Questões de Inglês - Comparativo e superlativo de adjetivos | Comparative and superlative para Concurso

With Brazil in Turmoil, Rio Counts Down to Olympics

By REBECCAR. RUIZAPRIL27, 2016

RIO DE JANEIRO- Brazil's president is facing impeachment. The country's economy is in sharp decline. Bodies of water that will be used for Olympic competitions are polluted, and global public health officials are trying to tamp down the Zika virus epidemic.

With less than 100 days before the Olympic Games come to South Amarica for the first time, Rio de Janeiro faces more than the usual challenges that bedevil host cities, like delayed stadium construction and transportation concerns. (Rio has those, too.) The mood here, however, is hardly one of panic. Officials in charge of executing the Summer Games say they feel insulated from Brazil's turmoil at this late stage. The Olympics, after all, tend to exist in their own bubble, elaborately coordinated to ensure that the multibillion-dollar operation goes off smoothly. "The machine is in place, and it's relatively stable," Ricardo Leyser, Brazil's sports minister, said in an interview this week. "My biggest concern isn't any individual issue. lt's the small demands that all come at once."

Local organizers are beginning to lay colorful comforters patterned with the silhouettes of cartoon cyclists, fencers and swimmers - on the twin beds in the athletes' village. They are monitoring the growth of 14-month-old grass that will be transplanted to Maracanã, the storied soccer stadium that will also be used for the opening and closing ceremonies. They are pulling trash from Guanabara Bay, where the Games' sailing events will be held; mopping up standing water to minimize mosquito breeding; and ramping up a round-the-clock security operation - all while publicly expressing little worry about the unrest encircling them.

On Wednesday, with the handoff of the Olympic flame in Greece and the start of a journey that in little more than a week will bring it to Brazil, the official countdown to the Aug. 5 opening ceremony began. 

ln Rio, the race to be ready is intensifying, with construction workers here still laboring on mass transit projects that were key promises seven years ago in the city's bid to host the Games. Costing several billion dollars, those projects include a new subway line and express bus lanes that connect the Olympic Park in Barra da Tijuca to the rest of the city, which is expected to swell with more than half a million visitors.

As the value ofthe Brazilian real has drastically declined overthe last year, some have expressed doubt that the transit projects will materialize beyond the sleek, modernist weather shelters that have been built at various stations. At a news conference Wednesday, the city's secretary of transportation said the new routes would be ready i n ti me but did not specify when. To the vast majority of people watching the Games on television, however, such infrastructure may not matter.

The permanent venues for competitions here are mostly complete - all but those for tennis and track cycling - and athletes from around the world have competed in dozens of test events in Rio in recent months. "lt's about the filling of the cake," Mr. Leyser said. "lt's not about the stadiums; it's about the scoreboards."

As ofthe latest counts, 62 percent ofthe 5.7 million tickets on the market had been sold - roughly half of the total tickets for the Olympics - and 24 percent of tickets available for the Paralympics had been sold. But compareci with past Olympics, the buyers of those tickets may be disproportionately international, saidAndrew Parsons, the presidentofthe Brazilian Paralympic Committee.

For some Brazilians, the country's political and economic crises have cast a shadow on the celebration. President Dilma Rousseff's ouster looks increasingly likely amid a sweeping graft scandal, and those in line to succeed her have their own controversies hanging overthem.

Questions of corruption have extended to Olympics planning, particularly after a businessman who worked on many Olympic projects in Rio was convicted of corruption and money laundering related to separata contracts. Mr. Leyser said that the questions centered on irregularities at the Deodoro event site and that no publicofficial had been accused ofwrongdoing. "lt's more an administrativa issue than a corruption scheme," he said. "lt's basically a question ofthe numbers." Mr. Leyser called the devaluation of Brazil's currency an opportunity because it increases the buying power of foreign money coming into Brazil forthe Games.

But not everyone sees the event as a boon to the country. Shirlei Alves, who lives in the Santa Marta favela of Rio, criticized the government for spending on the Olympics in the face of Brazil's problems.

"The world is just getting worse here," Ms. Alves said, noting that she was without medication and electricity. "The government is making a mistake. l'd like if they'd take a better look at the poor people and not help people who are already rich." Eduardo Paes, the mayor of Rio, said Wednesday that the city had a "comfortable financial situation" and had spent on stadium construction 1 percent ofwhat it spent on health education. "I know people are skeptical," Mr. Paes said, citing the "huge deliverables" for the Olympics. "Of course the situation here has been difficult. But there is a commitment of the Brazilian state to deliverthe Olympics."

Perhaps the most vexing issue for local organizers-the one that may stir anxiety among athletes and spectators - is the mosquito-borne Zika virus, which has been linked to birth defects and temporary paralysis. Zika is of greater concern outside Rio, in the far north part of Brazil, but the World Health Organization has declared the virus a global public health emergency and has advised pregnant women notto travei anywhere in Brazil.

"The Olympics is a pretty effective way of taking whatever disease is local and making it global," said Ashish K. Jha, director ofthe Global Health lnstitute at Harvard.

Some scientists have suggested that by the time the Olympics start in August - wintertime in Brazil, when mosquitoes are less numerous - the virus might be more prevalent in the southern United States.

"Zika's been spreading effectively on its own, but there's very good reason to think the Olympics will accelerate the spread," Dr. Jhasaid.

But the virus poses a unique problem because it isso far beyond the contrai of local organizing officials, and so many questions about it remain unanswered. Few athletes have publicly expressed concern, but it is unclear how many might withdraw as the Games draw closer.

"At this point you just keep going," David Wallechinsky, an Olympics historian, said. "You have to continue as if everything's going to be fine. These are real concerns - Zika, the water quality. But even if Dilma is forced out of office, it's not going to stop the Olympics."

Com base na Leitura do texto "With Brazil in Turmoil, Rio Counts Down to Olympics", responda a questão: 

TEXT III

(Source: https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Book)

Here are six reviews on Green Book:

1.

The screenplay essentially turns Shirley into a black man who thematically shapeshifts into whoever will make the story appealing to white audiences - and that’s inexcusable.

Lawrence Ware New York Times

2.

Green Book is effective and affecting while being careful to avoid overdosing its audience on material that some might deem too shocking or upsetting.

James Berardinelli ReelViews

3.

In a world that seems to get uglier every day, this movie’s gentle heart and mere humanity feel like a salve.

Leah Greenblatt Entertainment Weekly

4.

A bizarre fish-out-of-water comedy masquerading as a serious awards-season contender by pretending to address the deep wound of racial inequality while demonstrating its profound inability, intellectually and dramatically, to do that.

Kevin Maher Times (UK)

5.

Sometimes life is stranger than art, sometimes art imitates life, and sometimes life imitates art. If life starts imitating hopeful art - that’s uplifting. That’s the goal of art, as I see it. “Green Book” uplifts.

Mark Jackson Epoch Times

6.

There’s not much here you haven’t seen before, and very little that can’t be described as crude, obvious and borderline offensive, even as it tries to be uplifting and affirmative.

A.O. Scott New York Times

(Source: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/green_book/reviews/)  

New Public Management Model

        The new public management model, which emerged in the 1980s, represented an attempt to make the public sector more business-like as well as to improve the efficiency of the Government, borrowed ideas and management models from the private sector. It emphasized the centrality of citizens who were the recipient of the services or customers to the public sector.

        New public management system also proposed a more decentralized control of resources. It explored other service delivery models so as to achieve better results, including a quasi-market structure where public and private service providers competed with each other in an attempt to provide better and faster services.

        The Core Themes for the New Public Management were:

1. A strong focus on financial control, value for money and increasing public sector efficiency;

2. A command and control mode of functioning, identifying and setting targets and continuous monitoring of public sector performance;

3. Introducing audits and controls at professional level, using transparent means to review public worker performance, setting benchmarks, using protocols to ameliorate public sector worker professional behaviour;

4. Greater customer orientation and responsiveness and increasing the scope of roles played by non-public sector providers;

5. Deregulating the labor market, replacing collective agreements to individual rewards packages combined with short term contracts;

6. Introducing new forms of corporate governance, introducing a board model of functioning and concentrating the power to the strategic core of the organization.

(www.managementstudyguide.com/new-public-management.htm. Adaptado.)

Cow Threat

Cows are walking machines. They transform materials (grass, hay, water, and feed) into finished products (milk, beef, leather, and so on).

As any factory, cows produce waste. Solid waste is eliminated through the rear end of these ‘complex machines’, and it is used as fertilizer.

The fermentation process in their four stomachs produces gas. These walking machines have two chimneys: one in the front end, and other in the rear end. Gaseous emissions through the front end chimney are called burps. Cows burp a lot. Every minute and half these burps release methane gas. Methane is dangerous to the planet because it contributes to the greenhouse effect.

The world population is growing very fast. That means there are more people eating beef. Consequently, there is more cattle – more walking machines – producing more methane gas.

This is the problem, but very few people want to change their eating habits. What about you?