Málfríður - 15.05.1993, Blaðsíða 12

From VWO-test 1991.
Matter of degrees
1 ____1 I can understand the discomfort of your correspondents (Nov. 6) at the award of an
__1 honorary degree to Caspar Weinberger, but perhaps they are confusing symbol with
__2 substance. In chapter XXVI of his Ambassador's Joumal, John Kenneth Galbraith wrote:
__i ‘There is something very ridiculous about honorary degrees. A grown man stands and
__l tries to look modest in the presence of immodest and highly inaccurate praise. Then he
__5 sits down and everyone forgets it all.’
2 ____I He added: ‘I think I will decline future offers. At least I should’ and, in a footnote:
__! 'I didn’t’.
__! Andrew Allen,
_12 Poiníe Claire.
__li Canada.
__ ‘The Guardian', December 17, 1989
m What does Andrew Allen’s letter suggest about honorary degrees?
a Their status is not related to the importance of the recipients.
b Their value decreases if they are awarded to undeserving people.
C They have no real value but they are hard to resist.
From the longer MAVO-test 1992.
a
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Lessons in Iife from a mentally handicapped girl
Lesley Black’s birth 21 years ago plunged her mother into a deep depression. She
was a Down’s syndrome child, referred to as a mongol in those days, and the doctors
said she would always be dependent and never achieve any of the things her sister,
Diane, then aged three, would do.
Today, Lesley has overtumed that prediction: she is one of the three finaiists in a
national award scheme for outstanding achievement by a person with Down’s syndrome.
Lesiey holds a full-time job and, according to Diane, who nominated her for the award,
has so many special qualities that she and others like her have much to teach the rest of
us.
Her victories are helping to further a social revolution in which, instead of being
hidden away as defective human beings, people with Down’s syndrome are increasingly
winning recognition as valued members of society. Their abilities vary widely, as with any
group of people, but as those with lesser degrees of handicap are entering normal schools
and taking on normai jobs, they are making it easier for others to follow.
Diane, who is taking a doctor’s degree in biology, lives with Lesley and a younger
sister, Clare, at their parents’ house near Aberdeen. She said last week that although
Lesley had Down’s syndrome, she ied a completeiy normai life. ‘If there was ever any
need for her to be ieft at home on her own, she could manage. Obviously, she may be a
little slower at talking and thinking. But I would say she has more common sense than a
lot of normal people, and there certainly are normal people who are less intelligent than
she is.’
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