Pembahasan, Contoh dan Latihan Soal Biography Text Bahasa Inggris

Meskipun Biography text merupakan bagian dari jenis recount text, dalam materi bahasa Inggris di sekolah, teks ini sering dijabarkan dalam materi tersendiri terpisah dari recount text yang membahas tentang cerita pengalaman masa lalu. Teks ini mengkhususkan tentang kehidupan seseorang secara menyeluruh. Berbeda dengan autobiography yang kita kenal ditulis dengan menggunakan sudut pandang orang pertama, biography selalu dikemukakan memakai sudut pandang orang ketiga. Adapun tujuan biography text adalah untuk menceritakan tentang kehidupan seseorang. 

Biography text memiliki generic structure yang sama dengan recount text. Generic structure dalam biography text yaitu,

• Orientation, yaitu pernyataan pembuka untuk mengenalkan tokoh, waktu dan tempat
• Events, rangkaian peristiwa atau kejadian yang tokoh alami secara kronologis. Biasanya berisikan tentang kapan dan dimana tokoh tersebut lahir, awal kehidupan tokoh tersebut, dan apa yang dia lakukan.
• Reorientation, bagian penutup yang menunjukkan bagaimana ttokoh tersebut bisa dikenang dan berisikan pendapat penulis akan tokoh yang diutarakan.

Biography text sering menggunakan unsur kebahasaan tertentu, antara lain :

1. Kata benda tertentu sebagai kata ganti orang, misalnya Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Tailor swift, J.K Rowling, Leonardo Di Caprio, dan sebagainya.
2. Individual participant, yaitu berfokus pada pelaku tertentu secara spesifik.
3. Bentuk Past Tense, menggunakan kata kerja bentuk lampau
4. Time connective and conjunction untuk mengurutkan kejadian seperti after, before, then
5. Action verbs, kata kerja yang menunjukkan peristiwa atau kegiatan, misalnya stayed, studied, dll
6. Menggunakan kata ganti orang ketiga

Contoh Biography text 1

Walter Elias Disney (December 5, 1901 – December 15, 1996) was an American animated film producer and animator. He was also the creator of an American-based theme park called Disneyland, and the founder of the highly profitable corporation, now known as The Walt Disney Company.
Disney was born in Chicago to Elias Disney and Flora Call. He was named after his father and after his father’s close friend Walter Parr, the minister at St. Paul Congregational Church. In 1906, his family moved to a farm near Marceline, Missouri. The family sold the farm in 1909 and lived in a rented house until 1910, when they moved to Kansas City. Disney was nine years old.
According to the Kansas City, Missouri, Public School District records, Disney began attending the Benton Grammar School in 1911, and continued his formal education there until he graduated on June 8, 1917. During this time, Disney also enrolled in classes at Kansas City Art Institute. In the fall of 1917, Disney rejoined his family. He left school at the age sixteen and became a volunteer ambulance driver in World War I, after he changed his birth certificate to show his year of birth as 1900 in order to be able to enlist in the service. He served as a member of the American Red Cross Ambulance Force in France till 1919.

Contoh Biography text 2

Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, Germany, on March 14, 1879. He grew up in Germany, Italy, and Switzerland. Einstein taught himself geometry when he was 12 years old. School bored him because it required endless memorizing and reciting. He often skipped classes to study on his own or to play his violin. Yet he graduated from college in 1900 and earned a Ph.D. degree in 1905. From 1902 to 1907, Einstein worked as a clerk in the patent office in Zürich, Switzerland. His job left him plenty of time to think.
Einstein thought about the rules that govern the way the world works. For example, he explained why small particles in liquids wiggle around, a movement called Brownian motion. He said that the particles were being bumped into by tiny bits of matter called atoms that are too small to see.
He also thought about light and electricity. Einstein knew that light shining on metal sometimes causes electricity to flow. He explained this result, called the photoelectric effect, by saying that light is made of tiny bundles of energy called photons. Photons hitting the metal knock particles called electrons away. Since electricity is simply moving electrons, he had solved the mystery of the photoelectric effect. In 1921, Einstein won the most famous prize in science, the Nobel Prize, for this work.
Another thing Einstein thought about was time. He said that time does not always flow at the same rate. He proposed that motion affects time. He called this idea the special theory of relativity.
Einstein then came up with his general theory of relativity. This theory has a new explanation for gravity. Einstein said that gravity comes from curves or dents in the fabric of space. Objects make dents in space the way a bowling ball makes a dent in a mattress. The Moon falls into the dent made by Earth and rolls around the Earth. Scientists later proved that the dent a star makes in space-time bends light as the light passes by.
Einstein changed physics by showing that new ideas could come just from thinking. Before Einstein, most new ideas in physics had come from experiments in the laboratory.

Source : Microsoft ® Encarta ® 

Untuk melengkapi materi Biography, berikut saya sajikan latihan soal yang bisa dikerjakan secara online dan pada akhir pertanyaan dapat dilihat skor nilai serta kunci jawaban soal yang sudah anda kerjakan.

Text for number 1 - 3

Kaka was born in Brazilia. From age 4 to 7, his family lived in Cuiaba, following his father, a civil engineer. At age 7, the family moved to the city of Sao Paulo, in the neighborhood of Morumbi, near the stadium of Sao Paulo FC. As FIFA says, " Kaka fails to fit the Brazilian stereo type of the kid from the favela who first played the game in the street with a ball made from rags. Coming from comfortable and cultured family, Kaka kept up his studies as long as they were compatible with his profession." His talent was soon recognized. A professor called the family and suggested enrolling him in a football school. At age 8, Kaka was playing with Sao Paulo FC, where he succeeded in all categories. At age 14, Kaka used to wake up two hours early, to keep up with his studies. Kaka managed to conclude the intermediary cycle (eleven years) in Brazil, before dedicating exclusively to football. In 2006, only 24 years old, Kaka was one of the main Brazilian players in the World Cup. Despite the abundance of good players, coach Carlos Alberto Parreira already said that Kaka would start as a principle. The groups formed by Kaka, Ronaldinho, Ronaldo and Adriano was called "the Magic Square" by Brazilian media fans.

1. Having recognized Kaka's talent, the professor suggested that ... in the football school.
he became a supervisor
he enrolled as a member
he accomodated
he practiced more
he spent his free time

2. The main idea of paragraph 3 is ... .
his talent was soon recognized.
Kaka would start as a principle
"Magic square "was formed by Kaka, Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, and Andriano
a professor suggested Kaka's family enrolling him in a football school
Kaka was one of the main Brazilian players in the World Cup

3. "His talent was soon recognized." (Paragraph 2) The word "recognized" has the similar meaning to ... .
predicted
registered
managed
succeeded
identified

Text for number 4 -6
Charles Dickens is much loved for his great contribution to classic English literature. He was the quintessential Victorian author. His epic stories, vivid characters and exhaustive depiction of contemporary life are unforgettable.
He was born in Portsmouth on 7 February 1812, to John and Elizabeth Dickens. The good fortune of being sent to school at the age of nine was short-lived because his father was imprisoned for bad debt. Charles was sent to work in Warren's blacking factory and endured appalling conditions as well as loneliness and despair. After three years he was returned to school, but the experience was never forgotten and became fictionalised in two of his better-known novels 'David Copperfield' and 'Great Expectations'.
Like many others, he began his literary career as a journalist. His own father became a reporter and Charles began with the journals 'The Mirror of Parliament' and 'The True Sun'. Then in 1833 he became parliamentary journalist for The Morning Chronicle. With new contacts in the press he was able to publish a series of sketches under the pseudonym 'Boz'. In April 1836, he married Catherine Hogarth.
As well as a huge list of novels he published autobiography, edited weekly periodicals including 'Household Words' and 'All Year Round', wrote travel books and administered charitable organisations. He was also a theatre enthusiast, wrote plays and performed before Queen Victoria in 1851. He died of a stroke in 1870. He is buried at Westminster Abbey.
Taken from : http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ dickens_charles.shtml

4. What is the purpose of the text above?
To give information about Charles Dicken’s personal life
To entertain the readers with Charles Dicken’s story
To amuse the readers with the Charles Dicken’s story
To persuade the readers to have Charles Dicken’s spirit
To identify Charles Dicken’s life

5. Which of the following sentences is NOT true according to the text above?
Charles Dickens was a quintessential Victorian author
Charles Dickens felt lonely and desperate when he worked at Warren's blacking factory
Charles Dickens wrote his novels, 'David Copperfield' and 'Great Expectations', based on his experience
Charles Dickens began his literacy career as a reporter
Besides writing novels, Charles Dickens wrote for plays, too

6. “Charles was sent to work in Warren's blacking factory and endured appalling conditions as well as loneliness and despair” What does the word "appalling" mean?
Horrifying
Fascinating
Interesting
Enthralling
Compelling

Text for number 7 -9
Pramoedya Ananta Toer, also spelled Pramudya Ananta Tur (born February 20, 1925, Blora, Java, Dutch East Indies [now in Indonesia]—died April 30, 2006, Jakarta, Indonesia), Javanese novelist and short-story writer, the preeminent prose writer of postindependence Indonesia.
Pramoedya, the son of a schoolteacher, went to Jakarta while a teenager and worked as a typist there under the Japanese occupation during World War II. In 1945, at the end of the war, when Indonesia declared its independence and revolted against renewed Dutch colonial rule, he joined the nationalists, working in radio and producing an Indonesian-language magazine before he was arrested by the Dutch authorities in 1947. He wrote his first published novel, Perburuan (1950; The Fugitive), during a two-year term in a Dutch prison camp (1947–49). That work describes the flight of an anti-Japanese rebel back to his home in Java.
After Indonesian independence was recognized by the Netherlands in 1949, Pramoedya produced a stream of novels and short stories that established his reputation. The novel Keluarga gerilja (1950; “Guerrilla Family”) chronicles the tragic consequences of divided political sympathies in a Javanese family during the Indonesian Revolution against Dutch rule, while Mereka jang dilumpuhkan (1951; “The Paralyzed”) depicts the odd assortment of inmates Pramoedya became acquainted with in the Dutch prison camp. The short stories collected in Subuh (1950; “Dawn”) and Pertjikan revolusi (1950; “Sparks of Revolution”) are set during the Indonesian Revolution, while those in Tjerita dari Blora (1952; “Tales of Bora”) depict Javanese provincial life in the period of Dutch rule. The sketches in Tjerita dari Djakarta (1957; “Tales of Jakarta”) examine the strains and injustices Pramoedya perceived within Indonesian society after independence had been achieved. In these early works Pramoedya evolved a rich prose style that incorporated Javanese everyday speech and images from classical Javanese culture.
By the late 1950s Pramoedya had become sympathetic toward the Indonesian Communist Party, and after 1958 he abandoned fiction for essays and cultural criticism that reflect a left-wing viewpoint. By 1962 he had become closely aligned with communist-sponsored cultural groups. As a result, he was jailed by the army in the course of its bloody suppression of a communist coup in 1965. During his imprisonment he wrote a series of four historical novels that further enhanced his reputation. Two of these, Bumi manusia (1980; This Earth of Mankind) and Anak semua bangsa (1980; Child of All Nations), met with great critical and popular acclaim in Indonesia after their publication, but the government subsequently banned them from circulation, and the last two volumes of the tetralogy, Jejak langkah (1985; Footsteps) and Rumah kaca (1988; House of Glass), had to be published abroad. These late works comprehensively depict Javanese society under Dutch colonial rule in the early 20th century. In contrast to Pramoedya’s earlier works, they were written in a plain, fast-paced narrative style.

Adopted from : https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pramoedya-Ananta-Toer

7. What is the writer’s intention to write the text above?
To persuade the readers to write novels like Pramoedya Ananta Toer
To amuse the readers with Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s story
To entertain the readers about Pramoedya Ananta Toer
To give information about Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s personal life
To identify Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s life

8. Which of the following statement is NOT TRUE based on the text above ?
Pramoedya Ananta Toer was one of the greatest novelist in Indonesia
He published his first novel during his life in a Dutch prison camp
He was jailed by the army in 1965 because of his sympathy to communist party
All of his masterpiece novels and short stories had been published abroad
His late works represented Javanese society under Dutch colonial

9. “…and popular acclaim in Indonesia after their publication, but the government subsequently banned them from circulation, and the last two volumes of the tetralogy, …” (paragraph 4) The word "them" refers to ….
A series of four historical novels
Essays and cultural criticism
Short stories
Bumi Manusia and Anak Semua Bangsa
Pramoedya’s early works
Score =
Correct answers:

Semoga pembahasan dan contoh soal- soal biography text diatas bisa menjadi referensi dalam belajar khususnya dalam menghadapi Ujian nasional mendatang. Bila tulisan ini bermanfaat, silahkan bagikan ke teman- teman anda semua.

Semoga bermanfaat.