Questões de Concurso Comentadas sobre aspectos linguísticos | linguistic aspects em inglês

THERE ARE 10 QUESTIONS OF MULTIPLE CHOICE IN YOUR TEST. EACH QUESTION HAS 4 ALTERNATIVES (A, B, C, AND D) FROM WHICH ONLY ONE IS CORRECT. CHECK THE CORRECT ONE.

Read text 1 and answer questions 16 and 17.

TEXT 1

Kofi Annan, the seventh secretary general of the United Nations, who died on Saturday at 80, was always complicated. His legacy is as complicated as he was. The first sub-Saharan African to lead the global organization and the first UN staffer to rise through the ranks to a leadership post that had always gone to someone from the outside, he was a reserved yet engaging diplomat. He consistently expressed a powerful level of concern for global poverty and human rights, as well as a human decency that often distinguished him from his imperious predecessors.

https://www.thenation.com/article/remembering-kofi-annan/

Access on August 22nd, 2018.

Please, read the following text in order to answer questions 21 to 25.

Are scientists leaving the net?

The scientists who helped create the Internet may be leaving it for less crowded cyberspaces. Having been on the Internet longer than the rest of us, scientists use it differently.

Premier researchers use the Internet to test projects like real-time, 3D models of colliding galaxies or rampaging tornadoes. For tasks like that, the Internet is no longer fast enough or reliable enough. And some scientists are frustrated. For them, the information superhighway is full of bumper-to-bumper traffic.

Visionary engineers at the National Science Foundation, fortunately, have long foreseen such congestion. As an alternative, they created the very high-speed Backbone Network Service (VBNS). It links a handful of government and university labs at speed of 155,000,000 bits per second, or 10,000 times faster than a standard modem. By the year 2000, a new generation of equipment and another round of research could give scientists data pipes 12 times faster than that. Among other tricks, these new high bandwidth networks will allow scientists to manipulate huge computer files so unwieldy they are now shipped by four-wheeled means. “Never underestimate the bandwidth of a pick-up truck full of data”, jokes Daniel Sandin of the University of Illinois.

Sandin and his team in Chicago will use the VBNS to immerse goggled humans at different locations into the same type of jaw-dropping virtual reality simulation generated by a supercomputer. “You could not do that on the Internet,” says Thomas Defanti, Sandin’s colleague. “The Internet is so congested that for any kind of highbandwidth use, it is essentially rendered useless.”

“Simply adding lanes is not going to work,” adds Beth Gaston of the National Science Foundation. “Our role is to spur the technology forward” – Mark Uheling.

(Popular Science, September 1996, p.60)

Instruction: Answer questions 36 to 40 based on the following text.

Klingon to Dothraki: Invented languages gain popularity

1. The idea of invented languages is not new. People have been trying to create new tongues
2. for a long time. One of the most famous examples is Esperanto, created by Ludwik Zamenhof
3. in 1887 which he hoped would become __ globally spoken unifying language. The fact that it
4. is based on 16 very simple rules and took words from languages already present makes it very
5. easy to learn. This was a conscious decision by Zamenhof who hoped that if everyone spoke
6. one language, there would be fewer wars and conflicts.
7. So far, none of the existing constructed languages has achieved a large number of
8. speakers. Klingon, the invented language of Star Trek has around 20-30 speakers. Na’vi, the
9. language created for the movie “Avatar” has one fluent speaker, 10 intermediate speakers,
10. and over forty novices. Dothraki, which was crafted specifically for __ series Game of Thrones,
11. boasts seven intermediate speakers and around a hundred novices. For now, Garadálava has
12. exactly one speaker: Fynn Schlemminger himself.
13. However Esperanto is a notable exception: it’s estimated that the language has around
14. some 1,000 native speakers, and many parents teach it to their children. TV series, movies,
15. books, and especially the Internet have given invented languages a chance like never before.
16. According to the BBC, Esperanto, which was created almost exactly 100 years ago, is currently
17. experiencing a boost, mostly thanks to the language learning app Duolingo, and a highly
18. engaged online community. Wikipedia is also available in this language.
19. With the amount of time and effort it takes to learn a new language, it is rather unlikely
20. that __ invented tongue will achieve world domination in the same way English has. But it is
21. clear that there is rising interest in creating new languages. “Yes, there might be more of them
22. in the future, or more people will try their hand at it,” said Carpenter.

Fonte: adaptado de http://www.euronews.com/2018/04/25/from-klingon-to-dothraki-is-inventing-your-own-language-that-hard-

Instruction: Answer questions 31 to 35 based on the following text.

German student invents own language

1. Fynn Schlemminger _____ exactly what he wanted to do for his A-levels special project:
2. create a language from scratch. And that’s exactly what he did. The invented language is
3. called Garadálava, and, according to its creator, it is unique. “The premise of creating
4. Garadálava was to make it unlike any spoken language. I came up with a phonology people
5. usually interpret as harsh or pointed, featuring some guttural sounds and a very unmelodious
6. tone,” he explained.
7. All languages are, to a point, constructed because they went through corrections and
8. reforms over time. However, there is one main difference according to a professor of linguistics
9. at Wellesley College. Angela Carpenter, who has been teaching a course on invented languages
10. since 2010, said the main difference is that “an invented language originates in someone's
11. mind and is developed and expanded upon mostly by that person. A natural language ______
12. within a speech community, usually from another language, dialect or creole, over a period of
13. time.”
14. When Schlemminger began working on Garadálava, he started with a sketch, an idea of
15. how the language should sound and feel like.
16. “You begin with the more superficial things, the shape of the language so to speak, some
17. basic words, a sound inventory, sentence order. After that you simply go into more detail and
18. mostly rotate between making up words and grammar rules, until you are done,” he said to
19. Euronews. To him, the experience of creating a language was not unlike making a sculpture,
20. creating a work of art.
21. “Inventing a language is a very creative process that also requires knowledge of linguistic
22. structures to make it a viable language. Having to create your own language really ______
23. you to understand linguistic structure and the complex nature of language communication,”
24. explained Carpenter.

Fonte: adaptado de http://www.euronews.com/2018/04/25/from-klingon-to-dothraki-is-inventing-your-own-language-that-hard-

When I bought a motorcycle from you a few weeks ago, you said that your shop could replace

anything broken.

-Oh, yes! May I help you?

- Yes, please. I want a leg, a arm, new eyes and a tooth.

Leia o texto abaixo e responda as questões de 21 a 24.

Mary is a nice woman. She is a nurse and works in a big hospital. She works at night on weekends. Mary has two young children and they are very intelligent. Their names are "Jack" and "Julie". Jack is nine years old and Julie is eleven years old. Jack likes soccer and Julie loves movies. Jack wants to be a soccer player and Julie wants to be a movie star.

Mary likes to be with her children when she isn't working - they play board games together. Mary's family is very happy, especially when Jake, Mary's husband, is at home with them. Jake usually travels a lot and visits different places - he is a truck driver.

Read the text to answer 37, 38, 39 and 40.

Identity and globalization

Krasimira Mineva -Burgas Free University.

During the recent decades, intensity of relations between different cultures and different regions of the world has been increasing, due to the rapid development of telecommunications. The increasing economic and financial independence has its impact on the new opportunities for mobility and communications amongst different cultures. The development of the global market, the large volumes of production and exports enable the consumption of new, unfamiliar products. The economic aspects of the processes developing on a global scale are characterized by free movement of capital, search for new markets for goods and services, exported manufacturing facilities seeking cheaper labor markets, collision between local producers and powerful international corporations. The economic processes encourage the development of a new global culture, the basis for it being standards such as consumption, consumer attitudes and ultimate individualism. The effects of globalization have been described as: aculturalism, the mutual influence among cultures and their gradual convergence and unification; migration processes due to the collapse of local economies; increased number of illegal immigrants; marginalization and prejudice; spread of individualism and consumer attitude which undermine the values of traditional society; increased exchange of information and ideas , information on global scale doubles its volume every two years; individual consciousness is overloaded with information but behaviors which might alter culture become even more uniform.

(Available in: https://www.researchgate.net. Adapted.)

English learning in Brazil

Statutory and the National Curricular Guidelines make the teaching of a ......................................... language at elementary and high school ................................... . However, teachers and experts acknowledge that English teaching - both public and private - is unable to provide students with a usable level of English. They identify similar reasons to those that cause other problems in basic education: the lack of language teaching equipment and over-filled classrooms.

There are also fundamental problems with the amount of time set aside for teaching English and it is hard to find adequately qualified teachers. In these conditions English teaching is reduced to the basic rules of grammar, reading short texts and learning to pass multiple choice exams for university admittance. Even government officials admit that English teaching in basic education has many shortcomings. The National Curricular Guidelines (which outline the curriculum for each subject) are well articulated, but cannot be applied fully in practice. Officials have pointed out that there are no language labs in schools as there is little funding available for them.

They feel that this limits oral communication, a problem that many educators have argued is exacerbated by the large number of students in the classroom. Government representatives and teachers alike have bemoaned the poor quality of language teachers working in basic language education. They argue that a bachelor degree in literature coupled with a teaching license does not prepare a language teacher for the reality of the classroom and to effectively teach the language. There is a widely held belief that these teachers are unlikely to have actually had the means to visit English speaking countries and lack the communication practice required to develop the command of a language. Experts have argued that it would be helpful to send teachers to travel to English speaking countries.

The shortcomings of language teaching in Brazil have resulted in a shortage of professionals who can speak English well. That limits contact between professionals, clients and suppliers and restricts international business opportunities. This affects the whole country - if Brazil is to function fully in the global arena it will need professionals better equipped with English.

https://www.britishcouncil.org.br

Instruction: Answer to questions 38 to 47 based on the text below. The Highlights throughout the text are cited in the questions.

Caribou

01 ____Large hoofed animals belonging to the deer family, caribou and reindeer are actually the

02 same species — Rangifer tarandus. There are differences between caribou and reindeer though.

03 Caribou are native to North America, whereas reindeer are native to northern Europe and Asia.

04 Alaska does have some reindeer, however, imported from Siberia in the late 19th and early 20th

05 centuries.

06 ____Some people use the term "reindeer" to refer to domesticated work animals, such as those

07 pulling Santa's sleigh, but there are both wild and domestic herds of reindeer. Caribou, on the

08 other hand, are wild-living and long-migrating. Indigenous groups herd reindeer and use them for

09 their meat. That's also likely why reindeer evolved to be stockier than caribou.

10 ____Caribou make one of the world's great large-animal migrations. As summer approaches,

11 they head north along well-trod annual routes. Some herds may travel more than 600 miles to

12 get to their summer grazing grounds. They'll spend the summer months feeding on the abundant

13 grasses and plants of the tundra. This is also when they give birth. When the first snows fall each

14 year, the caribou turn back south. Herds of female caribou, called cows, leave several weeks

15 before the males, which follow with yearling calves from the previous birthing season.

16 ____They are taller and lankier than reindeer, likely because they evolved to make these long

17 migrations. They are the only deer in which males and females both have antlers—though only

18 some females have them. Cows have one calf each year, which can stand after only a few minutes

19 and move on with its mother by the next day.

20 ____Caribou are classified as vulnerable to extinction, one step above endangered. Because

21 they're migratory, changes in the landscape, such as the appearance of new fences or other

22 human development on their migration routes, can be especially disruptive. Climate change is

23 also a threat. As the Arctic warms, they become more susceptible to diseases and parasites,

24 which could quickly spread through a herd.

(Available in: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/facts/caribou – text adapted especially

for this test).

Instruction: answer questions 51 to 58 based on the following text.

Eve Rodsky’s deck of cards could help you find domestic bliss

1. Eve Rodsky was fed up. For years she, like many other women, had shouldered the burden
2. of invisible labor at home. Rodsky, a Harvard-educated lawyer and organizational management
3. specialist who advises families and charitable foundations, was tired of being the “she-fault”
4. parent. So, she started a spreadsheet titled “Shit I do.” “After months and months of
5. crowdsourcing this beautiful, giant spreadsheet, I sent this to my husband and said, ‘Can’t wait
6. to discuss.'”
7. Rodsky shared the spreadsheet on Facebook. Soon, she was receiving messages from
8. strangers who had seen it, detailing the domestic indignities they faced. She wanted to channel
9. that frustration into something productive, and then Rodsky realized she could apply
10. organizational management principles to the home. When Sarah Harden, the CEO of the media
11. and production company Hello Sunshine, met Rodsky, she realized Rodsky was onto something
12. novel. “After 40 to 50 years of talking about the problems, she was working on a solution. [At
13. Hello Sunshine], (...) We like to be on the problem-solving end of the conversation rather than
14. wallowing” said Harden.
15. The result is Rodsky’s book, Fair Play: A Game-Changing Solution for When You Have Too
16. Much to Do (and More Life to Live), which came out in October. (Hello Sunshine inked a unique
17. deal with Rodsky as a venture partner, which means the company helped sell the book to a
18. publisher and will take a cut of its profits.) A key piece of Rodsky’s solution is gamifying the
19. notion of fair play with a set of cards. “So this is based on a 100 card game. You’re holding cards
20. that represent all that you do for your home and family.”
21. The author believes the cards can help couples navigate their domestic balance by helping
22. them to talk about home life (which most people don’t do) and take full ownership of the tasks
23. (concept, planning, and execution). The ultimate goal of redistributing domestic work, according
24. to Rodsky, is to free up time for what she calls “unicorn space” — the stuff that might feel like a
25. luxury or pipe dream to most parents. “This is about making time for the things we actually care
26. about — who we were before we had kids,” she said. “What are our passions and purpose,
27. beyond being a parent and a partner and a worker? The more we spend time arguing about who
28. does what, the less time we have for the things that truly matter.”

Adapted from: https://www.fastcompany.com/90425669/eve-rodskys-deck-of-cards-could-help-you-find-domestic-bliss