Questões de Inglês - Preposições | Prepositions para Concurso

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The Psychology of Computer Games

These days, everyone is playing computer games: whether on their PC, games console, or smartphone.

In the busy modern world, we rarely have total control of our lives. .....(1)..... . Some computer games provide an antidote to this because they let players create and control the whole world. One example is Civilization, where players build a modern society from nothing. In earlier versions of the game, creator Sid Meier introduced a crisis. Some games included a moment where the player’s civilization collapses. The players then had to overcome these new difficulties to rebuild their civilization again from the beginning. In reality, the majority of players simply ignored the collapse. Most people just returned to an older version of the game. They had saved it for this purpose. People like computer games because it gives them total control.

In most computer games, you only learn one skill at a time. .....(2)..... . Once you have mastered this skill, you progress to the next level. Unlike real life, computer games give you plenty of time to learn. You aren’t immediately asked to do something too difficult. Users have control of the situation and that is very motivating.

This learning needs to work for everyone. In the game World of Warcraft, a player operates an avatar .................. himself or herself in an online fantasy world. The beginning of the game is easy, and .................. getting over the first challenges quickly, this gives players a feeling of achievement. However, the game is enormous. People who persevere with difficult tasks will learn a lot of new skills and explore areas that are inaccessible .................. beginners. Both beginners and experts can become immersed .................. a huge artificial world.

Most games are repetitive, and games designers need to find ways to stop people from becoming distracted and giving up. There are two ways of doing this. The first is the random reward where players win a surprise prize. .....(3)...... . In the real world, most people don’t notice when we do good things, but games are different.

Furthermore, games use clever AI (artificial intelligence). If you are inexperienced and play a soccer computer game against the computer, the computer could always win. Using AI, the computer adjusts its level of ability to equal the player. This means the human opponent always has a chance to win, and it keeps players interested in the game.

Winning isn’t everything, however. In computer games, failure is fun if the final screen shows an entertaining end for the character. Some players lose a game just to see what happens.

.....(4)..... . The virtual world is both more entertaining and less stressful than reality.

Many criticize computer games as just a waste of time. In fact, computer games are one of the greatest learning tools ever invented. Look at their uses in other fields. Flight simulators teach pilots how to cope with many difficult situations, which would be impossible any other way. A flight simulator is just a more sophisticated form of a computer game.

The Rise of the “Bike Bus” Movement

01 On Earth Day* 2022, Sam Balto, a physical education teacher in Portland, convinced a few

02 dozen parents to send their kids to school on their bikes and posted the first in a series of videos

03 that turned his “bike bus” into a viral sensation. Balto has continued documenting his weekly

04 bike buses with joyous videos that show students rolling to school while he blasts music from an

05 eclectic collection of artists, including AC/DC, Metallica, and OneRepublic. Over time, these

06 boisterous bike buses have grown to more than 150 kids. “The more these kids practice riding

07 bikes, the more confident they become. And now they want to keep riding on non-bike bus days,

08 and even on rainy days!” said Balto.

09 Balto’s bike bus is much more than a fad. His TikTok and Twitter videos have raked in

10 millions of views, inspiring similar initiatives in New York, New Jersey, Florida, Utah, Ohio, and

11 Texas. Bike buses previously existed in European cities such as Barcelona and London, but new

12 ones in cities like Cape Town are now joining the trend. Nancy Pullen-Seufert, the director of the

13 National Center for Safe Routes to School, said biking and walking to school have myriad benefits,

14 including “improving air quality, improving safety for walkers and bicyclists, increasing physical

15 activity, and making it easier for school buses and others who can’t actively travel to school to

16 arrive to school on time.”

17 Balto has also triggered real political change by working with lawmakers to pass a so-called

18 “Bike Bus Bill”, that was signed into law by Oregon Governor Tina Kotek in August. “The bill

19 brings flexibility so school districts can now use student transportation funds, which were

20 previously only for school buses, to pay for crossing guards or adults to lead walking school buses

21 or bike buses. It’s awesome.” Balto said. And he is not the only bike bus leader driving positive

22 change in Oregon… Last year, Megan Ramey, who has been organizing a bike bus ___ 2020, was

23 named the Safe Routes to School Manager at Hood River County School District and since then,

24 she has secured nearly $11 million in funding to make it safer for kids to walk and bike to school.

25 “I feel like I'm in a cash-grabbing machine. We just got $7 million to create an off-road trail to

26 the high school. This means kids will be able to bike to high school on a green trail instead of a

27 car-centered road,” said Ramey.

28 Nearly 90% of kids walked to school in 1969. Half a century later, in 2017, that number

29 had fallen to just 10%. That year, a third of students took the school bus and more than half

30 were driven in a private vehicle. This has led to more pollution, with researchers finding that

31 toxic car fumes have an adverse effect on attention, reasoning, and academic performance

32 among school children. In New York, the Open Schools Program has helped increase biking and

33 walking in the 65 schools that restricted traffic during drop-off and pick-up times this year, said

34 Sabina Sethi Unni, who works at Open Plans, a non-profit that supports the shift to walkable

35 cities. “This program makes kids more comfortable with walking and biking at a young age. When

36 they get older, they will be cyclists instead of car users,” said Unni.

(Available in: https://www.distilled.earth/p/the-rise-of-the-bike-bus-movement – text especially adapted for this test).

*Earth Day: a day in April designated for promoting concern for the environment (Merriam-Webster).

Scientists study the world’s oldest person

1. After being bewildered by the “super grandmother’s” great health at 116 years old,
2. scientists are studying Maria Branyas, the world’s oldest person, in an attempt to unearth the
3. secret to a long life. Mr. Branyas was born __ San Francisco __ 1907, and __ the age of eight,
4. she moved __ Catalonia, Spain, where her family was originally from. Ms. Branyas, known to her
5. X followers as the “Super Catalan Grandma”, has lived in the region ever since and has resided
6. in the same nursing home, Residència Santa María del Tura, for the last 22 years.
7. She has agreed to undergo scientific testing, which researchers hope will further their
8. understanding of certain illnesses associated with old age, such as neurodegenerative or
9. cardiovascular diseases. Despite her age, Ms. Branyas has no health complications other than
10. mobility issues and hearing (she suffered permanent hearing loss when she was a child). She also
11. still has a great memory: “She has a completely lucid head,” scientist Manel Esteller told ABC, a
12. Spanish outlet. “She remembers with impressive clarity episodes of her when she was only four
13. years old, and she does not present any cardiovascular disease, common in elderly people.”
14. Esteller, who studies genetics and how it applies to health conditions, became curious about how
15. Ms. Branyas’ genetic makeup might affect her aging. After a long talk with Ms. Branyas, Mr.
16. Esteller believes there must be more to her longevity than meets the eye.
17. The remarkable woman has not had an easy life; she survived an earthquake while she
18. was in the US, a major fire, both world wars, the Spanish Civil War, the Spanish Flu pandemic,
19. and more recently, COVID-19 in 2020. Despite the various pandemics, wars, and family losses
20. she has endured, her longevity has made scientists question what her secret could be. “We know
21. Maria’s chronological age, 116 years, but we must determine her biological age,” Esteller said to
22. ABC, believing that “she is much younger” physically. The scientist has taken biological samples
23. of saliva, blood, and urine from Ms. Branyas, which are thought to be the “longest-lived” biological
24. samples and have great scientific value, Josep Carreras, the head of a leukemia research institute,
25. said to ABC. The samples will be compared with the 116-year-old’s middle daughter, who is 79
26. years old.
27. Ms. Branyas often has been asked what her secret is to her long life, and she uses her X
28. account to post her advice for others. She attributed her longevity to “order, tranquillity, good
29. connection with family and friends, contact with nature, emotional stability, no worries, no
30. regrets, lots of positivity, and staying away from toxic people”. However, she also credits a great
31. amount of luck. “It is clear that there is a genetic component because there are several members
32. of her family who are over 90 years old,” said Esteller. The rare biological samples will assess her
33. genes, which will hopefully advance the research of drugs that could help diseases associated
34. with age and cancer. As for Ms. Branyas, she said on her X account that she is “very happy she
35. can be useful for research and progress”.

(Available in: https://www.independent.co.uk/extras/lifestyle/maria-branyas-oldest-person-alive-spain-b2436228.html – text especially adapted for this test).

Instruction: answer questions 31 to 40 based on the following text. The highlights throughout the text are cited in the questions.

Carnival

1. ______ Carnival is ____ festival celebrated in _____countries of Catholic tradition, often
2. with public parades of playful, imaginative wagons typically called "floats, masking, jokes and
3. feasts”.
4. Etymology
5. The word carnival comes from the Latin "carnem levare" (=eliminate meat) and
6. originally indicated the banquet that was held on the last day of Carnival (Mardi Gras),
7. immediately before Lent, the period of fasting and abstinence when Christians would abstain
8. _____ meat. The first evidence of the use of the word "carnevale" (or "carnevalo") are the texts
9. of minstrel Matazone da Caligano of the late 13th century and writer Giovanni Sercambi around
10. 1400.
11. Carnival period
12. In Catholic countries, traditionally Carnival begins on the Septuagesima Sunday (70
13. days to Easter, it was the first of the nine Sundays before the Holy Week in the Gregorian
14. calendar), and in the Roman rite ends on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, which marks the
15. beginning of Lent. The climax is usually from Thursday until Tuesday, the last day of Carnival.
16. Being connected with Easter which is a moveable feast, the final dates of Carnival vary each
17. year, though in some places it may begin already on 17^th January. Since Catholic Easter is on
18. the Sunday after the 17first full moon of spring, therefore from 22 March to 25 April, and since
19. there are 46 days between Ash Wednesday and Easter, then in non-leap years the last day of
20. Carnival, Mardi Gras, can fall any time within February 3 to March 9.
21. In the Ambrosian rite, which is followed in the Archdiocese of Milan and in some
22. neighboring dioceses, Lent begins with the first Sunday of Lent, therefore the last day of
23. Carnival is on Saturday, four days later than the Mardi Gras in other areas of Italy.
24. Carnival in antiquity
25. Although present in the Catholic tradition, Carnival has its origins in much older
26. celebrations, such as the Greek Dionysian festivals ("Anthesteria") or the Roman "Saturnalia".
27. During these ancient rites a temporary dissolution of the social obligations and hierarchies took
28. place in favor of chaos, jokes and even debauchery. From a historical and religious point of
29. view Carnival represented, therefore, a period of renewal, when chaos replaced the established
30. order, but once festive period was over, a new or the old order re-emerged for another cycle
31. until the next carnival.
32. In Babylon, shortly after the vernal equinox the process of the foundation of the cosmos
33. was re-enacted, described with the myth of the struggle of Marduk, the savior-god with Tiamat
34. the dragon, which ended with the victory of the former. During these ceremonies a procession
35. was held in which the forces of chaos were allegorically represented fighting the recreation of
36. the universe, that is the myth of the death and resurrection of Marduk, the savior. In the parade
37. there was a ship on wheels where the deities Moon and Sun were carried along a large avenue
38. - a symbol of the Zodiac - to the sanctuary of Babylon, symbol of the earth. This period was
39. accompanied by an unbridled freedom and a reversal of social order and morality.
40. In the Roman world the feast in honor of the Egyptian goddess Isis involved the presence
41. of masked groups, as told by Lucius Apuleius in the Metamorphoses (Book XI). Among the
42. Romans the end of the old year was represented by a man covered with goat skins, carried in
43. procession, hit with sticks and called Mamurius Veturius.
44. Carnival is therefore a moment in a mythic cycle, it is the movement of spirits between
45. heaven, earth and the underworld. In the spring, when the earth begins to show its power,
46. Carnival opens a passage between the earth and the underworld, whose souls must be honored
47. and for a short period the living lend them their bodies wearing masks. Masks therefore have
48. often an apotropaic meaning, as the wearer takes on the features of the spirit represented.
49. In the 15th and 16th centuries, the Medici in Florence organized large masked carts
50. called "Trionfi" accompanied by carnival songs and dances one, the "Trionfo di Bacco e Arianna"
51. also written by Lorenzo the Magnificent. In Rome under the Popes horse races took place and
52. a called the "race of moccoletti" where runners bearing lit candles tried to blow out each other's
53. candles.

(Available at: http://www.italyheritage.com/traditions/carnival/2023/04/14/ – text especially adapted for this test).

Text 1

Structure of education in Singapore

The complete control and management of Singapore’s education is in the hands of the Ministry of Education (MOE). With continuous endeavour from MOE, today Singapore can be considered to have a strong and well-reputed education system. As per recent study Singapore is ranked fourth in terms of World’s Best Education System.

The preschools are run by the private sector, including religious bodies, community foundations, business groups, etc. However, every preschool need to register itself with the Singapore Ministry of Education before being functional.

After completion of 6 years of primary education, students have to appear for a Primary School Leaving Exam (PSLE). All those students who passed the exam are admitted in a secondary level course, which is usually completed in 4-5 years. It is similar to attending seventh grade through tenth grade in the American education system.

After completion of the secondary education, the students need to appear in Singaporean GCE ‘O’ Level exam. Based on the merit in that exam, students proceed to pre-university education, which is similar to attending eleventh grade and twelfth grade as per the American education system. At this level students can opt for a wide range of subjects from varied academic areas covering Humanities, Arts and Languages, Sciences and Mathematics streams.

www.singaporeeducation.info/Education-System/ Structure-of-Education