Sample Baccalaureate Tests (Part 1)

Text Messages & Emails 

Letters (L) 2008

When computers first started to be used on a wide scale, some people predicted that we would spend so long staring at computer screens that we would en up forgetting how to talk to one another. But in fact, the rapid expansion of electronic communication in the 21st century has had the opposite effect. Rather than retreating into themselves, people are using new technology, in particular email and text massaging, to find more and more ways to expand their network of friends.

Jane Adams, 23, sends so many messages to her friends. She’s known as the Text Queen. ‘My friends and I take our phones out with us and send messages to other friends saying “we’re in this club and it’s really good. Come and meet us, “she said. It means we don’t have to spend ages planning an evening out. You can just send the same message to everyone;

Text messaging and email also help Jane keep in touch with old schoolmates she would probably have lost contact with otherwise. She finds that it’s easier to send a message saying ‘Hi! thinking of you, ‘rather than having to write a long letter.

It seems these forms of communication have filled a gap, offering something that face to face conversation does not. Professor Pam Briggs

Sample Baccalaureate Tests (Part 2)

Bill Gates

Science & LO 2007

Bill Gates, the richest man in the world, was born in 1955 in Seattle, USA, to a wealthy family. His father was a prominent lawyer and his mother a member of the board of directors of two banks. When he was thirteen, he started to become interested in computers and the development of computer software. In 1972, he made his first big profit of 4,200 $when he sold timetable software to his school.

Bill Gates went to Harvard University and father doing only three years of study; he stopped going there to set up Microsoft, with his old school friend, Paul Allen, in 1975.

Later, Microsoft developed into an enormous international company that employs more then 54,000 people all over the world.

Bill Gates met his wife, Melinda, in 1987 when he was working for Microsoft. They got married in 1994 and now have three children: Jennifer 11, Rory John 8, and phoebe 5.

In 2000, Bill Gates changed his position as chief executive officer at Microsoft to return to his first love, the development of software. In the same year, Bill and his wife founded the Bill and Melida Gates Foundation, a charitable organization. This charity gives money to health and education projects in the third world. For example

Sample Baccalaureate Tests (Part 3)

Brain Drain in Africa

Letters (L) 2008

The Economic Commission for Africa estimates that between 1960 and 1989, some 127,000 highly qualified African professionals left Africa. According to the International Organisation for Migration, Africa has been losing 20,000 professionals each year since 1990. This has raised claims that the continent is dying a slow death from brain drain which has financial, institutional, and societal costs. African countries get little return from their investment in higher education, since too many graduated leave or fail to return home at the end of their studies. The Unite Nations has finally admitted that emigration of African professionals to the West is one of the greatest obstacles to African’s development.

     Kofi Apraku, an African living in the US, is eager to go back home. Nearly twenty years ago, he came to America as an exchange student to finish high school. Kofi ended up staying there to get his doctorate. He achieved distinction not only in his professional

Sample Baccalaureate Tests (Part 4)

                                      Kuwaiti Working Women 

                                            Letters L  2009

Traditionally, the idea of a working woman was not accepted by many people; they saw it as a radical change in family life. The reasons were simple: a woman’s place is at home. Who is going to clean, cook, feed the kids and look after them?

          Batool, a 29-year-old Kuwaiti pharmacist and mother of two children says: "I feel guilty." Now that my eldest daughter is going to school, I’m starting to have second thoughts about being a career woman." She says that when she was a kid, her mother would wake her up every morning for school. "She made us breakfast, me and five other siblings, whereas I find difficulty taking care of only two daughters," she added.

          Like many other young Kuwaiti women, Batool finds it necessary to be taking a share in the household finances. "It’s not as easy as it used to be with my mother’s generation," explained Batool. "A woman now has to have her awn income, if not to support her family, then to satisfy her needs. Life is too expensive compared to twenty or thirty years ago." The number of working women in Kuwait is continuously increasing, with 42 paecent participating in the total of Kuwait’s working force, according to a recent study conducted by the Arab Planning Institute.