Could you translate this?
Amongst the words to translate were ubiquitous, accompaniment, sedentary, solemnly, sombereyed, lurching, postmodern/​transmodern, artifact, arm-drag, arrogance, and ploy. Photo/Eyþór Árnason
Fifteen-year old kids taking their standard assessment English exam this autumn in northern Iceland seem to have had to translate a pretty complicated text in English to Icelandic. Amongst the words to translate were ubiquitous, accompaniment, sedentary, solemnly, sombereyed, lurching, postmodern/transmodern, artifact, arm-drag, arrogance, and ploy.
Teachers in north Iceland criticised the exam for not complying to secondary-school laws and curriculums. Here is part of the text that the students had to translate. What do you think?
. …In high country like the Snowline Ranch where Miner works, temperatures can seesaw from 80°F to 8°F in a single day, and so pneumonia is a constant threat. It occupies Miner´s attention as he rides through the cattle. If some of them get caught in a downpour during cold weather, he´s fatally behind the curve. He must seize upon the earliest symptom: that lone calf amid the lurching sea of fur and fat with a single drooping ear, at which point Miner´s horse separates the calf from the others and the cowboy swings his long rope. Catch the calf with the first loop, reach for the meds in the saddlebag, inject the Nuflor. Done right, the calf barely notices, returns to the herd and by the end of October is 600 pounds and received by his owner with an approving half smile…