Civilisation exam

I was 5 minutes late because Catrin felt unwell on the way to school. We think she does indeed feel unwell (headaches, nausea etc.) but that it is stress-related due to the problems she’s had at school. For example, she’s normally unwell on days when she has her English lesson (Tuesday and Friday) but on other days she’s OK or at least not so bad. (I suppose it's quite funny really that English stresses her out, but it doesn't seem very funny at the time.)

Anyway we still take her to school - the only way through this is through it - but this morning it meant I was late for my exam. Please pray for her and for us in this. The English teacher invited us to go in and talk with her, and so I am waiting for a good opportunity to do so (and for the wisdom to know how to handle it. Catrin could be married and working by the time I have that much wisdom.)

So! We had been tipped off by the excellent and kindly lecturer to revise the State, the Président and the Prime Minister, and the first question was "How is the prime minister chosen? What is his role?" I think I did OK, especially after my slip of the tongue the other day during a lecture when we were asked "Who can the president choose as prime minister?" and after a long and embarrassing pause when nobody said nothing, I said "He can choose anything" when I meant to say "He can choose anyone" (Perhaps I was right the first time. Discuss.) I think that the only thing I forgot about his role is proposing the budget.

The second question was quite a complex little one all about demographics in France, with an article and two graphs to refer to. Essentially the problem is

1) People are living longer than ever before.

2) People are retiring earlier than ever before.

3) People are starting to work later than ever before.

4) France has a system of repartition whereby those in work pay for the health care and pensions of those not in work.

You can probably see the issues here. Essentially today three generations (the young, and two generations of retired people) are being supported by one generation in work.

I don’t think I’ll get a particularly good mark for that question, though I got all the stuff in there. I expect to pass, but not with a high mark. The problem was that we were supposed to comment on a newspaper article and two graphs, and what I did was a synthesis of the article and the graphs. I couldn’t really see any other way to do it without seriously losing the thread!

During revision today for Grammar tomorrow (I am DREADING it - it will be a no dictionary exam with really random conjugation questions!) I found a brilliantly simple explanation of the passive voice in my big Bescherelle.

Lovely!

I bet I get them all wrong now!

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