-based parent company ByteDance, but Douyin launched before TikTok and became a viral
sensation in China. Its powerful algorithm became the foundation for TikTok and is key to its global
success. There is a lot to know about Douyin, ByteDance and TikTok, the platforms which are
similar on the surface, while playing with starkly different rules.
2. Douyin has a whopping 600 million users a day. Like TikTok, it's a short-form video app Launched
in 2016. Douyin was the major money spinner for ByteDance years before TikTok, raking in
revenue through in-app tipping and livestreaming. On the other hand, ByteDance was founded
by Zhang Yiming, a former Microsoft employee, and first became known for its news app Jinri
Toutiao or "Today's Headlines," which debuted in 2012 soon after the company was founded.
Shannon Stapleton/Reuters Toutiao created customized news feeds for each user. People quickly
got hooked, with users averaging more than 70 minutes a day on the platform. Byte Dance applied
a similar formula to Douyin. Then in 2017, the privately-owned tech company bought a US-based
video start-up and released TikTok as the overseas version of Douyin. It also bought popular lip-
syncing app musically, it moved those users onto TikTok in 2018. The app's popularity has since
gone global. In 2021, TikTok reached more than 1 billion monthly active users around the world.
3. The TikTok and Douyin interfaces look similar, but when users turn on their cameras, one
difference becomes clear. Douyin has an automatic beauty filter, which smooths out skin and
often changes the shape of a person's face. Douyin applies an automatic beauty filter. Women in
China have long faced huge pressure to conform to beauty standards that emphasize a slim figure,
large eyes, dewy skin and high cheekbones. Cellphone cameras have become very popular and
have made digital cameras a thing of the past. There is surging demand for plastic surgery.
Between 2014 and 2017, the number of people getting plastic surgery in China more than
doubled. Meanwhile, beauty apps compete to create filters that show users more beautiful
versions of themselves. While TikTok also has beauty filters, users can select them when filming.
They do not launch automatically.
4. Another major difference between TikTok and Douyin is China's massive online shopping market.
Livestreaming sales of products is a multibillion-dollar industry in mainland China, and was given
a major boost during the pandemic. As of June, last year, there were more than 460 million
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livestreaming e-commerce users in mainland China, according to the Academy of China Council
for the Promotion of International Trade, a body affiliated with Beijing's commerce ministry.
Douyin is a major platform for live streamers, along with Taobao, Alibaba's (BABA)eBay-like on line
marketplace. ln-app shopping is made easy: Products and discounts are displayed on-screen
during livestreams, with purchases just a swipe or a click away.
5. China has one of the world's strictest censorship regimes, and Douyin must follow the rules.
Internet watchdogs crack down regularly on online dissent and block politically sensitive
information. When CNN searched "Tiananmen 1989" in Douyin, nothing came up. The Tiananmen
massacre, in which Chinese troops cracked down brutally on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing,
has been wiped from China's history books. Any discussion of the event is strictly censored and
controlled. When CNN searched the same phrase in TikTok. It yielded many results including
videos of users talking about what happened and a brief Wikipedia blurb summarizing the event.
"It's so interesting to see this contradiction in this one company [ByteDance] with these two
faces," said Duncan Clark, chairman and founder of investment advisory BOA China.
6. Another key difference is that Douyin takes a much stricter line on younger users. Users under 14
can access only child-safe content and use the app for just 40 minutes a day and. They can't use
the app from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. For years, China has tried to curb video game addiction and other
unhealthy online habits. It announced a curfew for online gaming for minors in 2019. Before
outright banning online gaming during weekdays for minors. Even on most weekends, users under
18 are only allowed to play for three hours. "There's been very much a laissez-faire attitude in
the US towards content, even content targeting teenagers and vulnerable people," said Clark.
"The Chinese government has been much more leaning into regulation at early stages in the
growth of Douyin, particularly protecting younger people." TikTok took some similar steps earlier
this month, announcing that every user under 18 will soon have their accounts default to a one-
hour daily screen time limit, though teenage users will be able to turn off this new default setting.
7. TikTok is not the only Chinese-owned platform finding viral success in the United States. Of the
top 10 most popular free apps on Apple's (AAPL)USapp store, four were developed with Chinese
technology their algorithms were entirely Chinese. Besides TikTok, there's also shopping app
Temu, fast fashion retailer Shein and video editing app CapCut, which is also owned by ByteDance.
TikTok remains hugely popular in the United States it has more than 150 million monthly users,
almost half of the country's population. It remains to be seen whether TikTok can convince US
lawmakers that it poses no threat, but the showdown in Washington has highlighted larger
questions about security and data privacy that could see other apps come under fire.
8. In conclusion, China may prefer TikTok to be banned than fall into US hands. These apps could be
next, said Clark. He said the USneeds a "more sophisticated framework for regulating the big tech
companies," given the number of US investors and users on foreign platforms. "They need to also
think about how high they are going to raise the bar for Chinese investment in the US, and the
consequences of completely excluding four of the top ten apps," said Clark. "What's going to
replace them? And how is that going to play out? And how is that equitable to the investors in
those apps versus US players?" he added. "It is a mess."
Adapted from: https:1/edition.cnn.com
1. Which of the sentences in the introduction is the thesis statement of this essay?
Write the entire statement.
(1)
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2. What is/are the driving ideas in the thesis statement?
(2)
3. Identify and write down:
3.1 An irrelevant sentence in Paragraph 3
(1)
3.2 A sentence fragment in Paragraph 6
(1)
3.3 A run-on sentence in Paragraph 7
(1)
4. Write down two supporting ideas on the contradictions detected in China's censorship
presented in Paragraph 5. Paraphrase the ideas.
(2x2=4)
5. Select the correct answer:
Do not copy the whole sentence. Write the letter only.
5.1 The main idea expressed in paragraph 2 is:
(1)
A.
About how Douyin became unpopular in the USA
B.
About how TikTok gained its popularity
C.
About the strategies ByteDance used to capture the world's attention
D.
About the competition between TikTok and Douyin
5.2 The main idea expressed in paragraph 3 is:
(1)
A.
About China's emphasis on beauty standards
B.
The popularity of plastic surgery
C.
About beauty filters being everywhere
D.
The similarities of TikTok and Douyin
6. Identify two transitional words or phrases used to connect ideas in Paragraph 4.
(2)
7. Identify two transitional words or phrases used to connect ideas in Paragraph 7.
(2)
8. Carefully study the topic sentence below taken from Paragraph 6. Then, indicate the topic and
the controlling idea.
Sentence:
Another key difference is that Douyin takes a much stricter line on younger users.
8.1 Topic:
(2)
8.2 Controlling idea:
(2)
9. Choose the most suitable answer from the options given below.
9.1 The error of the underlined sentence in Paragraph 2 is:
(1)
A.
Run-on sentence
B.
Irrelevant sentence
C.
Comma splice
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D.
Sentence fragment
9.2 Rewrite this sentence (underlined in Paragraph 2) correcting the error.
(2)
9.3 What sentence error is hidden in Paragraph 5:
(1)
A.
Run-on sentence
B.
Irrelevant sentence
C.
Comma splice
D.
Sentence fragment
9.4 Write down the sentence error identified in 9.3 as written in the paragraph.
(1)
10. Identify and write down a sentence error in Paragraph 7.
(2)
10.1 Indicate what type of an error it is.
(1)
10.2 Rewrite and correct the sentence identified in 10.1.
(2)
SECTIOND: PARAGRAPHWRITING
(20/2 Marks]
Choose any one of the prompts hereunder and write a body paragraph of about 100-150
words. Pay attention to structure, coherence, punctuation, and language use. Begin the
paragraph with a clear and suitable topic sentence.
1. The world has advanced tremendously in terms of technology. What are your
thoughts regarding artificial intelligence?
2. In Namibia today, there is a high rate of unemployment amongst young people.
Explain what measures you would put in place to curb this problem if you were the
president of Namibia.
3. Online education has become a new way of learning and teaching. Describe ways in
which online learning is more beneficial as compared to the traditional way of
learning and teaching.
4. First year students at university find it difficult to adapt to university life. What
advice would you give to the those planning to come to university to make their
experience less difficult?
5. What are your views concerning old age homes?
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