Questões de Inglês - Sinônimos | Synonyms para Concurso

While at home in Ireland my poor mother wept bitter tears at the thought of her daughter with the university education serving hamburgers to pop stars.
I had been working there about six months the night I met James. It was a Friday night, which was traditionally the night the OJs frequented our restaurant. “OJ” standing, of course, for Office Jerks.
At five o’clock every Friday, like graves disgorging their dead, offices all over the center of London liberated their staffs for the weekend so that hordes of pale, cheapsuited clerks descended on us.
It was de rigueur for us waitresses to stand around sneering disdainfully at the besuited clientele, shaking our heads in disbelieving pity at the attire, hairstyles, etc., of the poor customers.
On the night in question, James and three of his colleagues sat in my section and I attended to their needs in my normal irresponsible and slapdash fashion. I paid them almost no attention whatsoever, barely listened to them as I took their order and certainly made no eye contact with them. If I had I might have noticed that one of them (yes, James, of course) was very handsome, in a black-haired, green-eyed, five-foottenish kind of way. I should have looked beyond the suit and seen the soul of the man.
Oh, shallowness, thy name is Clare.
But I wanted to be out back with the other waitresses, drinking beer and smoking and talking about sex. Customers were an unwelcome interference.
“Can I have my stake very rare?” asked one of the men.
“Um,” I said vaguely. I was even more uninterested than usual because I had noticed a book on the table. It was a really good book, one that I had read myself.
I loved books. And I loved reading. And I loved men who read. I loved a man who knew his existentialism from his magi-realism. And I had spent the last six months working with people who could just about manage to read Stage magazine (laboriously mouthing the words silently as they did so). I suddenly realized, with a pang, how much I missed the odd bit of intelligent conversation.
Suddenly the people at this table stopped being mere irritants and took on some sort of identity for me.
“Who owns this book?” I asked abruptly, interrupting the order placing.
The table of four men were startled. I had spoken to them! I had treated them almost as if they were human!
“I do,” said James, and as my blue eyes met his green eyes across his mango daiquiri, that was it, the silvery magic dust was sprinkled on us. In that instant something wonderful happened. From the moment we really looked at each other, we both knew we had met someone special.
I maintained that we fell in love immediately.
He maintained nothing of the sort, and said that I was a romantic fool. He claimed it took at least thirty seconds longer for him to fall in love with me.
First of all he had to establish that I had read the book in question also. Because he thought that I must be some kind of not-so-bright model or singer if I was working there. You know, the same way that I had written him off as some kind of subhuman clerk. Served me right.
KEYES, Marian. Watermelon. New York: Perennial, HarperCollins, 2002 (Edited).
In the sentence “I attended to their needs in my normal irresponsible and slapdash fashion”, taken from the text, it is incorrect to say that the word ‘irresponsible’

Which alternative contains a correct correspondence of meaning?

Literacy is the ability to read, write, speak and listen in a way that lets us communicate effectively and make sense of the world.  Lacking vital literacy skills holds a person back at every stage of their life .  As a child they won't be able to succeed at school, as a young adult they will be locked out  of the job market, and as a parent they won't be able to support their own child's learning. This intergenerational cycle  makes social mobility and a fairer society more difficult. 
People with low literacy skills may not be able to read a book or newspaper, understand road signs or price labels, make sense of a bus or train timetable, fill out a form, read instructions on medicines or use the internet. 
In England 16.4% of adults, or 7.1 million people, can be described as having 'very poor literacy skills.' They can understand short straightforward texts on familiar topics accurately and independently, and obtain information from everyday sources, but reading information from unfamiliar sources, or on unfamiliar topics, could cause problems. 
Many adults are reluctant to admit to their literacy difficulties and ask for help. One of the most important aspects of supporting adults with low literacy levels is to increase their self-esteem and persuade them of the benefits of improving their reading and writing. 
Low levels of literacy undermine the UK’s economic competitiveness, costing the taxpayer £2.5 billion every year (KPMG, 2009). A third of businesses are not satisfied with young people’s literacy skills when they enter the workforce and a similar number have organised remedial training for young recruits to improve their basic skills, including literacy and communication. 

Adapted from https://literacytrust.org.uk/information/what-is-literacy/ and https://literacytrust.org.uk/parents-and-families/adult-literacy/ Accesss on February 12th, 2019    In 'Low levels of literacy undermine the UK’s economic competitiveness', the verb UNDERMINE is closest in meaning to 

Look at the underlined word in the extract below.
"If you want to install lots of apps, you can improve the memory, so the phone contains more data.”
Choose the correct sentence with the same meaning.

Which sentence above has the same meaning of “Everything she said was quite true”.

Complete the question below:

Use in a sentence have got is the same as using: 

Many teachers base their lessons on a mixture of methods and approaches to meet the different needs of their learners and the different aims of lessons or courses. Factors in deciding how to teach include the age and experience of learners, lesson and course objectives, expectations and resources.
The wordAIMS in this text means:

From question, identify the phrasal verb that best replace the word in bold type. 
They had to explain all the money that had gone missing. 

Why Millennials Don’t Like Credit Cards by Holly Johnson Cheap, easy credit might have been tempting to young people in the past, but not to today’s millennials. According to a recent survey by Bankrate of over 1,161 consumers, 63% of adults ages 18 to 29 live without a credit card of any kind, and another 23% only carry one card. The Impact of the Great Recession Research shows that the environment millennials grew up in might have an impact on their finances. Unlike other generations, millennials lived through economic hardships during a time when their adult lives were beginning. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Great Recession caused millennials to stray from historic patterns when it comes to purchasing a home and having children, and a fear of credit cards could be another symptom of the economic environment of the times. And there’s much data when it comes to proving that millennials grew up on shaky economic ground. The Pew Research Center reports that 36% of millennials lived at home with their parents in 2012. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate for people ages 16 to 24 was 14.2% (more than twice the national rate) in early 2014, according to the BLS. With those figures, it’s no wonder that millennials are skittish when it comes to credit cards. It makes sense that young people would be afraid to take on any new forms of debt. A Generation Plagued with Student Loan Debt But the Great Recession isn’t the only reason millennials could be fearful of credit. Many experts believe that the nation’s student loan debt level might be related to it. According to the Institute for College Access & Success, 71% of millennials (or 1.3 million students) who graduated from college in 2012 left school with at least some student loan debt, with the average amount owed around $29,400. With so much debt already under their belts, millennials are worried about adding any credit card debt to the pile. After all, many adults with student loan debt need to make payments for years, and even decades. How Millennials Can Build Credit Without a Credit Card The fact that millennials are smart enough to avoid credit card debt is a good thing, but that doesn’t mean the decision has its drawbacks. According to Experian, most adults need a positive credit history in order to qualify for an auto loan or mortgage. Even worse, having no credit history is almost as bad as having a negative credit history in some cases. Still, there are plenty of ways millennials can build a credit history without a credit card. A few tips:     • Make payments on installment loans on time. Whether it’s a car loan, student loan or personal loan, make sure to mail in those payments on time and pay at least the minimum amount required.     • Put at least one household or utility bill in your name. Paying your utility or household bills on time can help you build a positive credit history.     • Get a secured credit card. Unlike traditional credit cards, the funds secured credit cards offer are backed by money the user deposits. Signing up for a secured card is one way to build a positive credit history without any risk. The fact that millennials are leery of credit cards is probably a good thing in the long run. After all, not having a credit card is the perfect way to stay out of credit card debt. Even though it might be harder to build a credit history without credit cards, the vast majority of millennials have decided that the plastic just isn’t worth it. Available at: <http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/ my-money/2014/11/04/why-millennials-dont-like-credit-cards> In the sentence of the text “Still, there are plenty of ways millennials can build a credit history without a credit card”, the quantifier plenty of can be replaced, with no change in meaning, by

Older and Better     Many people opt ____________ newer homes because they are cleaner, bigger and often have more amenities. But new research shows old houses ____________ old neighborhoods may be better for your health.   University of Utah researchers found that people who live in older, more walkable neighborhoods are ____________ lower risk for overweight and obesity. The study, to be published in the September issue of The American Journal of Preventive Medicine, tracked the body mass index ____________ nearly a half million Salt Lake County residents in Utah. They found that neighborhoods built before 1950 tended ____________ offer greater overall walkability because they had been designed for pedestrians. Newer neighborhoods often were designed primarily to facilitate car travel, the researchers noted.   “It’s difficult for individuals to change their behavior,” said Ken Smith, co-author of the study and professor of family and consumer studies at the University of Utah. “But we can build environments that promote healthy behavior.”   Dr. Smith and colleagues used census data as well as height and weight information obtained from the drivers’ license records of 453,927 Salt Lake County residents between the ages of 25 and 64. They found that men, on average, weighed ten pounds less if they lived in a walkable neighborhood versus a neighborhood less conductive to walking. The average women weighed six pounds less.   “The data show that how and where we live can greatly affect our health,” Dr. Smith said. “Neighborhoods with higher fractions of residents who walk to work tell us that something beneficial about neighborhood is promoting health.”   The research offers a blueprint for communities on better ways to design new developments to encourage healthful living. And for people shopping for homes, the lesson is to think about not just the house itself but whether the neighborhood is pedestrian-friendly, with sidewalks, bikes and walking paths, low traffic and amenities like coffee shops or convenient stores that are within walking distance.   Last fall, Stanford Medicine Magazine also looked at the effect neighborhoods have on health. Researchers there found that among people who were trying to be more active, living in walkable neighborhoods dramatically improved their odds of exercising for at least two-and-a-half hours week. In one study of people who lived in walkable neighborhoods achieved their goals, compared to just 30 percent of those who lived in pedestrian-unfriendly areas.    Match the words on column 1 with their meanings on column 2: 
Column 1 - Words  1. Amenities  2. Walkable  3. Tracked  4. Conducive 
Column 2 - Meaning  (   ) propitious.  (   ) studied, analyzed.  (   ) places that make life more pleasant.  (   ) suitable for a walk. 
Choose the alternative which presents the correct sequence:

Choose the alternative which presents the correct pair of synonyms.

Read the text below and answer the questions that follow.
When is it time to stop studying?
It's 10 p.m. and six government employees are out checking the streets of Seoul, South Korea. But these are not police officers searching for teenagers who are behaving badly. Their mission is to find children who are still studying. And stop them. Education in South Korea is very competitive. The aim of almost every schoolchild is to get into one of the country’s top universities. Only the students with the best grades get a place. The school day starts at 8 a.m. and the students finish studying somewhere between 10 p.m. and 1 a.m. at night. This is because many go to private academies called hagwon after school. Around 74 percent of all students attend a hagwon after their regular classes finish. A year’s course costs, on average, $2,600 per student. In Seoul, there are more private tutors than schoolteachers, and the most popular ones make millions of dollars a year from online and in-person classes. Most parents rely on private tutoring to get their children into a university. With so much time spent in the classroom, all that students in South Korean high schools do is study and sleep. Some of them are so exhausted that they cannot stay awake the next day at school. It is a common sight to see a teacher explaining the lesson while a third of the students are asleep on their desks. The teachers don’t seem to mind. There are even special pillows for sale that fit over the arms of the chairs to make sleeping in class more comfortable. Ironically, the students spend class time sleeping so that they can stay up late studying that night. The South Korean government has been aware of the faults in the system for some time, but now they have passed some reforms. Today, schoolteachers have to meet certain standards or take additional training courses. However, the biggest challenge for the government is the hagwons. Hagwons have been banned from having classes after 10 p.m., which is why there are street patrols searching for children who are studying after that time. If they find any in class, the owner of the hagwon is punished and the students are sent home. It's a strange world, where some children have to be told to stop studying while others are reluctant to start. Adapted from: LATHAM-KOENIG, Christina & OXENDEN, Clive. American English File 3 - Workbook. 2"“ edition. Oxford: OUP, 2014.
In the sentence “However, the biggest challenge for the government is the hagwons.” (last paragraph), the word HOWEVER could be correctly replaced in this context, without change of meaning, by:

Check the alternative with the words that correctly replace the underlined words below. “Bullying is when a person is picked on over and over again by an individual or group with more power, either in terms of physical strength or social standing.”

The underlined word, in the following sentence:’ don’t use up natural resources or harm the environment.’, has its correct synonym in which alternative?

ANABOLIC STEROID ABUSE
 Since the 1950’s, some athletes have been taking anabolic steroids to build muscle boost their athletic performance. Increasingly, other segments of the population also have been taking these compounds. An anual survey of drug abuse among adolescents showed a significant increase from 1998 to 1999 in steroid abuse among middle school students. During the same year, the percentage of 12th-graders who believed that taking these drugs causes “great risk” to health, declined from 68 percent to 62 percent.
 Studies show that, over time, anabolic steroids can indeed take a heavy toll on a person’s health. The abuse of oral or injectable steroids is associated with higher risks for heart attacks and strokes, and the abuse of most oral steroids is associated with increased risk for liver problems. Steroid abusers who share needles or use non-sterile techniques when they inject steroids are at risk os contracting dangerous infections, such as HIV/AIDS, hepatites B and C, and bacterial endocarditis. 
Anabolic steroid abuse can also cause undesirable body changes. These include breast development and genital shrinking in men, masculinization of the body in women, and acne and hair loss in both sexes. 
[...]  We hope that this compilation of scientific information on anabolic steroids will help the public recognize the risks of steroid abuse. 
Alan I. Leshner, Ph.D. Director National Institute on Drug Abuse www.nida.nih.gov
Check the meaning of the word in bold.
 - The abuse of steroids is associated with risks for heart attacks and strokes.