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

Use the following text to answer the question.

TEXT

The Age of Exploration started in the 1400's. Europeans were desperate to get spices from Asia. Spices were used to preserve foods and keep them from spoiling. Spices, however, were expensive and dangerous to get. European rulers began to pay for explorations to find a sea route to Asia so they could get spices cheaper.

Portugal was the first country that sent explorers to search for the sea route to Asia. After Bartholomew Dias and his crew made it to Africa's Cape of Good Hope, Vasco da Gama and his crew became the first to sail around Africa and through the Indian Ocean to India in 1497. Spain, however, would soon take over the lead in exploration. When Portugal refused to finance Christopher Columbus' idea to sail west to find the shortcut to the Indies, Columbus convinced Spain's King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella to finance it. On October 12, 1492, Christopher Columbus and his crew reached the island of Hispaniola. Although Columbus believed he had reached Asia, he had actually discovered the entire continent of North America and claimed it for Spain.

Spain quickly colonized North America. Ponce de Leon discovered Florida, and the first European settlement in the New World was later established at St. Augustine. Hernando Cortes crushed the Aztec empire in Mexico and claimed it for Spain. Francisco Pizarro did the same to the Incan Empire in South America. Other explorers such as Francisco Coronado and Hernando de Soto claimed other portions of North America for Spain. Vasco Nunez de Balboa even claimed the entire Pacific Ocean for Spain. As the Spanish empire grew, explorers forced native populations into slavery and to convert to Christianity. Meanwhile, France began to explore North America. Explorations by Giovanni Verrazano and Jacques Cartier resulted in French claims of much of Canada and the north Atlantic coast. England would soon attempt to make its presence known by financing pirates such as Francis Drake to plunder Spanish settlements and steal gold from Spanish sea vessels. England also established a settlement in North Carolina in 1587. Territorial disputes and constant pirating resulted in a series of major wars between the competing nations. In 1588, the British Army defeated the vaunted Spanish Armada. The British victory proved a serious blow to Spanish influence in the New World.

Although Spain still controlled much of the New World after defeat, England and France were able to accelerate their colonization. England soon established successful colonies throughout the eastern portions of the United States, and France had colonies in Canada and the middle portions of the United States. By the mid 1700's, new territorial disputes between England and France eventually resulted in England gaining control over much of North America after the French and Indian War. English colonies flourished in North America until 1776 when the colonists declared their independence. The Revolutionary War ensued and resulted in independence for the colonists. The United States of America was formed. 

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(Available at: https://br.pinterest.com/pin/56506170312404719/Accessed on March 29 , 2019). 

Infants and Toddlers Eat Too Much Sugar, Researchers Say

1 - Using C.D.C. data, researchers found that 98 percent of toddlers and 60 percent of infants consumed added sugar in sweetened drinks, baked goods and snacks. 

2 - Nearly all American toddlers about two-thirds of infants onsume added sugar, despite nutritionists’ recommendations that children avoid the sweetener, according to a government study released this week.

3 - Researchers, using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, found that from 2011 to 2016, 98 percent of toddlers ages 12 to 23 months consumed added sugar in fruit drinks, baked goods, candy and ready-to-eat cereals. Black toddlers ate the most added sugar — about eight teaspoons a day — while toddlers of Asian descent consumed the least, about 3.7 teaspoons a day.

4 - “The most important thing to take away is that added sugars are everywhere,” said the study’s lead investigator, Kirsten Herrick, who now works at the National Cancer Institute’s cancer control and population sciences division. “What is surprising is how added sugar quickly exceeds the recommended daily amounts.”

5 - The researchers also found that about 60 percent of infants up to 11 months old consumed added sugar in yogurt, baby snacks and flavored milk, among other foods — about one teaspoon of sugar per day. The study size was too small to make scientific conclusions about race, Dr. Herrick said. The findings were published on Thursday in The Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

6 - Added sugars include any sweetener, including cane sugar and high-fructose corn syrup, that does not occur naturally in food. The American Heart Association advises that toddlers and infants 

7 - In 2016, the American Cancer Society released dietary guidelines that said adults should limit added sugar to 10 percent of their daily calories. In particular, it suggested people reduce the number of sugar-sweetened drinks, including fruit and sports drinks, they consume. Sugar is associated not only with weight gain, but also with many types of cancer, the society said.

8 - Dr. Herrick said the consumption of sugar in teenagers and older children has been linked to cavities, asthma, obesity and high blood pressure. Amid news of the alarming amount of sugar consumption, though, she said researchers also observed that sugar consumption in infants was declining over all.

9 - Dr. Herrick warned that exposing children to sugary foods when they are young could impact taste preferences when they are older.

10 - “There is no reason to provide sugar-sweetened beverages” to toddlers and infants, she said. “They need nutrient-dense foods.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/14/science/sugar-toddlers-infants.html

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Planet’s ocean-plastics problem detailed in 60-year data set

Researchers find evidence of rising plastic pollution in an accidental source: log books for planktonmonitoring instruments. Matthew Warren 

Scientists have uncovered the first strong evidence that the amount of plastic polluting the oceans has risen vastly in recent decades — by analysing 60 years of log books for plankton-tracking vessels. 

Data recorded by instruments known as continuous plankton recorders (CPRs) — which ships have collectively towed millions of kilometres across the Atlantic Ocean — show that the trackers have become entangled in large plastic objects, such as bags and fishing lines, roughly three times more often since 2000 than in preceding decades.

This is the first time that researchers have demonstrated the rise in ocean plastics using a single, longterm data set, says Erik van Sebille, an oceanographer at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. “I’m excited that this has been finally done,” he says. The analysis was published on 16 April in Nature Communications. 

 Although the findings are unsurprising, long-term data on ocean plastics had been scant: previous studies looked mainly at the ingestion of plastic by sea creatures over shorter timescales, the researchers say.

Fishing for data

CPRs are torpedo-like devices that have been used since 1931 to survey plankton populations, by filtering the organisms from the water using bands of silk. Today, volunteer ships such as ferries and container ships tow a fleet of CPRs around the world’s oceans. 

(…)Each time a ship tows a CPR, the crew fills in a log book and notes any problems with the device. So Ostle and her colleagues looked through all tow logs from the North Atlantic between 1957 and 2016, to determine whether plastic entanglements have become more common.

Evidence analysis

(…)Van Sebille says that because the study focused on large plastic items, it doesn’t reveal much about the quantity of microplastics — fragments fewer than 5 millimetres long — in the oceans. These tiny contaminants come from sources such as disposable plastic packaging, rather than from fishing gear.

Nevertheless, he adds, the study demonstrates that fisheries play a major part in plastic pollution, and will provide useful baseline data for tracking whether policy changes affect the levels of plastic in the oceans. “As fisheries become more professional, especially in the North Sea, hopefully we might see a decrease,” he says.

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01252-0 (adapted).

Access: April 20th, 2019 

Read the Mother Teresa’s “Anyway Poem” and answer.

                          People are often unreasonable, illogical and self centered;

                                                     Forgive them anyway.

                          If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior

                                                                  motives;

                                                            Be kind anyway.

                         If you are successful, you will win some false friends and 

                                                        some true enemies;

                                                         Succeed anyway.

                             If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;

                                                Be honest and frank anyway.

                         What you spend years building, someone could destroy

                                                            overnight;

                                                         Build anyway.

                            If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;

                                                    Be happy anyway.

                           The good you do today people will often forget tomorrow;

                                                     Do good anyway.

                              Give the world the best you have, and it may never be

                                                            enough;

                                     Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.

                         You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and your God;

                                   It was never between you and them anyway.

[Reportedly inscribed on the wall of Mother Teresa’s children’s home in Calcutta, and attributed to her. However, an article in the New York Times has since reported (March 8, 2002)] 

Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham suggest that brainwave-sensing headsets, also known as EEG or electroencephalograph headsets, need better security after a study reveals hackers could guess a user’s passwords by monitoring their brainwaves.

(Disponível: <https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/07/170701081756.htm> )