Examen resuelto de Inglés — Ordinaria 2026

Before there was Tik Tok, before social networks were even an everyday thing, there were people who described feeling a deep and inexplicable connection with certain animal species. Not as a metaphor, nor as a hobby, but as something they perceived as central to their very being. The term therian, which comes from therianthrope, a Greek word meaning half-human and half-animal, began to appear in the 1990s on an internet forum that was first created to discuss fictional stories, but later became a place where people could meet and talk about feelings and experiences they felt were part of their real identity. The community grew discreetly, almost clandestinely, through mailing lists and websites of the pre-Facebook era. They called themselves 'otherkin' at first, an umbrella term for those who identify as non-human beings in a broad sense, dragons, elves, angels, and from there the subgroup that identifies specifically with real animals (wolves, foxes, deer, cougars, birds) became distinct.
For decades, therians remained largely ‘invisible’ to the wider public. That changed around the turn of this decade when TikTok's algorithm began to amplify videos in which young people, many of them teenagers, showed what they call 'shifts' or 'quadrobics': movements that mimic the locomotion of quadrupeds, sometimes with masks or accessories that evoke the animal with which they identify. The impact was twofold. On the one hand, the visibility allowed people who had never had a name for what they felt to find a community and a language. On the other, the virality brought with it an inevitable distortion: the short format of TikTok tends to flatten any identity into an aesthetic, and what for some is a profound question of identity was, for many viewers, reduced to a dance or an extravagant costume.
Today the hashtag #therian accumulates billions of views. There are YouTube channels dedicated to explaining identity from the inside, podcasts, Discord servers with tens of thousands of members and a constant production of content on Reddit. The community has developed its own vocabulary, such as 'kintype' for the animal you identify with, or 'awakening' for the moment you become aware of it, and also has its own internal debates about who can be considered therian and who cannot.
A frequent confusion equates therians with furries, and although they share certain cultural spaces, the underlying difference is significant. Furries are people who feel an affinity with anthropomorphic animal characters, usually fictional, and participate in a subculture with a playful and creative dimension: costumes, conventions, illustration. Their interest in the animal does not imply identification with it. A furry can have a 'fursona', an animal alter ego, without this meaning that she/he perceives herself/himself as non-human. Therians, on the other hand, argue that their identification is not a hobby or an aesthetic choice, but something they experience as part of who they are.
Read the text and, for items 1.1 and 1.2, choose the best option (A, B, or C) and copy the corresponding letter onto your answer sheet. Then, decide whether statements 1.3 and 1.4 are true or false and find a text fragment which confirms your answer in either case. Write “TRUE” or “FALSE” plus the fragment (one or two lines maximum) on your answer sheet. [Score: 4 items x 4 marks = 16 marks]
Part 1: Multiple-choice items
1.1. The early therian community developed…
a) through small online spaces where people shared personal feelings and experiences.
b) from a Facebook page originally created to promote non-human fantasy role-playing.
c) as a result of TikTok videos that helped young people connect with others.
1.2. What was the main effect of TikTok on the therian community?
a) It helped therians replace online communities with real-life social interaction.
b) It increased visibility but also caused some people to misunderstand therian identity.
c) It reduced interest in therian identity by making the content repetitive.
Part 2: True-False items
1.3 The therian community has created specific terms to describe its identity and experiences.
1.4. Confusion exists between therians and furries because of shared cultural spaces.

Complete each sentence with information from the text but using your own words (about 10-15 words of your own per sentence). DO NOT COPY LITERALLY from the text nor from the items in Task 1 (1.1-1.4). Write the two sentences on your answer sheet. [Score: 2 items x 5 marks = 10 marks]

Find in the text words that match definitions 3.1 to 3.4 below. Copy the words from the text onto your answer sheet. [Score: 4 items x 1 mark = 4 marks]

Complete the text choosing the best option (A, B, or C) for each gap (1-15). On your answer sheet, draw a table like the one below and, for each gap (1-15), copy the letter that corresponds to your answer (A, B, or C). Use CAPITAL LETTERS. [Score: 15 items x 1 mark = 15 marks]

Are air-fryers secretly improving indoor air quality? Scientists say ‘yes,’ under one condition.
(1) ___ air-fryer may be secretly helping the planet, (2) ___ you have a liking for fatty foods. These mini-appliances (3) ___ in popularity in recent years, quickly becoming a mainstay in kitchens across Europe. Air-fryers (4) ___ use less electricity compared to conventional ovens, meaning they’re a great (5) ___ to keep energy bills low in the face of growing costs. (6) ___, new research says air-fryers may be better for indoor air quality too.
Researchers from the University of Birmingham have used custom-made air quality chambers (7) ___ volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and other airborne particles (8) ___ are emitted during cooking. VOCs are carbon-based chemicals emitted from items (9) ___ paint, cleaning products and materials that are often found in greater concentrations indoors. The team used a commercially available 4.7 litre air-fryer for the experiments, cooking frozen fried, fresh low-fat, (10) ___ fresh high-fat foods to compare emissions. Scientists found that frozen onion rings, smoked bacon and unsmoked bacon produced the (11) ___ levels of cooking-related emissions. It is thought this is (12) ___ their high-fat content. However, cooking high-fat foods in a traditional fryer produces 10 to 100 times higher levels of VOCs. “This study is the latest that shows the potential benefits (13) ___ indoor air quality of using air fryers for cooking,” says the study’s leading researcher, Professor Pfrang. “(14) ___ our previous study only looked at one type of food (lean chicken), we wanted to look at a greater range of foodstuffs including (15) ___ with higher fat content to see how they compare specifically when cooked in an air-fryer.”
The condition is you should always clean your air-fryer, as food residue can increase the number of harmful particles they emit.

Complete THREE of the following sentences so that each sentence keeps the meaning of the sentence printed before it and includes a clear change of linguistic structure. COPY THE COMPLETE SENTENCES (including the beginnings already given to you) onto your answer sheet. [Score: 3 items x 5 marks = 15 marks]

Choose ONE of the two options below (a or b) and write the corresponding text (150-175 words). Write your answer on your answer sheet. [Score: 1 item x 40 marks = 40 marks]