Exam practice

Walt Disney (1901–1966), in front of the castle at Disneyland, the park he built in California.

He is known as the animator and film producer who created Mickey Mouse, made the first full-length cartoon film made in Hollywood, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and built Disneyland, the first theme park of its kind. The company he started with his brother Roy, The Walt Disney Company, is one of the largest entertainment companies in the world. He won more Academy Awards (Oscars) than anyone else: 22.

a. afloat b. plotting c. harness d. bankrupt e. perseverance f. mounting g. apprentice h. colossal i. domineering j. solace

• make ends meet: to have just enough money to pay for what you need. After the factory closed, my uncle drove a taxi at night to make ends meet.
• silver lining: a good side to a bad situation. The match was canceled because of rain, but the silver lining was that we had an extra day to practice.
• nervous breakdown: a period of mental illness when stress becomes too much to bear. Working day and night for months, she came close to a nervous breakdown, so the doctor told her to rest.
• kick in the teeth: a painful disappointment, often when you least expected it. Failing the selection trial by one point was a real kick in the teeth for Sagar.
• drop out (of): to stop going to school or a course before it ends. Many girls used to drop out of school after Grade 8, but more now finish Grade 12.
• set off: to start a journey. We set off for Nagarkot at four in the morning to see the sunrise.

Laugh-O-Gram, the cartoon company, was his first business; Oswald came after he moved to California.

g, c, e, d, f, a, b
France (1918–1919) → the art studio in Kansas City (1919) → Laugh-O-Gram goes bankrupt (1923) → Oswald (1927) and Mickey Mouse (1928) → the breakdown (1931) → television (1954) → Disneyland (1955).

It was unhappy and stressful. His father was domineering and is said to have been harsh, and the family was poor. Disney found comfort in drawing, while his older brothers ran away from home one by one.

He was born in Chicago in 1901 and raised in Missouri, the fourth of five children. His father, Elias, was domineering and could not earn enough to meet the family’s needs, so the family was poor and the home unhappy. His older brothers left home young; one of them, Roy, later became his business partner.

After Laugh-O-Gram went bankrupt, he went to Los Angeles with about forty dollars to try acting. When that failed too, he noticed there were no animation studios in California, persuaded his brother Roy to join him, and set up a studio there, where he soon had his first big success with Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.

Disney had gone to New York to renegotiate his contract and found that his producer had taken most of his animators and that he had lost the rights to Oswald. Instead of fighting, he decided to start again, and he created Mickey Mouse on the train ride back to California.

Because of overwork and the strain of keeping his business afloat, together with quarrels with the businessman he worked with, who took away his longtime and best animator.

Pinocchio and Fantasia (both 1940) and Bambi (1942) lost money at first; the text calls them duds.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), his first full-length animated film, was a huge box-office success. (Earlier, his Mickey Mouse cartoons had brought him back to the top.)

Because almost everything went wrong that day, a Sunday: forged tickets brought far too many visitors and a seven-mile queue, the heat (about 38 °C) melted the new asphalt so that high heels sank into it, the drinking fountains did not work, and some rides broke down. “Black” means a day of disaster.

His determination and perseverance: he never gave up after a failure, but learned from it and started again, and he was willing to take bold risks (a full-length cartoon, television, a theme park).

Failure is not the end but a step towards success. Disney lost his first company, his best character and his best animator, and his park opened in chaos, but each time he got up and tried something new. If we keep working, learn from our mistakes and are brave enough to try again, our setbacks can make us stronger, just as he said: a kick in the teeth may be the best thing for you.

The person who has inspired me most is my aunt, Sita. She grew up in a village in Sindhupalchok, where the nearest secondary school was two hours’ walk away. She walked there and back every day for five years and passed her SLC in the first division, the first girl from her ward to do so. She trained as a nurse, and for twenty years she has worked in a health post near her village. After the 2015 earthquake destroyed the building, she treated people in a tent for months. She taught me that where you start does not decide where you end up, and that the best success is one that helps other people.

• a.Wow, 4.0! Congratulations on your brilliant result. You deserve this success.
• b.That’s wonderful news! My warmest congratulations to you both. I can’t wait to meet her.
• c.Congratulations on your new job! The bank is lucky to have you.
• d.Account Manager already? Well done, didi! Congratulations on your promotion; all that hard work has paid off.
• e.You did it! So proud of you, dai. Heartfelt congratulations on your graduation.
• f.Congratulations on winning the trophy! I commend you on all the hours you spent practicing.

a. between (between … and) b. from (from … to) c. in (within the next 30 minutes) d. in (until is also possible: he worked there up to 2010 and then stopped) e. for (look for = try to find) f. under (he is in charge of them) g. at (a knock on the door is also common and correct) h. in (in her twenties = aged 20 to 29) i. of (a great deal of = a lot of) j. into (turn into = become)

a. at b. on c. in d. at e. at f. In g. on h. at

CONGRATULATIONS, CHAMPIONS!
Shree Bhairab Secondary School, Bhaktapur
Date: 12 Mangsir 2083

The whole school family is happy and proud to congratulate our football team on winning the title of the Inter-school Football Tournament, organized by the District Sports Development Committee.

For three months, our players trained every morning before classes, in the cold and in the rain. Their hard work, dedication and team spirit brought them through six matches without a single defeat, and a 2–1 win in a thrilling final. They return with the winners’ trophy, a cash prize of Rs. 25,000 and the best-player award for our captain, Prabin Shrestha.

We thank Coach Ramesh Karki for his guidance, and the parents and students who cheered from the stands.

Heartiest congratulations to every member of the team, and best wishes for the national tournament next year!

Principal
on behalf of the school family

Suryabinayak-4
Bhaktapur
15 Kartik 2083

Dear Mama,

I hope you and Maiju are well. Mother told us your wonderful news last night: you have been promoted to Inspector of Nepal Police! Please accept my heartiest congratulations.

Everyone in the family is proud of you. We all remember how you studied for the departmental exam after long shifts at the police station, and how you never complained even when you were posted far from home. This promotion is a reward you have truly earned.

I am sure you will be just as fair and caring a leader as you have been an officer. Your new team is lucky to have you. When I said that I would like to join the police after my studies, you told me that honesty is the first qualification; I still remember that.

Once again, congratulations, and my best wishes for your new responsibilities. Please come to Bhaktapur during Tihar, so that we can celebrate together.

With love and respect,
Anisha

A clear goal; hard work over a long time; patience; honesty; the courage to try again after failing; respect for others; and the wisdom to learn from both success and failure.

I try to study a little every day instead of only before exams, and I keep going when a subject is hard. I am still working on patience: I often get upset when a result is not what I hoped.

a – vii, b – iii, c – vi, d – v, e – ii, f – ix, g – i, h – iv, i – viii

a. inspirational b. truthfulness c. success and failure d. value e. will f. virtue g. importance
Note on (d): the poem asks you to be ready to risk all your winnings, and to lose without complaining. To value them rightly means not to hold on to them too tightly.

If people tell lies about you, don’t tell lies yourself (“don’t deal in lies”); stay honest. And if people twist the truth you have spoken, bear it patiently.

It means being patient: waiting calmly for results, without losing hope or giving up because they take a long time.

Because dreams alone achieve nothing. If dreams become our master, we live in imagination instead of working; a dream is useful only when it makes us act to reach it.

By turning it into a plan with small steps, working hard on them every day, staying patient, learning from failures and starting again, and keeping our will strong when we are tired.

Knaves (dishonest people) can twist the truth we have spoken, changing our words to make a trap for fools, so that foolish people believe something false about us.

Because thinking about them all the time, or complaining about them, keeps us from moving on. The poet says that if we lose, we should start again from the beginning and never speak of our loss: we should learn from a failure and then put it behind us.

We should start again at our beginnings and never breathe a word about our loss: accept it calmly, without complaining, and rebuild.

My parents tell me to work hard, to be honest even when nobody is watching, and to respect my elders. My teachers advise me to study a little every day instead of all night before the exam, to ask questions when I don’t understand, and to read widely. My grandmother always says, “Dherai nahaas, dherai naro”: don’t laugh too much or cry too much. It is the same advice as Kipling’s: treat Triumph and Disaster just the same.

• a.Barack Obama.
• b.He was the 44th President of the United States (2009–2017), the first African American to hold the office, and he is famous as a speaker. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009.

a. ii (“You have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is”: what you are good at.) b. i, a single mother c. i, a lot of second chances d. ii, so that she could go to the best schools in the country e. ii f. i, 12 times

a. two years b. pay the bills c. proud d. the opportunity (to go to college and law school) e. determine f. succeed g. his high school basketball

a. with each other b. at playing c. interested in d. at large e. out of reach f. out of hand; of the situation g. on a diet h. in a hurry i. on board j. in cash

Greet the audience; say your topic and your view in one sentence; give three examples, each with a lesson; speak to the listeners (you, we); end with a short call to action and Thank you.

Respected Principal, teachers and my dear friends,

Good morning. Today I would like to speak on the topic “Failure as the Pillar of Success”. A pillar holds up a building. My point is simple: the failures we are so afraid of are what hold up every great success.

Think of Walt Disney. His first company went bankrupt. He lost his best character and most of his animators. Yet on the train home after that loss, he drew Mickey Mouse, and he went on to win more Oscars than anyone in history. His failures did not stop him; they taught him to own his work and to try bolder ideas.

Think of J. K. Rowling. Her first Harry Potter book was turned down by twelve publishers. If she had given up after the eleventh, millions of children would never have read it.

Or think of Michael Jordan, who was left out of his school’s top basketball team as a boy. He once said that he had failed over and over again in his life, and that this was why he succeeded.

And we don’t have to look abroad. Pasang Lhamu Sherpa turned back from Everest three times before, in 1993, she became the first Nepali woman to stand on its summit. Every farmer in our village has lost a crop to hail or drought, and planted again the next season.

Failure hurts. But it also shows us exactly what to improve, makes us stronger and humbler, and teaches us to keep going. The only real failure is to stop trying.

So, friends, the next time you fail a test or lose a match, don’t ask, “Why me?” Ask, “What can I learn?” Then build your next step on it.

Thank you.

• a.Where are you going, my friend?
• b.It is late; I will come soon.
• c.I beg you, stay here until tomorrow.
• d.Why are you crying?

b, e, d, c, a

a. in b. in c. at (or in) d. for e. on (or during) f. on g. in h. with (or about) i. into j. from

• a.In Solukhumbu.
• b.Three times; she reached the top on her fourth attempt.
• c.She became the first Nepali woman to climb Everest.
• d.A storm trapped her near the South Summit, and she died there.
• e.She was honored with the Nepal Tara and named a national luminary, and a mountain, a highway and a statue carry her name.

(A practice passage written for this page.)

Dear Aarav,
Congratulations on being selected for Nepal’s team at the International Mathematical Olympiad! I always knew those late nights with problem books would pay off. You deserve this success more than anyone I know. The whole class is proud of you, and we will be following every round. Stay calm, enjoy the problems, and remember to sleep well before each paper. Best of luck, and bring home a medal!
Your friend,
Riya

Greet the audience; state your view; give two or three examples (a famous person, someone from Nepal, someone you know); talk to your listeners; end with a call to action and Thank you.