55 Berufskolleg/Berufliches Gymnasium NRW

Berufskolleg / Berufliches Gymnasium NRW – Englisch Leistungskurs
Abiturähnliche Übungsaufgabe 1
Aufgabentyp: fiktionaler Text
Unterrichtsinhalte: dreams of success and business ethics
Excerpt from Nice Work by David Lodge
5
10
15
20
25
30
“Where shall I sit?” said Robyn.
“Anywhere you like,” said Wilcox.
Robyn took a seat at the opposite end of the table from Wilcox. “This is Dr Robyn
Penrose, of Rummidge University,” he said. As though given permission to stare at
her, the men all turned their heads simultaneously in her direction. “You’ve all heard
of Industry Year, I suppose. And you all know what a shadow is. Well, Dr Penrose is
my Industry Year shadow.” He looked round the table as if daring anyone to smile.
No one did. He explained the Shadow Scheme briefly, and concluded, “Just carry on
as if she wasn’t there.”
This they seemed to find no difficulty in doing, once the meeting started. The
subject was Wastage. Wilcox began by stating that the percentage of products rejected by their own inspectors was five per cent, which he considered far too high,
and another one per cent was returned by customers. He listed various possible causes – defective machines, careless workmanship, poor supervision, faulty lab tests –
and asked the head of each department to identify the main cause of waste in their
own area. Robyn found the discussion hard to follow. The managers spoke in cryptic,
allusive utterances, using technical jargon that was opaque to her. The adenoidal
whine of their accents dulled her hearing, and the smoke of their cigarettes made her
eyes smart. She grew bored, and gazed out of the window, at the fading winter light
and the fluttering descent of the snow. The snow was general all over Rummidge, she
mused, playing variations on a famous passage by James Joyce to divert herself. It
was falling on every part of the dark, sprawling conurbation, on the concrete motorways, and the treeless industrial estates, and, further westward, upon the dark mutinous waters of the Rummidge-Wallsbury Canal. Then suddenly she was listening
with attention again.
They were discussing a machine that was continually breaking down. “It’s the operative’s fault,” one of the managers was saying. “He’s just not up to the job. He
doesn’t set the indexes properly, so it keeps jamming.”
“What’s his name?” Wilcox demanded.
“Ram. He’s a Paki,” said one.
“No, he’s not, he’s Indian,” said another.
“Well, whatever. Who can tell the difference? They call him Danny. Danny Ram.
He was moved on to the job when we were short-handed last winter, and up-graded
from labourer.”
55
35
40
45
50
55
60
65
“Let’s get rid of him, then,” said Wilcox. “He’s causing a bottle-neck. Terry – see
to it, will you?”
Terry, a heavily built man smoking a pipe, took it out of his mouth and said, “We
haven’t got a basis to fire him.”
“Rubbish. He’s been trained, hasn’t he?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Check it out. If he hasn’t, train him, even if he can’t grasp it. Are you with me?”
Terry nodded.
“Then each time he fails to set the machine properly, you give him a proper
warning. On the third warning, he’s fired. Shouldn’t take more than a fortnight. All
right?”
“Right,” said Terry, putting his pipe back between his teeth.
“The next question,” said Wilcox, is quality control in the machine shop. Now
I’ve got some figures here – “
“Excuse me,” said Robyn.
“Yes, what is it?” said Wilcox, looking up impatiently from his spreadsheet.
“Do I understand that you are proposing to pressure a man into making mistakes
so that you can sack him?”
Wilcox stared at Robyn. There was a long silence, such as falls over a saloon bar
in a western at moments of confrontation. Not only did the other men not speak; they
did not move. They did not appear even to breathe. Robyn herself was breathing
rather fast, in short, shallow pants.
“I don’t think it’s any of your business, Dr Penrose,” said Wilcox at last.
“Oh, but it is,” said Robyn hotly. “It’s the business of anyone who cares for truth
and justice. Don’t you see how wrong it is, to trick this man out of his job?” she said,
looking round the table. “How can you sit there, and say nothing?! The men fiddled
uneasily with their cigarettes and calculators, and avoided meeting her eye.
“It’s a management matter in which you have no competence,” said Wilcox.
“It’s not a management matter, it’s a moral issue,” said Robyn.
Wilcox was now pale with anger. “Dr Penrose,” he said, “I think you’ve got the
wrong idea about your position here. You’re a shadow, not an inspector. You’re here
to learn, not to interfere. I must ask you to keep quiet, or leave the meeting.”
“Very well, I’ll leave,” said Robyn. She gathered up her belongings in a strained
(776 words)
silence, and left the room.
From: David Lodge, Nice Work, Penguin Books, London 1989, p. 142 –144.
56
Aufgabenstellung
1. Write a summary of the excerpt from the novel Nice Work at hand.
(comprehension)
2. Analyse the stylistic means that the author uses to illustrate the mounting conflict
between Robyn Penrose and Victor Wilcox. (analysis)
3. With reference to the text at hand, explain why Vic Wilcox and Robyn Penrose
react the way they do. (analysis)
4. Robyn then goes to see Danny Ram in the factory to inform him of the management’s plan to fire him, which provokes a strike of all the other Indian foundry
workers. After finding out about what Robyn has done, Vic Wilcox forces her to
talk to the men to assure them that no one is going to be fired and to de-escalate
the situation.
Formulate an address to the factory workers to assure them of the loyalty of the
management and to make them take up their work again. Take into consideration
relevant aspects of the text at hand. (creation of text)
57
Lösungsvorschläge
 1. Erinnern Sie sich an die Grundregeln für ein Summary:

– Konzentration auf die wichtigen Aspekte der Handlung

– Formulierung in eigenen Worten, wobei (kurze) Zitate erlaubt sind, aber als

solche gekennzeichnet werden müssen;

– keine Anmerkungen oder persönlichen Kommentare;

– durchgängige Verwendung der Gegenwart;

– Länge des Summary: maximal 1/3 des Originaltextes;

Vorbemerkung zur Einordnung des Textes in den Gesamtzusammenhang:

Im Rahmen des “Shadow Scheme”, das Universitätslehrern der Rummidge Uni
versity die Welt der Industrie näherbringen soll, besucht Protagonistin Robyn

Penrose, Expertin für die “industrial novel” des 19. Jahrhunderts einmal pro Wo
che den metallverarbeitenden Betrieb “Pringle & Sons”. Hier herrscht Victor

Wilcox, der die Besucherin ehr zähneknirschend akzeptiert und der sie zu der hier

dargestellten Sitzung des Firmenmanagements eingeladen hat.
Robyn Penrose has been invited by Vic Wilcox to attend a meeting of the management of Pringle & Sons; after explaining the idea of “Industry Year” (l. 6) to his
colleagues Wilcox starts talking about the first item on the agenda, which is wastage. Wilcox points out various possible causes and asks the managers to identify
the main cause in their department.
Robyn is bored by the discussion as she is not really interested in the topic and as
she doesn’t understand most of the “cryptic […] utterances” (l. 16 /17). She drifts
away mentally, looks out the window and thinks of completely different things.
Her interest returns, however, when the discussion turns to Danny Ram, one of the
workers of Pakistani or Indian descent, who is held responsible of repeated breakdowns of one of the machines. After a short discussion Wilcox decides on a strategy of getting rid of that man through a legal, but unfair setup. Robyn feels that it
is her duty to defend “truth and justice” (l. 58 /59) and starts a heated debate with
Wilcox, despite his admonition not to interfere in the company business, insisting
that it is not a company matter, but a “moral issue” (l. 63).
At the end of that scene an upset Vic Wilcox asks her to either keep quiet or to
leave, which Robyn finally does.
(227 words)
 2. In dieser Aufgabe sollen Sie stilistische Mittel untersuchen. Achten Sie aber dar
auf, nicht inhaltliche und stilistische Aspekte zu vermischen. In den Zeilen 55 und

56 wird Robyns Aufregung und Nervosität deutlich wenn sie “in short, shallow

pants” (l. 56) atmet. Dies ist jedoch eine rein inhaltliche Aussage und das ent
sprechende stilistische Mittel, das diese Tatsache betont, ist die Satzstruktur, die

von sehr kurzen (Teil-)Sätzen geprägt ist.

Weitere sprachliche Besonderheiten, die Sie berücksichtigen können sind z. B.:

– different registers

– imagery: “The men fiddled uneasily with their cigarettes” (ll. 60 /61)

– metaphors: “shadow” l. 7, l. 65)
58