Questões de Concurso Sobre interpretação de texto | reading comprehension em inglês

Thinking the unthinkable
Today, it seems that no one is uninformed about the environment. Every day the media shows us more evidence of climate change: extreme weather, melting ice-caps, and rising seas. Most of us believe we can do something to prevent global disaster, such as recycling, or conserving energy. It’s strange to recall that, before the 1960s, few people knew of the damagewe were doing to the planet. However, one scientist had already realized the dangers ahead. And today, this same man believes it may be too late to save the world. In the 1960s, Professor James Lovelock came up with one of the most famous theories on the environment – the GAIA hypothesis. According to this hypothesis, the earth’s atmosphere, soil, and oceans work in concert to provide an inhabitable environment for humans. If we disrupt these elements too severely, the earth may one day become uninhabitable. In the decade before he developed the Gaia hypothesis, Lovelock had created a device to detect atmospheric chemicals. With this device, he discovered particular chemicals, called CFCs. Later, other scientists discovered that these CFCs had damaged the earth’s ozone layer. Before then, we hadn’t knows about the hole in the ozone layer. By 1979, Lovelock had put forward his theories on the environment, in his first book. At that time, few people believe him. Before scientists such as Lovelock publicized environmental issues, the environment hadn’t been a very fashionable topic. In 2004, after many people had only just started to accept the reality of global warming, Lovelock became convinced that climate change was irreversible. In 2006, he wrote another book describing his latest ideas. In 40 years, Lovelock believes large parts of the world will be desert. We will need to make synthesized food to feed the world’s population. ‘Is Lovelock right this time too? Surely we can prevent this nightmare, if we all recycle, use renewable energy, and travel less by plane and car? Lovelock disagrees. According to him, it is now impossible to reverse global warming. We did not act quickly enough when we had the chance. Renewable energy and recycling are a case of too little, too late. Ultimately, if the human race is to survive, Lovelock believes we need to use more technology, not less. In his view, only nuclear energy can provide sufficient power for the planet. Now over 90 years old, Lovelock may not live to find out if he is right. But we will...
Choose the alternative which presents the correct definitions. They are underlined in the text.

Text 2 — News from China
Outcry as Chinese school makes iPads compulsory
Apple products are incredibly popular in China, but not everyone can afford them 
A school in northern China has been criticised for enforcing iPad learning as part of its new curriculum, it's reported.
According to China Economic Daily, the Danfeng High School in Shaanxi province recently issued a notice saying that, “as part of a teaching requirement, students are required to bring their own iPad” when they start the new school year in September.
Staff told the paper that using an iPad would “improve classroom efficiency”, and that the school would managean internet firewall, so that parents would not have to worry about students using the device for other means.
However, China Economic Daily says that after criticism from parents, who felt that it would be an “unnecessary financial burden”, eadmaster Yao Hushan said that having an iPad was no longer a mandatory requirement. Mr Yao added that children who don't have a device could still enrol, but that he recommended students bring an iPad as part of a “process of promoting the digital classroom”.
The incident led to lively discussion on the Sina Weibo social media platform. “Those parents that can't afford one will have to sell a kidney!” one user quipped. 
Others expressed concerns about the health implications of long-term electronic device use. “I worry about their vision,” one user said, and another said they would all become “short-sighted and have to wear glasses.”
But others felt that it was a good move in line with new modern ways of teaching. “They are affordable for the average family, one said, “they don't necessarily need to buy the latest model.”
Reporting by Kerry Allen
Taken from: www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere
Teachers at Danfeng High School want their students to bring their iPads to the classroom because:

Among predatory dinosaurs, few flesh-eaters were bigger, faster and nastier than the "tyrant lizard" of popular imagination, the Tyrannosaurus Rex. At least, that is what we have been led to believe. Now research suggests that, far from being the Ferrari of dinosaurs, Tyrannosaurus Rex, whose ferocious reputation has fascinated generations of schoolchildren, was in fact a cumbersome creature with a usual running speed of twenty-five kilometres an hour. This is a mere snail's pace compared with modern animals such as the cheetah. Unlike some of the predators of today's African savannah, which can change direction almost immediately, the dinosaur would have had to turn slowly or risk tumbling over. And while a human can spin forty-five degrees in a twentieth of a second, a Tyrannosaurus would have taken as much as two seconds, as it would have been hampered by its long tail. Thankfully, however, all its prey, such as triceratops, would have been afflicted with the same lack of speed and agility. The findings were reached after researchers used computer modelling and biomechanical calculations to work out the dinosaur's speed, agility and weight. They based their calculations on measurements taken from a fossil dinosaur representative of an average Tyrannosaurus and concluded the creatures probably weighed between six and eight tonnes. Calculations of the leg muscles suggest that the animal would have had a top speed of forty kilometres an hour, which is nothing compared to a cheetah’s one hundred kilometres an hour. It is sobering to reflect, though, that an Olympic sprinter runs at about thirty-five kilometres an hour, not sufficient to outrun a Tyrannosaurus, should Man have been around at that time!  
  
Mark the correct alternative: 

Read the text below and answer the question:
To exercise or not to exercise ...
Are more young people overweight than in the past and do they exercise enough? We decided to ask four young people what they thought about this problem.
1- HEATHEROHURUOGU, aged 14 from Leeds, tells us what she thinks about keeping fit.   “I know there have been a lot of stories in newspapers about how fat young people are getting, but we're not all sitting at home at a computer eating crisps and chocolate. Some of us do actually realise that keeping fit is quite important. If anybody should be blamed, I think schools and parents are the problem. At my school we have fewer hours of PE lessons than we used to have. The school has decided we need to spend more time preparing for our exams. My mum and dad trust me to take a bus home if I stay late at school for hockey training, but my friend Carly can't come because her parents work and they are worried about her travelling alone.”
2- OLIVER MCKENNA, aged 15, Edinburgh, sees things differently.
“I don't like organised sport or spending my time with guys skateboarding. I love computers – programming them, playing games on them, surfing the Internet and in my free time that's what I do. It's true that I do need to lose some weight, though. Next week, Mum's taking me to a doctor so we can ask about going on a diet. Dad wants me to join the gym he goes to, but I think it's a bit boring working out all the time. In fact, there's a computer game now called Wii. I'm thinking of getting it because you actually do the actions of the games – you know, things like swinging your arm to hit the ball in tennis. That'd be a good way to get some exercise!”
3- REECEWILKINS, aged 13, Swansea, has another view.
“I'm an active person and so are most of my friends. We all like to spend some time on our Nintendos, PlayStations or whatever – all young people enjoy computer games – but we also belong to football teams or some kind of sports club. We don't have to make an effort to be fit – young people like active games. No, our problem is that we eat too much rubbish. In fact, we drink a lot of bad things – sweet, fizzy drinks which are full of sugar and very unhealthy. Also, we all love fast food and often eat hamburgers and chips. If we ate better, I think most of us would lose the extra weight we have.”

4- HANK DARROW, aged 14, London, shares his opinions with us.
“I've spent the last four years trying to lose weight, and it hasn't been easy. My problem started when I was a baby – it wasn't really my fault. You see, I wasn't very interested in food, and so my mum made all kinds of delicious things to get me to eat. Of course, all those tasty foods were very fattening. My mum used to carry a bowl of food everywhere we went and would follow me around the house or playground trying to get me to eat just one more bite. Well, I got used to eating constantly and, by the time we all realised that I had gained too much weight, the damage had been done. Now I follow a special diet – it was hard at first, but once I got used to it, I actually like it.And I look and feel so much better – I don't want to go back to the way I was.”
Taken from: CHAPMAN, Joanne. Laser B1 +. Teacher's book. Macmillan, 2008.
Two young people say that they take a lot of exercise. Who are they?

Read the text below entitled “A world of connections” at to answer the question:
A world of connections
Source: www.economist.com (Adapted)
Jan 28th, 2010
To sceptics all this talk of twittering, yammering and chattering smacks of another internet bubble in the making. They argue that even a huge social network such as Facebook will struggle to make money because fickle networkers will not stay in one place for long, pointing to the example of MySpace, which was once all the rage but has now become a shadow of its former self. Last year the site, which is owned by News Corp, installed a new boss and fi red 45% of its staff as part of a plan to revive its fortunes.
Within companies there is plenty of doubt about the benefits of online social networking in the office. A survey of 1,400 chief information officers conducted last year by Robert Half Technology, a recruitment firm, found that only one-tenth of them gave employees full access to such networks during the day, and that many were blocking Facebook and Twitter altogether. The executives’ biggest concern was that social networking would lead to social notworking, with employees using the sites to chat with friends instead of doing their jobs. Some bosses also fretted that the sites would be used to leak sensitive corporate information.
According to paragraph 2, the benefits of online social networking in the office are

Thinking the unthinkable

Today, it seems that no one is uninformed about the environment. Every day the media shows us more evidence of climate change: extreme weather, melting ice-caps, and rising seas. Most of us believe we can do something to prevent global disaster, such as recycling, or conserving energy. It’s strange to recall that, before the 1960s, few people knew of the damagewe were doing to the planet. However, one scientist had already realized the dangers ahead. And today, this same man believes it may be too late to save the world. In the 1960s, Professor James Lovelock came up with one of the most famous theories on the environment – the GAIA hypothesis. According to this hypothesis, the earth’s atmosphere, soil, and oceans work in concert to provide an inhabitable environment for humans. If we disrupt these elements too severely, the earth may one day become uninhabitable. In the decade before he developed the Gaia hypothesis, Lovelock had created a device to detect atmospheric chemicals. With this device, he discovered particular chemicals, called CFCs. Later, other scientists discovered that these CFCs had damaged the earth’s ozone layer. Before then, we hadn’t knows about the hole in the ozone layer. By 1979, Lovelock had put forward his theories on the environment, in his first book. At that time, few people believe him. Before scientists such as Lovelock publicized environmental issues, the environment hadn’t been a very fashionable topic. In 2004, after many people had only just started to accept the reality of global warming, Lovelock became convinced that climate change was irreversible. In 2006, he wrote another book describing his latest ideas. In 40 years, Lovelock believes large parts of the world will be desert. We will need to make synthesized food to feed the world’s population. ‘Is Lovelock right this time too? Surely we can prevent this nightmare, if we all recycle, use renewable energy, and travel less by plane and car? Lovelock disagrees. According to him, it is now impossible to reverse global warming. We did not act quickly enough when we had the chance. Renewable energy and recycling are a case of too little, too late. Ultimately, if the human race is to survive, Lovelock believes we need to use more technology, not less. In his view, only nuclear energy can provide sufficient power for the planet. Now over 90 years old, Lovelock may not live to find out if he is right. But we will...

About Professor James Lovelock, it is correct to state that:

Windows 2000 suffers millennium bug Malicious code execution possible thanks to flaw. Matthew Broersma, Techworld  22 April 2005 

Microsoft has confirmed a security flaw in Windows 2000 that could allow attackers to execute malicious code via Windows Explorer and other programs.  The flaw, involving a problem in the way the webvw.dll library validates document metadata, was disclosed earlier this week by security firm GreyMagic. The flaw could be exploited by distributing a malicious file which, when selected in Windows Explorer, could execute malicious script commands. More dangerously, an attacker could exploit the bug via a document on a remote SMB share, GreyMagic said.  "Script commands that are injected in this manner will execute as soon as the malicious file is selected in Windows Explorer and will be executed in a trusted context, which means they will have the ability to perform any action the currently logged on user can perform," GreyMagic said in its advisory. "This includes reading, deleting and writing files, as well as executing arbitrary commands." Microsoft has confirmed that it is investigating the flaw, and as usual stated that it is not aware that any customers have been affected so far. The company has also criticised GreyMagic for posting proof-of-concept code along with its advisory. Stephen Toulouse of Microsoft's Security Response Center (MSRC), in a message posted on the Microsoft TechNet website, downplayed the danger posed by the flaw. "Significant user interaction would be required for an attacker to exploit this vulnerability," he wrote. Any attack would rely on Server Message Block (SMB) communication, which customers should block at the firewall level as a best practice, Toulouse said. No patch exists, but users can protect themselves by disabling the "Web view" option in Windows Explorer, Microsoft said. The company said it may patch the bug once its investigation is complete. The flaw affects Windows 2000 Professional, Server and Advanced Server versions, GreyMagic said. The affected library, webvw.dll, is used in displaying information in Windows Explorer's preview pane, which is enabled by default in Windows 2000 systems. An input-validation bug means an attacker could inject script commands into the "author" metadata field of a document, which could be executed when the metadata is processed by webvw.dll. Other applications using the library are also affected, GreyMagic said. "The malicious file does not need to be executed in order to activate the exploit, double-clicking is not required," the firm said in its advisory. "The exploitation takes place as soon as the file is selected."  GreyMagic said it first notified Microsoft of the flaw on 18 January.
(http://www.techworld.com/security/news/index.cfm?NewsID=3543)
Segundo o texto, a falha em questão

Why Some State Immigration Laws are Welcoming but Others are Downright Hostile 1. Immigration policy reform has become a topic of almost daily national debate. Businesses, consumers, employers, labor unions, law enforcement offi cers, higher education offi cials, and not to mention immigrants themselves, all have something at stake in immigration policy reform. All of the recent discussion of immigration policy at the national level makes it easy to forget that signifi cant changes have already been made in immigration policy at the state level, many of which will likely affect the policy discourse and the nature of any policy changes at the national level. As the nation considers how to move forward with immigration policy reform, we should fi rst understand how we got to this point. What has shaped immigration policy changes at the state level in the last decade? 2. Using an analysis of all 50 states, James Monogan, a political scientist at the University of Georgia, fi nds that immigration policy is affected most by legislative professionalism, electoral ideology, state wealth, and change in the foreignborn population. Specifi cally, the more professional a legislature is, the more likely they are to enact welcoming laws toward immigrants, which Monogan suggests is likely because career politicians in these legislatures are more concerned with their future electoral prospects than those in less professional legislatures. In other words, state legislators are mindful of how opponents could garner votes in the next election and they consider this when voting on immigration policy. Not surprisingly, states with a more liberal electorate are more likely to take a welcoming stance on immigration policy, suggesting that policy makers are somewhat responsive to public opinion. Economics and demographics also play a role, as states with a higher per capita gross state product tend to pass more welcoming laws towards immigrants while states experiencing an increase in the foreign-born population tend to pass policies that are more hostile towards immigrants. 3. These results are quite interesting as they suggest that immigration policy is a function of the professional nature of a state’s legislature, public opinion in the state, overall state economic conditions, and state demographics. Monogan’s results offer a clear picture of how states have chosen to make changes to immigration policy over the last decade in the face of federal inaction. (Source: Jennifer Connolly, in Journal of Public Policy, May 20th, 2013, adapted
 Regarding the language underlined in the text, it can be said that 

Informatics education: Europe cannot afford to miss the boat
Principies for an effective informatics curriculum
The committee performed a comprehensive review of the considerabie existing material on building informatics curricula, including among many others the (UK) Royal Society report, the CSPrinciples site, the Computing at Schools Initiative, and the work of the CSTA. Two major conclusions follow from that review.
The first is the sheer number of existing experiences demonstrating that it is indeed possible to teach informatics successfully in primary and secondary education. The second conclusion is in the form of two core principies for such curricula. Existing experiences use a wide variety of approaches; there is no standard curriculum yet, and it was not part of the Committee's mission to define such a standard informatics curriculum for the whole of Europe. The committee has found, however, that while views diverge on the details, a remarkable consensus exists among experts on the basics of what a school informatics curriculum should (and should not) include. On the basis of that existing work, the Committee has identified two principies: leverage students' creativity, emphasize quality.
Leverage student creativity
A powerful aid for informatics teaching is the topic's potential for stimulating students; creativity. The barriers to innovation are often lower than in other disciplines; the technical equipment (computers) is ubiquitous and considerably less expensive. Opportunities exist even for a beginner: with proper guidance, a Creative student can quickly start writing a program or a Web Service, see the results right away, and make them available to numerous other people. Informatics education should draw on this phenomenon and channel the creativity into useful directions, while warning students away from nefarious directions such as destructive "hacking". The example of HFOSS (Humanitarian Free and Open Software Systems) shows the way towards constructive societal contributions based on informatics.
Informatics education must not just dwell on imparting information to students. It must draw attention to aspects of informatics that immediately appeal to young students, to encourage interaction, to bring abstract concepts to life through visualization and animation; a typical application of this idea is the careful use of (non- violent) games.
Foster quality
Curious students are always going to learn some IT and in particular some programming outside of informatics education through games scripting, Web site development, or adding software components to social networks. Informatics education must emphasize quality, in particular software quality, including the need for correctness (proper functioning of software), for good user interfaces, for taking the needs of users into consideration including psychological and social concerns. The role of informatics education here is:
• To convey the distinction between mere "coding" and software development as a constructive activity based on scientific and engineering principies.
• To dispel the wrong image of programming as an activity for "nerds" and emphasize its human, user-centered aspects, a focus that helps attract students of both genders.
Breaking the teacher availability deadlock
An obstacle to generalizing informatics education is the lack of teachers. It follows from a chicken-and-egg problem: as long as informatics is not in the curriculum, there is Iittle incentive to educate teachers in the subject; as long as there are no teachers, there is Iittle incentive to introduce the subject.
To bring informatics education to the levei that their schools deserve, European countries will have to take both long-term and short-term initiatives:
• Universities, in particular through their informatics departments, must put in place comprehensive programs to train informatics teachers, able to teach digital literacy and informatics under the same intellectual standards as in mathematics, physics and other Sciences.
• The current chicken-and-egg situation is not an excuse for deferring the start of urgently needed efforts. Existing experiences conclusively show that it is possible to break the deadlock. For example, a recent New York Times article explains how IT companies such as Microsoft and Google, conscious of the need to improve the state of education, allow some of their most committed engineers and researchers in the US to pair up with high school teachers to teach computational thinking. In Russia, it is common for academics who graduated from the best high schools to go back to these schools, also on a volunteer basis, and help teachers introduce the concepts of modern informatics. Ali these efforts respect the principie that outsiders must always be paired with current high-school teachers.
(Excerpt of ' Report ofthe joint Informatics Europe & ACM Europe Working Group on Informatics Education April 2013')
According to the text, it is correct to say that:

Chris Watts to be sentenced for killing pregnant wife, 2 daughters 

Chris Watts is scheduled to be in a Colorado court at 10 a.m. MST. 

Shanann was reported missing August 13 after she missed a doctor’s appointment.  Her husband initially appeared on television pleading for help finding his wife and daughters. Later, he admitted he murdered them. Despite the guilty plea, Watts’ parents said they believe there is more to the story. “It boils down to: I just want the truth of what really happened”, said Ronnie Watts, Chris’ father. “If he did it all, I can live with it. If he didn’t, I want him to fight for it”.  Shanann’s family pushed back saying her memory and reputation should be protected.  “Shanann was a wonderful soul. Everyone who knew Shanann knows this to be true. Even Chris Watts knows this to be true. Yet Chris Watts still chose to murder Shanann, Bella, Celeste, and Nico. Chris Watts still chose to dump the bodies of his own family in oil tanks. And Chris Watts still chose to lie about it until he could lie no more”. He pled guilty to murdering his family because he is guilty.  In court Monday, Shanann’s parents will be allowed to speak.  Watts is expected to receive life in prison without the chance of parole. His eligibility for the death penalty was removed as part of the plea deal. 

(Disponível em: <https://abc13.com/us-world/>.) 

According to the text, it is correct to say: 

Thinking the unthinkable
Today, it seems that no one is uninformed about the environment. Every day the media shows us more evidence of climate change: extreme weather, melting ice-caps, and rising seas. Most of us believe we can do something to prevent global disaster, such as recycling, or conserving energy. It’s strange to recall that, before the 1960s, few people knew of the damagewe were doing to the planet. However, one scientist had already realized the dangers ahead. And today, this same man believes it may be too late to save the world. In the 1960s, Professor James Lovelock came up with one of the most famous theories on the environment – the GAIA hypothesis. According to this hypothesis, the earth’s atmosphere, soil, and oceans work in concert to provide an inhabitable environment for humans. If we disrupt these elements too severely, the earth may one day become uninhabitable. In the decade before he developed the Gaia hypothesis, Lovelock had created a device to detect atmospheric chemicals. With this device, he discovered particular chemicals, called CFCs. Later, other scientists discovered that these CFCs had damaged the earth’s ozone layer. Before then, we hadn’t knows about the hole in the ozone layer. By 1979, Lovelock had put forward his theories on the environment, in his first book. At that time, few people believe him. Before scientists such as Lovelock publicized environmental issues, the environment hadn’t been a very fashionable topic. In 2004, after many people had only just started to accept the reality of global warming, Lovelock became convinced that climate change was irreversible. In 2006, he wrote another book describing his latest ideas. In 40 years, Lovelock believes large parts of the world will be desert. We will need to make synthesized food to feed the world’s population. ‘Is Lovelock right this time too? Surely we can prevent this nightmare, if we all recycle, use renewable energy, and travel less by plane and car? Lovelock disagrees. According to him, it is now impossible to reverse global warming. We did not act quickly enough when we had the chance. Renewable energy and recycling are a case of too little, too late. Ultimately, if the human race is to survive, Lovelock believes we need to use more technology, not less. In his view, only nuclear energy can provide sufficient power for the planet. Now over 90 years old, Lovelock may not live to find out if he is right. But we will...


Choose the correct alternative according to the text.
Professor James Lovelock thinks...

Read the text to answer the following question.
Cultural diversity and cultural identity in globalization
In the process of globalization winners are the countries with highly developed mass media as complex systems which are able to broadcast and receive diverse information which are used as basic development resource. On the other side are the developing countries which suffer their impact. Their characteristic is the small capacity to adapt to innovations that came from outside and that is why their cultural identity is called into question. Mass media are not only instruments for spreading popular culture and industries, but at the same time, their use enables cultural hegemony. Mass media, society, local culture, and media content are closely related. By exhibiting TV shows, movies, dramas etc. media will reflect values specific to local culture. So, we can talk about displaying commerciality as feature of American culture, Japanese aesthetic values, French tendency to philosophize... One of the main functions of mass media is to transfer cultural inheritance, information about the past, values of a given society, and to furnish cultural directive for life, action, and behavior. Despite the globalization of the economy, and the emergence of international political institutions, global dissemination of culture (mass media, education, modernization, urbanization, the spread of literacy) from the late 20th century has strengthened national identities. Modern nationalism is less focused on defending the country and more inclined to defend the established cultural identity. The identities represent the defense against unpredictability, disorder, and changes of globalization. In the last three decades there is strong trend to resisting globalization and cosmopolitanism as a form of defense of cultural identity. “God, nations, families and communities will ensure eternal figures that cannot be broken down and around which society will develop a counter-culture of real virtuality”. Castells considers that individuals carry with them the eternal truth, the values that cannot be virtualized or destroyed. As the globalization process strengthens the coming of cultural integrity and identity problems are more prevalent. Dominant monoculture stands against local, national and traditional cultures with the progressive disintegration of traditional culture value patterns.
(Available: www.wseas.us/e-library/conferences/2013. Adapted.)
“Which” (line 16) refers back to

Human Trafficking in Romania

  Anti-mafia police have broken up a Romanian human trafficking gang, which forced dozens of kidnapped victims, including children, into beggary and slavery.    Authorities rescued five people from a village in central Romania and arrested 29 suspects thought to be part of the ring. A hunt is being conducted around the site, which is just 170 kilometers northwest of Bucharest. It's thought that there are more crime ring members at loose and as many as 40 victims overall.    The director for fighting organized crime and terrorism said some of the victims had been kidnapped from around public places such as railway stations since 2008 and had been fed only scraps of food by their masters. There's also suspicion that some of the victims were raped but that has not been verified. No other details about the victims or their whereabouts have been disclosed.  
Read the following statements: 
(i) Starting in 2008, a human trafficking gang began kidnapping people, including children, from public places in Romania.  (ii) The gang made these people became slaves.  (iii) Their masters treated them badly by feeding them only little food and possibly raping them.  (iv) Recently, police stopped this gang’s activity when they arrested 29 criminals and saved five of the victims.   According to the context, we can say that: