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2014 ‫מועד אוקטובר‬ - 47 - ‫ פרק שני‬- ‫ אנגלית‬

12. In recent years, the indiscriminate use of the term "interior decorator" has rendered it

nearly meaningless.

(1) The term "interior decorator" has almost lost its meaning in the last few years
because it has been applied so loosely.

(2) Many people nowadays use the term "interior decorator" but very few of them know
what it really means.

(3) Recently, even those who call themselves interior decorators have begun to feel that
their profession is not very meaningful.

(4) So many people have recently become so-called interior decorators that the
profession has lost its appeal.

Reading Comprehension

This part consists of two passages, each followed by several related questions. For each
question, choose the most appropriate answer based on the text.

Text I (Questions 13-17)

(1) Most Americans are familiar with a novel called The Red Badge of Courage, which
tells the story of a soldier in the American Civil War. Published a hundred years ago, it
is universally recognized as a classic, but most people do not know much about the
short, dramatic life of the man who wrote it.

(5) Stephen Crane's life was as eventful as his fiction. He lived as a penniless bohemian
in New York City and then became famous, virtually overnight. He was a close friend of
some of the greatest writers of his day, including Joseph Conrad, Henry James and H. G.
Wells, entertaining them at his huge medieval mansion in England. He accumulated
crushing debts. Along the way, he wrote enough to fill twelve volumes of collected

(10) works – all before dying of tuberculosis at the age of 28.

Most authors write about their experiences. Crane did the opposite: he tried to
experience what he had already written about. He began The Red Badge of Courage at
the age of 21, before he had been anywhere near a battlefield. A few years later, he
became a daring war correspondent in Cuba. He wrote about a prostitute, then fell in

(15) love with one.

From the very beginning, Crane's life was marked by tragedy. Born in Newark,
New Jersey, in 1871, he was the fourteenth child of a 45-year-old woman whose four
previous children had all died within a year of birth. When he was seven years old, his
father died. His sister Agnes, who had encouraged his early literary interests, died when

(20) he was twelve.

As a teenager, Crane rebelled against the strict rules of his Methodist family. At the
age of sixteen, he shocked people by buying beer and drinking it in public. Explaining
his actions to a friend, Crane asked a question that sums up his entire life: "How are you
going to know about things at all unless you do them?"

)‫© כל הזכויות שמורות למרכז ארצי לבחינות ולהערכה (ע"ר‬

.‫ בלא אישור בכתב מהמרכז הארצי לבחינות ולהערכה‬- ‫ כולה או חלקים ממנה‬- ‫ או ללמדה‬,‫אין להעתיק או להפיץ בחינה זו או קטעים ממנה בכל צורה ובכל אמצעי‬