BAC ENG, 2009, SCRIS, L1-L2, V-3, Sb-1, [ sub + rezolv ]

[musa paradisiaca]

Ministerul Educaţiei, Cercetării şi Inovării
Centrul Naţional pentru Curriculum şi Evaluare în Învăţământul Preuniversitar

Examenul de bacalaureat 2009
Proba E/F
Proba scrisă la Limba engleză
L1 normal – L2

Toate subiectele sunt obligatorii. Se acordă 10 puncte din oficiu.
Timpul efectiv de lucru este de 3 ore.

Varianta 3

SUBIECTUL I (30 de puncte)

Read the text below and complete the following tasks.

For the first time in a generation, the question of whether the death penalty deters murders has captured the attention of scholars in law and economics, setting off an intense new debate about one of the central justifications for capital punishment. According to roughly a dozen recent studies, executions save lives. For each inmate put to death, the studies say, 3 to 18 murders are prevented. … (1)

The studies, performed by economists in the past decade, compare the number of executions in different jurisdictions with homicide rates over time — while trying to eliminate the effects of crime rates, conviction rates and other factors — …(2). One influential study looked at 3,054 counties over two decades.

“I personally am opposed to the death penalty,” said H. Naci Mocan, an economist at Louisiana State University and an author of a study finding that each execution saves five lives. “But my research shows that there is a deterrent effect.” The studies have been the subject of sharp criticism, much of it from legal scholars who say that the theories of economists do not apply to the violent world of crime and punishment.… (3)

The death penalty “is applied so rarely that the number of homicides it can plausibly have caused or deterred cannot reliably be disentangled from the large year-to-year changes in the homicide rate caused by other factors,” John J. Donohue III, a law professor at Yale with a doctorate in economics, and Justin Wolfers, an economist at the University of Pennsylvania, wrote in the Stanford Law Review in 2005. … (4)
(ADAM LIPTAK, Does Death Penalty Save Lives? A New Debate)

1. Four sentences have been removed from the text. Select the appropriate sentence for each gap in the text. There is one extra sentence that does not fit.
4 points

A. “We just don’t get enough variation to be confident we have isolated a deterrent effect.”

B. “The existing evidence for deterrence,” they concluded, “is surprisingly fragile.”

C. and say that murder rates tend to fall as executions rise.

D. Critics of the studies say they are based on faulty premises, insufficient data and flawed methodologies.

E. The effect is most pronounced, according to some studies, in Texas and other states that execute condemned inmates relatively often and relatively quickly.

My word explanation:

● to deter = to discourage, to divert, to intimidate;
● deterrent = discouraging, intimidating, diverting;
● deterrence = diversion, intimidation, discourage;
● to set off = to start;
● roughly = approximately;
● inmate = patient, prisoner;
● reliably = righteously, loyally, honourably;
● to disentangle = to disconnect, to separate;
● flawed = imperfect, blunted;

Solution
My answer:

● 1 – E;
● 2 – C;
● 3 – B;
● 4 – A;

2. Who / What do the words in bold refer to?
6 points

Solution
My answer:

● I = H. Naci Mocan;
● who = legal scholars;
● it = the death penalty;

3. Explain the following words.
10 points

1. justification 2. recent 3. inmate 4. eliminate 5. rarely

Solution
My answer:

● 1 – [ justification ] = reason, fact, circumstance or explanation that justifies or defends;
● 2 – [ recent ] = late, current;
● 3 – [ inmate ] = patient, prisoner;
● 4 – [ eliminate ] = remove, reject, expel;
● 5 – [ rarely ] = infrequently, not very often;

4. Answer the following questions.
6 points

A. What has captured the attention of scholars in law and economics?

B. Why is the effect of death penalty more pronounced in Texas?

C. What is Mocan’s personal opinion on death penalty?

Solution
My answer:

● A -- the question of whether the death penalty deters murders;
● B -- because they execute condemned inmates relatively often ( and relatively quickly ) there;
● C – he personally does not agree with its enforcement;

5. Comment on the following sentence:

The death penalty is applied so rarely that the number of homicides it can plausibly have caused or deterred cannot reliably be disentangled from the large year-to-year changes in the homicide rate caused by other factors.

(50 words)
4 points

Solution
My answer:

● Unnatural deaths are caused, among many factors, by death penalty sufferers. This is not the highest rate factor. There are others producing more frequent unnatural deaths yearly. Thus death penalty cannot be justified by the number of homicides caused or deterred by it, because the number of unnatural deaths produced by other factors is much bigger. ( 56 words )