Reading: road-schooling and student-led learning

Reading comprehension. Read the passage carefully, then answer the questions.

(1) Last spring, two secondary-school teachers, Lina and Karim Ben Youssef, made a decision that surprised their colleagues. After years of long hours, heavy marking and little time with their children, they paused their classroom posts for one school year. Their plan was not a beach holiday but a rolling education project: they would travel with a small caravan and turn every stop into a learning site for their two students at home — their daughters, Nour (14) and Amira (11).

(2) At first the girls were uncertain. The suggestion shocked them because they liked their friends and their class routines. Yet as the idea settled, they endorsed it. Lina later said the test-focused system at school had been dampening curiosity; both parents wanted a calmer model of education where a student could ask slow questions without a bell ending the lesson.

(3) On the road, the family decoupled from the fixed national timetable. They designed a flexible student-led model: museums became history class, markets became maths practice, and long walks trained observation. Money was tight — they sold a flat rather than wait for perfect funding — but they treated perseverance as part of learning. “Challenges,” Karim wrote, “are not interruptions of education; they are the curriculum.”

COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS (12 marks)

1. Tick (√) the most appropriate alternative. (1 mark)

The text is mainly about a family who

- a. saved money only to buy a larger school building.
- b. sacrificed all learning in order to tour hotels.
- c. opted for an adventurous learning experience outside ordinary classrooms. ☐

2. For each of the following statements, pick out one detail from the text showing that it is false. (2 marks)

a. Nour and Amira immediately loved the plan without hesitation. (paragraph 2)

b. The parents kept exactly the same school programme as other students in the country. (paragraph 3)

3. Complete the following paragraph with three words from paragraph 3. One word per blank. (3 marks)

The family could redesign daily lessons by choosing a flexible __________-led model. They treated difficulties as part of __________, and they valued __________ when the journey became hard.

4. Find words or expressions in the text meaning nearly the same as: (3 marks)

- temporary stop of work / posts (paragraph 1): __________
- making weaker / less lively (paragraph 2): __________
- separated from / left behind (paragraph 3): __________

5. What do the words underlined in sense below refer to? (2 marks)

- their in “their classroom posts” (paragraph 1) refers to __________
- they in “they endorsed it” (paragraph 2) refers to __________

6. Give a personal justified answer to the following question: (1 mark)

If you were Nour or Amira, would you accept to go through such an experience? Why? Why not?

(Any personal and justified answer is accepted as long as there is no contradiction between the statement and its justification.)