Questões de Inglês - Passado progressivo | Past continuous para Concurso

When we think about global warming and climate change, we usually think ________________how it is going to affect humans. However, we need to think about animals, too. Many species will be threatened

______________________ extinction by the end of this century if climate change is not halted. One of these is the world’s largest land predator, the polar bear. This magnificent native ___________________ the Arctic previously had no natural enemy apart _______________________man, but is now under threat from nature itself. Because of melting sea ice, it is likely that more polar bears will soon starve, warns a new study that discovered the large carnivores need to eat 60 percent more than anyone had realized.

Polar bears use floating ice as a platform to hunt seals from. They eat a large volume of food during the winter, storing enough fat under their skin to last them through the summer months. When the ice melts in the spring, many travel south to places such as Churchill, Canada, returning north when the seas freeze again, usually around October. Now, however, the winter ice is melting earlier and forming later. The bears’ store of fat runs out, and some starve to death. Other bears are drowning, because many of the ice platforms have melted, and some bears have to swim over a hundred kilometres from one ice platform to another. Due to exhaustion or stormy weather, some never make it to their destinations.

Reality television is a genre of television programming which, it is claimed, presents unscripted dramatic or humorous situations, documents actual events, and features ordinary people rather than professional actors. It could be described as a form of artificial or “heightened” documentary. Although the genre has existed in some form or another since the early years of television, the current explosion of popularity dates from around 2000.

Reality television covers a wide range of television programming formats, _____________game or quiz shows which resemble the frantic, often demeaning programmes produced in Japan _____________ the 1980s and 1990s (a modern example is Gaki no tsukai), _____________surveillance-focused productions such __________ Big Brother.

Critics say that the term “reality television” is somewhat of a misnomer and that such shows frequently portray a modified and highly influenced form of reality, with participants put in exotic locations or abnormal situations, sometimes coached to act in certain ways by off-screen handlers, and with events on screen manipulated through editing and other post-production techniques.

Part of reality television’s appeal is due to its ability to place ordinary people in extraordinary situations. For example, on the ABC show, The Bachelor, an eligible male dates a dozen women simultaneously, travelling on extraordinary dates to scenic locales. Reality television also has the potential to turn its participants into national celebrities, outwardly in talent and performance programs such as Pop Idol, though frequently Survivor and Big Brother participants also reach some degree of celebrity.

Some commentators have said that the name “reality television” is an inaccurate description for several styles of program included in the genre. In competition-based programs such as Big Brother and Survivor, and other special-living-environment shows like The Real World, the producers design the format of the show and control the day-to-day activities and the environment, creating a completely fabricated world in which the competition plays out. Producers specifically select the participants, and use carefully designed scenarios, challenges, events, and settings to encourage particular behaviours and conflicts. Mark Burnett, creator of Survivor and other reality shows, has agreed with this assessment, and avoids the word “reality” to describe his shows; he has said, “I tell good stories. It really is not reality TV. It really is unscripted drama.