SSH exploit

Hello !
I am a studen in computer science (first year) and we have to acess a ssh server, we have a username and password, and we msut execute a file from another user (lets say i am user1@machine.com and i must copy the file "FILE" from the user "root")
The problem is the file "FILE" is protected from reading (or writing or executing) so do anyone have any idea ?

chmod dont work, i dont have permission to change the folder

and in the hint file they say "use environement vriables" but not sure what they want us to do...