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2024 מועד חורף - 41 - פרק ראשון- אנגלית
Text II (Questions 18-22)
(1) The eagle is the subject of an ode by William Shakespeare, the swallow, of a short
story by Oscar Wilde. But what about the pigeon? As a matter of fact, China has a long
history of what might be called "pigeon culture". The bird is immortalized in the
Pigeon Classics, a book written some time during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644).
(5) Pigeon breeding in China dates from that period, when armies used the birds to deliver
messages. Even today, pigeons are utilized to fly information into mountainous areas of
the country that are difficult to reach by other means.
By the 17th century, pigeons were being trained to do acrobatics. They performed
in air shows, their feet adorned with elaborately carved bamboo whistles that piped
(10) music as they flew. In the 1930s, Chinese pigeon owners began breeding their birds for
racing. This pastime was outlawed during the Cultural Revolution of the 1970s
as a "feudal, capitalist sport", and pigeon breeding came to an end. As a result, when
the government looked for pigeons to release at the opening ceremony of a national
sports competition in 1980, none were to be found. So, in 1982, the Beijing Pigeon
(15) Association was formally established. At the 1990 Asian Games in China, 60,000
pigeons were released over the stadium.
Today, 3 million of the 7 million registered pigeon breeders in the International
Homing Pigeon Federation live in China. One of them, Sun Mi, who has raised pigeons
since the age of 8, now has 80 racing pigeons living in a dovecote on the roof of his
(20) small home in central Beijing. He is so attached to them that he has put their coop next
to his bedroom.
Still, pigeon raising in China is not without problems, primarily related to cost and
hygiene. For example, a racing pigeon in top form may sell for as much as 100,000
yuan in a country where the average monthly salary is about 600 yuan.
Questions
18. The word "breeding" in line 10 could best be replaced by -
(1) performing
(2) raising
(3) flying
(4) racing
)© 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
