Lisez attentivement le document suivant, composé de deux textes
Texte n°1
5
10
15
20
25
(Henry has just come home from school.)
"Henry," she gasped, "you've got to help me."
"What! What's the matter?" Was the FBI upstairs? Was she bleeding internally? There'd been gunfire! We were
going to scream down the street in an ambulance while she told me her dying wish, while she expired in my arms.
"What!"
She was doing the difficult job of holding still, so that the skin on her hands, those lily-white ones, were stretched to
the thinnest translucence around my big wrists. "I can't," she said, "get-on-line."
I looked hard and I looked long into those beseeching blue eyes of hers. Right then there was nothing - not jewels
or a cruise ship or money [...] - that she wanted more than the machinery to be up and running I could see this in her
fierce little pupils. "Oh, no!" I finally whispered. "Oh, God!"
"What? What do you think it is?"
It hadn't taken me much time, more than a second really, to understand the possibilities in the situation.
[...]
"I've... I've got to get on," she said. "I've just, just got to get on."
"Okay," I said. "Sure."
I set my backpack on the floor, squatted, took out a pencil, in case I needed to do some complicated algorithms to
get the dolly 1 in working order. Computations that might take, oh, a week or two. I ambled 2 up the stairs after her, sat
in the office chair, adjusted the setting for height and back support. Stood and fixed my belt. Sat down. Made a fine
tuning with the smaller black knob 3 under the chair. Tweaked the larger one.
[... ]
She would have liked to scream at me. I could tell, to shriek for all she was worth. Get me on Henry. I could feel the
urgency, the desperation, in the way she clutched the back of my chair and breathed as if she were running and
running and not simply standing still. [...]
Up in the office, when she could no longer control herself over the computer's malfunction, when she started to
tremble, and when her breathing down my neck became irregular, I said, "Wait a minute. Let's try something." I made
elaborate motions, pressing the various keys and finally hitting the one under the desk that shut the machine down.
"Hold the phone," I said, starting it up again. "Here we go."
My mother sank into a hard wooden chair, put her hands into her face, and said, "Oh Jesus. Thank you!"
Adapted from Disobedience, by Jane Hamilton, Anchor Books, 2001
Texte n° 2
30
35
40
A generational difference shows up in the emergence of the "family tech guru", who these days is far
more likely to be a teenager than the father of the house. A Carnegie Mellon study of home computer use
found that "those with the least seniority claimed the most authority," with calls to technical support 4
(generally a sign of the household "power user") coming predominantly from children, not adults. Southwest
Airlines recently ran a television ad showing a self-important boomer 5 dictating his travel requirements to
an unseen associate. The camera pulls back to show his seven-year-old son, who is typing it all into a
website.
Children have always been more expert than their parents at something, but usually a game or a fad, not
the era's most important business tool. "For the first time in history, children are more comfortable,
knowledgeable and literate than their parents about an innovation central to society," says Mr Tapscott (the
author of Growing Up Digital). For kids today, technology is the defining event of their generation, much as
wars or depression were for previous generations. Television opened the boomers' eyes to the global village,
but the Internet goes one better. It operates 24 hours a day, and it does not just offer you a window on the
world, but a way of playing a part wherever you are.
Extracted and adapted from "The Young", a survey published in The Economist, December 23rd 2000
1 dolly: (ici) machine
2 to amble: to walk nonchalantly
4 calls to technical support: phone calls to hotlines
3 a knob: a round handle or control button
5 a boomer: a baby boomer, i.e. a person born at the time of the baby-boom
COMPREHENSION
1. The document is composed of two texts. What is the nature of each one?
Text n°1: ______________________________________________________________________________________
Text n°2: _______________________________________________________________________________________________
Text n°1
2. Say how many characters are present in the scene, and explain in your own words what their relationship is.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
3. What is the woman's problem?
______________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
4. Lines 1 to 14: pick out three words or phrases showing that the woman finds the situation dramatic.
______________________________________________ _______________________________________________
______________________________________________
5. Lines 15 to 29.
a) Pick out four expressions showing the physical manifestation of the woman's emotional state.
______________________________________________ _______________________________________________
______________________________________________ _______________________________________________
b) What evolution do these expressions reflect?
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
6. Find in the second text the expression that could apply to the narrator of the first text.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
7. Explain how the first text illustrates the following quotation, taken from the second one: "Those with the least
seniority [claim] the most authority."
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
8. Lines 15 to 29. The narrator's behaviour has several aims. Explain in your own words what they are.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
Text n°2
9. Say whether the following statements are right or wrong. Tick the corresponding boxes and justify with a quotation.
a) The older generation call hotline numbers more often than the younger generation.  Right
 Wrong
____________________________________________________________________________________________
b) Making travel arrangements with the Internet is presented as child's play.
 Right
 Wrong
____________________________________________________________________________________________
c) Children have always been quicker than their parents at understanding technological inventions.
 Right
 Wrong
____________________________________________________________________________________________
d) Today's children's lives are shaped by technology.
 Right
Wrong
____________________________________________________________________________________________
10. Translate into French the passage from line 1 ("Henry, she gasped...") down to line 4 ("...in my arms").
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
11. Which of the following titles best applies to the document (both texts taken as a whole)? Tick the right box.
 The computer era is born.
 Getting on line at any time.
 The young: the true masters of new technology.
 Revenge of the baby-boomers.
Justify your choice with a quotation from each text
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
EXPRESSION ECRITE
Traiter obligatoirement les deux sujets.
1. Write a short monologue in which the woman in text 1 gives her own account of the incident (100 words at least).
2. Television opens a window on the world, whereas the Internet offers you "a way of playing a part wherever you are".
Discuss, in 200 words at least.