Passage 1. Stan Rogers highlights the problems of the modern diet.

1 For most people across the world, life is getting better but diets are getting worse. This is the bittersweet
dilemma of eating in our times. Our free and comfortable lifestyles are undermined by the fact that our
food is killing us, not through lack of it but through its abundance – a hollow kind of abundance.

2 At no point in history have edible items been so easy to obtain. Yet, where humans used to live in fear
of disease, now the leading cause of mortality worldwide is diet. Most of our problems with eating stem 5
from the fact that we have not yet adapted to the new realities of plenty, either biologically or
psychologically.

3 “Everything in moderation” doesn’t quite cut it in a world where the “everything” for sale in the average
supermarket has become so sugary and so immoderate. This is paradoxical and sad, because good
food – good in every sense, from flavour to nutrition – used to be the test by which we judged the quality 10
of life. A good life without good food should be a logical impossibility.

4 As things stand, our culture is far too critical of the individuals who eat junk food and not critical enough
of the corporations who profit from selling them. A survey of more than 300 international policymakers
found that 90% of them still believed that personal motivation – or, willpower – was a very strong cause
of obesity. This is absurd. It makes no sense to presume that there has been a sudden collapse in 15
willpower across all ages and ethnic groups. What has changed most is not our collective willpower but
the marketing and availability of energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods. Some of these changes are
happening so rapidly it is almost impossible to keep track. Sales of fast food grew by 30% worldwide
from 2011 to 2016 and sales of packaged food grew by 25%.

5 Almost every country in the world has also experienced radical changes to its patterns of eating over 20
the past five, 10 and 50 years. For a long time, nutritionists have held up the “Mediterranean diet” as a
healthy model for people in all countries to follow. But recent reports from the World Health Organisation
suggest that even in Spain, Italy and Crete, most children no longer eat anything like a “Mediterranean
diet” rich in olive oil and fish and tomatoes. These Mediterranean children are, as of 2017, among the
most overweight in Europe. In every continent, there has been a common set of changes from savoury 25
foods to sweet ones, from meals to snacks, dinners cooked at home to meals eaten out, or takeaways.

6 The nutrient content of our meals is one thing that has radically changed; the psychology of eating is
another. We are often told in a slightly hectoring way that we should make “better” or “smarter” food
choices, yet the way we eat now is the product of vast impersonal forces that none of us asked for. The
choices we make about food are largely predetermined by what are available and by the limitations of 30
our busy lives. Many people use food as a coping mechanism to deal with feelings such as stress,
boredom, anxiety, or even to prolong feelings of joy. While this may help in the short term, eating to
soothe and ease our feelings often leads to regret and guilt, and can even increase the negative
feelings. We are not actually coping with the problem causing the stress. Furthermore, our self-image
may suffer as we gain weight. 35

7 It is becoming abundantly clear that the way most of us currently eat is not sustainable – either for the
planet or for human health. Thankfully, various countries have made some headway through the
provision of information and working through schools. In 2014, Ecuador passed a mandatory traffic light
labeling policy for packaged foods, while voluntary labeling schemes are used in countries such as
Denmark and Sweden. Peru, Uruguay, and Costa Rica have all banned “junk food” in public schools 40
since 2012, and the UK released new school food standards in 2014, limiting fried foods and desserts,
and emphasising water, whole grains, fruits and vegetables.

8 One can only hope that more countries around the world will take action to create environments in
which it is easier to feed ourselves in a manner that is both healthy and joyous.
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Adapted from https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/mar/16/snack-attacks-the-toxic-truth-about-the-way-we-eat
 2

Passage 2. Bee Wilson argues that clean eating is a flawed solution to the problems of the modern diet.

1 At its simplest, clean eating is about ingesting nothing but “whole” or “unprocessed” foods. Some
versions of clean eating have been vegan, while others espouse various meats and something
mysteriously called “bone broth” (stock, to you and me). At first, clean eating sounded modest and even
homespun: rather than counting calories, you would eat as many nutritious home-cooked substances
as possible. 5

2 But it quickly became clear that “clean eating” was more than a diet; it was a belief system, which
propagated the idea that the way most people eat is not simply fattening, but impure. Once the concept
of cleanliness had entered the realm of eating, it was only a matter of time before the basic idea spread
contagiously across Instagram, where fans of #eatclean could share their artfully photographed green
juices and rainbow salad bowls. Among the affluent classes who already ate a healthier-than-average 10
diet, the Instagram goddesses created a new model of dietary perfection to aim for. For the rest of the
population, however, it simply placed the ideal of healthy food ever further out of reach.

3 However much the concept of clean eating has been logically refuted and publicly reviled, the thing
itself shows few signs of dying. Even if you have never knowingly tried to “eat clean”, it is impossible to
avoid the trend altogether, because it changed the foods available to all of us, and the way they are 15
spoken of. Why has clean eating proved so difficult to kill off? The interesting question is not whether
clean eating is nonsense, but why so many intelligent people decided to put their faith in it.

4 Clean eating is perhaps best seen as a dysfunctional response to a still more dysfunctional food supply:
a dream of purity in a toxic world. To walk into a modern western supermarket is to be assailed by aisle
upon aisle of salty, oily snacks and sugary cereals, of cheap, sweetened drinks and meat from animals 20
kept in inhumane conditions. Affluence and multinational food companies replaced the hunger of earlier
generations with an unwholesome banquet of sweet drinks and convenience foods that teach us from
a young age to crave more of the same. Wherever this pattern of eating travelled, it brought with it
dramatic rises in ill health, from allergies to cancer.

5 When mainstream diets start to sicken people, it is unsurprising that many of us should seek other ways 25
of eating to keep ourselves safe from harm. Our collective anxiety around diet was exacerbated by a
general impression that mainstream scientific advice on diet – inflated by newspaper headlines – could
not be trusted. First these so-called experts tell us to avoid fat, then sugar, and all the while people get
less and less healthy. What will these “experts” say next, and why should we believe them?

6 Into this atmosphere of anxiety and confusion stepped a series of gurus offering messages of wonderful 30
simplicity and reassurance: eat this way and I will make you fresh and healthy again. However, this
way of thinking is especially dangerous because it obscures the message that, in fact, small changes
in diet can have a large beneficial impact. If you think you cannot be healthy unless you eat nothing but
vegetables, you might miss the fact that there are substantial benefits from raising your fruit-and-veg
intake from zero portions a day to just two. 35

7 Among its many other offences, clean eating is a series of claims about food that are all or nothing –
which only serves to underline the fact that most people, as usual, are stuck with nothing.
Adapted from https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/aug/11/why-we-fell-for-clean-eating

END OF INSERT

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© CJC 2019
 CATHOLIC JUNIOR COLLEGE
JC2 Preliminary Examination 2019
General Certificate of Education Advanced Level
Higher 1

CANDIDATE
NAME

CLASS

GENERAL PAPER 8807/02

Paper 2 22 August 2019
1 hour 30 minutes

Candidates answer on the Question Paper.

READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS FIRST

Write your name and class on all the work you hand in.
Write in dark blue or black pen on both sides of the paper.
Do not use paper clips, glue or correction fluid and tape.

Answer all questions.

Note that up to 15 marks out of 50 will be awarded for your use of language.

The number of marks is given in brackets [ ] at the end of each question or part question.
At the end of the examination, fasten all your work securely together.

For Examiner’s Use

Content /35

Language /15

Total /50

This document consists of 8 printed pages.

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 2
For
Read the passage and then answer all the questions. Note that up to fifteen marks will be given for the Examiner’s
quality and accuracy of your use of English throughout this Paper. Use

NOTE: When a question asks for an answer IN YOUR OWN WORDS AS FAR AS POSSIBLE and you
select the appropriate material from the passage for your answer, you must still use your own words to
express it. Little credit can be given to answers which only copy words and phrases from the passage.

From Passage 1

1 According to the writer, what is the ‘bittersweet dilemma of eating in our times’ (lines 1-2)?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………… [1]

2 What does the author mean by ‘a hollow kind of abundance’ (line 3)?

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3 In Paragraph 4, why does the author think that the survey results are ‘absurd’ (line 15)? Use your
own words as far as possible.

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…………………………………………………………………………………………………………… [2]

4 What does the word 'even' in Paragraph 5 (lines 23-24) suggest?

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…………………………………………………………………………………………………………… [2]

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For
5 In Paragraph 6, why does the author use inverted commas for the words ‘better’ and ‘smarter’ Examiner’s
(line 28)? Use

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6 In Paragraph 7, how does the author make his point about attempts at tackling unhealthy eating?

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7 In Paragraph 8, why does the author begin the last sentence with ‘One can only hope’ (line 43)?

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From Passage 2

8 In Paragraph 1, why does the author use the word ‘mysteriously’ (line 3)?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

………………………………………………………………………………………………………...…. [1]

9 According to the author in Paragraph 2, why was it apparent that clean eating was ‘more than a
diet’ (line 6)? Use your own words as far as possible.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..…

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………………………………………………………………………………………………………...…. [2]

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For
10 Using lines 10-12, what contrasts does the author make about those who eat healthily and those Examiner’s
who do not? Use your own words as far as possible. Use

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……………………………………………………………………………………………………...……. [2]

11 Using material from Paragraphs 3 to 5 only, summarise what the author has to say about the
reasons behind the popularity of clean eating.

Write your summary in no more than 120 words, not counting the opening words which are printed
below. Use your own words as far as possible.

Clean eating ………………………………………...……………………………………………………...

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 5
For
Examiner’s
From both passages Use

12 Stan Rogers highlights the problems of the modern diet and some solutions to combat them, while
Bee Wilson offers a critical view of a particular solution to these problems.

How far do you agree with the views expressed in both passages? Support your answer with
reference to your own experience and that of your society.

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 6
For
Examiner’s
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………......... Use

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END OF PAPER

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