Dicembre 2016 e ditoriale

words choosing between two further questions provided

specifically for the production activity. In these contri-

butions, we will comment on each of the texts proposed.

This article regards the first two fields, current affairs and

historical and social studies.

The article

Similarly to last year, the current affairs text for analysis

was an abridged version from the online edition of The

Guardian, where it was published on the 23rd August

2015 in the Europe section. Although it was published one

year ago, this article raises an issue which has been in-

creasingly worrying Europe, which is the decline in its

birth rate along with the increase in the age of its popu-

lation. This is probably connected  to the economic crisis

that has forced many Europeans, especially from South-

ern Europe, to migrate, either inside or outside the EU, in

order to find better job opportunities. The article starts re-

porting the discovery of Alejandro Macarròn, a Spanish

business consultant, who realized the incredible size of the

issue when he was studying the changing demographics

of his country, where for every baby born, two people die.

This problem does not only concern Spain, but also Por-

tugal, whose population could be reduced by a third by

2060, Italy, with its ever-growing number of old people,

and Germany, the country with the lowest birth rate in the

world. The only exception is Britain, whose population is

growing at a very fast rate. As the Spanish authorities re-

acted lazily to the demographic crisis, threatening the

future welfare of the country, Macarròn and some friends

started a non-profit group called “Demographic Renais-

sance” to spread awareness of the problem. The conse-

quences of this phenomenon will not just be evident in the

far future, with an elderly population left without young

people to take care of them, run the services and populate

the rural areas; they can already be seen, with entire vil-

lages abandoned and empty in the Spanish region of Gali-

cia, for example. Paradoxically, many refugees and asy-

lum-seekers desperately try to reach the European

continent in spite of attempts to hamper them. The article

ends with a description of the case of Portugal, whose

Prime Minister believes that the next decade will be vi-

tal to reverse the trend. To do that, the stopgap measures

adopted till now will be insufficient: concrete solutions are

necessary, or only a miracle will solve the problem.

The original text had to be shortened so as to be around

700 words long

1

, as much as the other texts proposed in

the exam, but no change or adaptation was necessary,

since there are no syntactic, lexical or stylistic difficulties

in the text pulling it ahead of the B2 level of the Common

European Framework, which is the level of linguistic

competence fifth year students are supposed to have

reached. Moreover, the information provided in the arti-

cle is factual, and the one example of figurative language

in it (the “grey vote”) can be easily interpreted. Overall,

this text is perfectly understandable for the target readers. 

Suggested answers to the questions

The first task students have to fulfil is answering the

questions using their own words and writing complete

sentences. All the questions focus on the comprehension

of explicit meaning, with the exception of question 7 that

requires inferring the idea behind the phrase “grey vote”

by interpreting the figurative meaning of ‘grey’. 

A possible answer to question 1 is that “Macarròn was sur-

prised because he found out that in some provinces of

Spain the number of people dying doubles the number of

newborn babies, and this proportion is even increasing”.

The two facts of Spain’s current demographic situation,

which are the object of question 2, are: firstly, the level of

births in Spain corresponds to 1.27 children born for

every woman in childbearing age, which is far lower

than the European average of 1.55 children; secondly,

hundreds of thousands of people, both natives and immi-

grants, leave Spain hoping to find better jobs abroad, as

a consequence of the economic crisis.  The third question

focuses on the paradox that the article highlights: this par-

adox consists in the phenomenon of the huge number of

asylum-seekers and economic migrants who are strug-

gling to enter the EU, breaking through security forces

that try to limit migration, which contrasts with the de-

mographic crisis that Europe is suffering. Question 4

asks what the European societies need to become more

self-sustaining: to reach that goal, Europe requires more

young people to work in the field of healthcare, to take

care of the elderly and go back to live in the rural areas.

Question 5 requires students to find out what Macarròn

and his friends have started, and why. The answer can be

found in the seventh paragraph, where it is said that

Macarròn and a few friends of his founded the non-profit

group “Demographic Renaissance” in order to raise

awareness of the demographic crisis in Spain and start

confronting the issue, as a consequence of the indolent re-

action of the Spanish authorities to this phenomenon that

is endangering the economic growth, pensions, healthcare

and social services of their country. A suitable answer to

the sixth question, which asks what prospect every new

generation of Spaniards face if things don’t change, is the

1 The full version of the article can be read online at https://www.theguardian.

com/world/2015/aug/23/baby-crisis-europe-brink-depopulation-disaster

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