Questões de Vestibular de Inglês - Advérbios e conjunções | Adverbs and conjunctions

Foram encontradas 118 questões

Ano: 2011 Banca: UEFS Órgão: UEFS Prova: UEFS - 2011 - UEFS - Vestibular Segundo Semestre - Dia 1 - Inglês |
Q1365139 Inglês


OXENDEN, Clive; LATHAM-KOENIG, Christina American English File, MultiPack 4A, 2010. p.51

The boldfaced conjunction expresses what is stated in brackets in alternative
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Ano: 2013 Banca: UEM Órgão: UEM Prova: UEM - 2013 - UEM - Vestibular - Etapa 1 - Inglês |
Q1362685 Inglês
Billboard Campaign

(Disponível em <http://lynnfire.org/web/index.php?option=com_ content&task=view&id=102&Itemid=112>. Acesso em 22/05/2013.)
Em relação aos aspectos linguísticos do texto, é correto afirmar que

the word “always” (line 10) is an adverb of frequency.
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Ano: 2010 Banca: UCPEL Órgão: UCPEL Prova: UCPEL - 2010 - UCPEL - Vestibular |
Q1359455 Inglês
Na sentença “the amount of household waste can increase radically in developed nations which rely heavily on packaging for a wide variety of products.” (linhas 8- 10), radically e heavily são advérbios. Nas opções a seguir todos são advérbios EXCETO
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Ano: 2008 Banca: UNIR Órgão: UNIR Prova: UNIR - 2008 - UNIR - Vestibular - Primeira Fase |
Q1353991 Inglês
Strategic Spending on Organic Foods


Sweet bell peppers are among the vegetables high in pesticides. (Richard Drew/Associated Press)



(Extraído de http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/18/strategic-spending-on-organic-foods. Acesso em 14/09/2008.)
Sobre a função morfológica dos vocábulos no texto, assinale a afirmativa correta.
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Ano: 2015 Banca: Esamc Órgão: Esamc Prova: Esamc - 2015 - Esamc - Vestibular |
Q1353105 Inglês

Considere o excerto a seguir, retirado do site do jornal britânico The Guardian, para responder à questão.


    Homeopaths believe that illness-causing substances can, in minute doses, treat people who are unwell. By diluting these substances in water or alcohol, homeopaths claim the resulting mixture retains a “memory” of the original substance that triggers a healing response in the body.

    These claims have been widely disproven by multiple studies, but the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) has for the first time thoroughly reviewed 225 research papers on homeopathy to come up with its position statement, released on Wednesday: Homeopathy is not effective for treating any health condition.

(Adaptado de www.theguardian.com - acesso em 12/03/2015)

Considere o segundo parágrafo do texto. As palavras claims, studies, thoroughly, effective são classificadas, respectivamente, como
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Ano: 2009 Banca: UFAC Órgão: UFAC Prova: UFAC - 2009 - UFAC - Vestibular - Dia 1 - Língua Inglesa |
Q1352977 Inglês
The text is full of grammatical elements that compose its structure to offer a plain reading comprehension. Based on this idea and in the text I, judge the CORRECT following statements:
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Ano: 2014 Banca: Esamc Órgão: Esamc Prova: Esamc - 2014 - Esamc - Vestibular |
Q1352444 Inglês
Considere o texto abaixo para responder à questão.


    Can Audio or Digital Books Improve Learning Outcomes?

    Children with learning disabilities (LD), like dyslexia, have trouble understanding words they read. Causes are unclear, but we now know that LD is not due to a lack of intelligence or a desire to learn.

     While dyslexia is a life-long condition, early identification, support from a parent or teacher, and access to digital or audio books and other learning materials may help your child to improve their learning outcomes and be better prepared to successfully work around their LD.

    Research now demonstrates that when children with LD are given accessible instructional materials (often referred to as AIM) — textbooks or learning materials that are delivered in audio and/or digital formats — they can excel in school and also learn to enjoy reading.
    Reading with digital (or e-books) and audio books can enrich a user's learning experience by engaging them in the content in multi-sensory ways.
(National Center for Learning Disabilities. . p. 23. - acesso em 08/04/2014 The Dyslexia Toolkit )
Considere o primeiro parágrafo do texto. As palavras learning, like, read e desire aparecem no trecho, respectivamente, como
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Ano: 2011 Banca: UEM Órgão: UEM Prova: UEM - 2011 - UEM - Vestibular - PAS - Etapa 2 - Inglês |
Q1350077 Inglês

Texto

A brief history of Facebook


(Adapted from a text available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/techonolgy/2007/jul/25/media. newmedia. Accessed on 02/6/2011, at 9h10min) 

Assinale a alternativa correta considerando os elementos gramaticais do texto.


The words “originally” (line 11) and “promptly” (line 18) are adverbs.

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Ano: 2017 Banca: VUNESP Órgão: FAMEMA Prova: VUNESP - 2017 - FAMEMA - Vestibular 2018 - Prova II |
Q1345453 Inglês

         Drinking coffee could help you live longer Coffee not only helps you feel full of beans, it might add years to your life as well, two major studies have shown. Scientists in Europe and the US have uncovered the clearest evidence yet that drinking coffee reduces the risk of death.

         One study of more than half a million people from 10 European countries found that men who downed at least three cups of coffee a day were 18% less likely to die from any cause than non-coffee drinkers. Women drinking the same amount benefited less, but still experienced an 8% reduction in mortality over the period measured.

        Similar results were reported by American scientists who conducted a separate investigation, recruiting 185855 participants from different ethnic backgrounds. Irrespective of ethnicity, people who drank two to three cups of coffee daily had an 18% reduced risk of death.

        Each of the studies, both published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, showed no advantage from drinking either caffeinated or decaffeinated coffee. Experts believe the antioxidant plant compounds in coffee rather than caffeine are responsible for the life-extending effect. Previous research has suggested that drinking coffee can reduce the risk of heart disease, diabetes, liver disease, and some cancers.

         Dr Marc Gunter, from the International Agency for Research on Cancer, who led the European study with colleagues from Imperial College London, said: “We found that higher coffee consumption was associated with a lower risk of death from any cause and specifically for circulatory diseases and digestive diseases. Importantly, these results were similar across all of the 10 European countries, with variable coffee drinking habits and customs. Our study also offers important insights into the possible mechanisms for the beneficial health effects of coffee.”


(www.huffingtonpost.co.uk, 11.07.2017. Adaptado.)

No trecho do segundo parágrafo “Women drinking the same amount benefited less, but still experienced an 8% reduction in mortality”, a palavra em destaque indica uma ideia de
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Ano: 2011 Banca: UEM Órgão: UEM Prova: UEM - 2011 - UEM - Vestibular - EAD - Prova 2 - Inglês |
Q1342141 Inglês
Space hotel to give rich a thrill that’s out of this world


(Texto adaptado. Disponível em <http://wwwguardian.co.uk/science/2011>. Acesso em 31/8/2011 às 10h50min)
Choose the alternative(s) in which the information about the words/fragments from the text is correct.
“newer” (line 24), “clear” (line 35) and “more advanced” (line 66) are comparative forms used to show an increase in size or degree in relation to something else.
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Ano: 2019 Banca: VUNESP Órgão: FAMEMA Prova: VUNESP - 2019 - FAMEMA - Vestibular 2020 - Prova II |
Q1339317 Inglês

               An increasing body of evidence suggests that the time we spend on our smartphones is interfering with our sleep, self-esteem, relationships, memory, attention spans, creativity, productivity and problem-solving and decision-making skills. But there is another reason for us to rethink our relationships with our devices. By chronically raising levels of cortisol, the body’s main stress hormone, our phones may be threatening our health and shortening our lives.

          If they happened only occasionally, phone-induced cortisol spikes might not matter. But the average American spends four hours a day staring at their smartphone and keeps it within arm’s reach nearly all the time, according to a tracking app called Moment.

         “Your cortisol levels are elevated when your phone is in sight or nearby, or when you hear it or even think you hear it,” says David Greenfield, professor of clinical psychiatry at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine and founder of the Center for Internet and Technology Addiction. “It’s a stress response, and it feels unpleasant, and the body’s natural response is to want to check the phone to make the stress go away.”

          But while doing so might soothe you for a second, it probably will make things worse in the long run. Any time you check your phone, you’re likely to find something else stressful waiting for you, leading to another spike in cortisol and another craving to check your phone to make your anxiety go away. This cycle, when continuously reinforced, leads to chronically elevated cortisol levels. And chronically elevated cortisol levels have been tied to an increased risk of serious health problems, including depression, obesity, metabolic syndrome, Type 2 diabetes, fertility issues, high blood pressure, heart attack, dementia and stroke.



(Catherine Price. www.nytimes.com, 24.04.2019. Adaptado.)

No trecho do primeiro parágrafo “But there is another reason for us to rethink our relationships with our devices”, o termo sublinhado introduz uma

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Ano: 2015 Banca: VUNESP Órgão: FAMERP Prova: VUNESP - 2015 - FAMERP - Conhecimentos Gerais |
Q1339085 Inglês

Leia o texto para responder à questão.


Social life in youth may impact health decades later


Robert Preidt


August 6, 2015



    Having good social connections at age 20 can lead to improved well-being later in life, a new study suggests. Previous research has shown that people with poor social links are at increased risk for early death. “In fact, having few social connections is equivalent to tobacco use, and [the risk is] higher than for those who drink excessive amounts of alcohol, or who suffer from obesity,” study author Cheryl Carmichael, who conducted the study while a doctoral candidate at the University of Rochester in New York, said in a university news release.

    The study included 133 people who enrolled when they were 20-year-old college students in the 1970s. The participants kept track of their daily social interactions at ages 20 and 30. At age 50, they completed an online survey about the quality of their social lives and emotional well-being, including questions about loneliness and depression, and their relationships with close friends.

    The findings showed that frequent social interactions at age 20 and good-quality relationships – defined as intimate and satisfying – at age 30 were associated with higher levels of well-being at age 50. The study findings were published in a recent issue of the journal Psychology and Aging.

    A high number of social interactions at age 20 are beneficial later in life because they help young adults determine who they are, the researchers said. “It’s often around this age that we meet people from diverse backgrounds, with opinions and values that are different from our own, and we learn how to best manage those differences,” said Carmichael, now an assistant professor of psychology at Brooklyn College. “Considering everything else that goes on in life over those 30 years – marriage, raising a family and building a career – it is extraordinary that there appears to be a relationship between the kinds of interactions college students and young adults have and their emotional health later in life,” she concluded.


(www.nlm.nih.gov)

No trecho do quarto parágrafo “because they help young adults”, o termo em destaque pode ser corretamente substituído, sem alteração de sentido, por
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Ano: 2015 Banca: VUNESP Órgão: FAMERP Prova: VUNESP - 2015 - FAMERP - Conhecimentos Gerais |
Q1339081 Inglês

Leia o texto para responder à questão.


Social life in youth may impact health decades later


Robert Preidt


August 6, 2015



    Having good social connections at age 20 can lead to improved well-being later in life, a new study suggests. Previous research has shown that people with poor social links are at increased risk for early death. “In fact, having few social connections is equivalent to tobacco use, and [the risk is] higher than for those who drink excessive amounts of alcohol, or who suffer from obesity,” study author Cheryl Carmichael, who conducted the study while a doctoral candidate at the University of Rochester in New York, said in a university news release.

    The study included 133 people who enrolled when they were 20-year-old college students in the 1970s. The participants kept track of their daily social interactions at ages 20 and 30. At age 50, they completed an online survey about the quality of their social lives and emotional well-being, including questions about loneliness and depression, and their relationships with close friends.

    The findings showed that frequent social interactions at age 20 and good-quality relationships – defined as intimate and satisfying – at age 30 were associated with higher levels of well-being at age 50. The study findings were published in a recent issue of the journal Psychology and Aging.

    A high number of social interactions at age 20 are beneficial later in life because they help young adults determine who they are, the researchers said. “It’s often around this age that we meet people from diverse backgrounds, with opinions and values that are different from our own, and we learn how to best manage those differences,” said Carmichael, now an assistant professor of psychology at Brooklyn College. “Considering everything else that goes on in life over those 30 years – marriage, raising a family and building a career – it is extraordinary that there appears to be a relationship between the kinds of interactions college students and young adults have and their emotional health later in life,” she concluded.


(www.nlm.nih.gov)

No trecho do primeiro parágrafo “who conducted the study while a doctoral candidate”, o termo em destaque tem o sentido de
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Ano: 2011 Banca: Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie Órgão: MACKENZIE Prova: Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie - 2011 - MACKENZIE - vestibular |
Q1338544 Inglês

Imagem associada para resolução da questão

‘I have always made it __( I )__ every woman feels… special.’ SILVIO BERLUSCONI, Italy’s prime minister, dismissing protests against him shortly before a judge ordered him to stand trial on charges of paying for sex with an underage prostitute. Newsweek

The blank I, in the text, must be correctly completed with
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Ano: 2011 Banca: Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie Órgão: MACKENZIE Prova: Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie - 2011 - MACKENZIE - vestibular |
Q1338543 Inglês


HOW EFFECTIVE IS YOUR TEACHERESE?
By Stephan Hughes
    Why is it that most of our students whine that they are able to almost fully understand what we say in the classroom but when faced with English in a real-life situation, the level of comprehension falls to near bottom, leading to their puzzlement, frustration and despair (in that order)?
    Some reasons for the phenomenon: teachers use a special language called teacherese. It is tailored form of the English language, which allows students to follow and obtain at least a global comprehension of what is being uttered. The speed is toned down somewhat, the lexis is full of Portuguese-like cognates so as to help students make necessary associations and/or simultaneous translations. Its linguistic variation is limited, especially at lower proficiency levels.
    __( I )__ what is most noteworthy of teacherese is that its inability to stretch students’ listening skills may lie more in the fact that teachers, non-native in particular, barely use the rich idiomatic language that is used in magazines, newspapers, TV shows, movies, songs – in short, in real life situations that they usually face. The lexis may not necessarily be second nature to ELT professionals, __( II )__ its absence in everyday use in the classroom.
    Another reason: apart from using teacherese, most teachers don’t have any legitimate speaking opportunities outside of the classroom, __( III )__ reducing their oral skills to instructional and explanatory phrases or typical fixed expressions prescribed in the course book. Giving these educators opportunities to use the language naturally – be it in conversational settings arranged by the institutions or with native speakers in loco or online – may be crucial to whittle away at the problem.
    A third and final reason: familiarity breeds ease, which in turn breeds comprehension. The more time students stay with a said teacher, the easier it might be for them to understand them and get used to their accent, intonation, lexical choice and pace. This is a point that cannot be ignored and is worth looking into.
    __( IV )__ the question we need to ask ourselves is: how effective is the language we use in the classroom and to what extent this effectiveness plays a vital role in helping our students understand the world around them in English? __( V )__, in a communicative context, the teacher is but should not be the ultimate language model for the students, so students should not gauge their listening competence by the teacher. The catch is exposing students to more and more real language in the classroom and fostering effective listening strategies.
Braz-Tesol Newsletter
The words that properly fill in blanks I, II, III, IV and V, in the text, are
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Ano: 2010 Banca: Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie Órgão: MACKENZIE Prova: Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie - 2010 - MACKENZIE - Vestibular |
Q1336278 Inglês


The Boom Is Nigh
Why the coming recovery will hurt like hell.

By Gregg Easterbrook

    Home prices keep falling, but productivity is rising fast. GDP grew 5.6 percent in the fourth quarter, yet unemployment remains stubbornly high. Inflation is nonexistent, while the consumer confidence index just rose to 55.9 from 53.6—whatever that means. Can’t make sense of these economic indicators? Don’t worry, because nobody else can, either.
    Here is what you really need to know: a Sonic Boom is coming. It will be caused by globalization. And while globalization may be driving you crazy, it’s just getting started. Thirty years ago, Shenzhen, China, did not exist; today, it has nearly 9 million residents, roughly the same as New York City. In a single generation, it has grown from a village of tarpaper shacks into an important urban center. It has become the world’s fourth-busiest port, busier than Los Angeles and Long Beach combined. Never before has a great city been built so fast, nor a productive economy established from so little.
    The international recession that began in 2008 has made the Sonic Boom quieter, but history shows that when a crisis ends, the larger trends in place before the crisis usually resume. Shenzhen represents the larger trend of growth, change, and transformation at unprecedented velocity. Thanks to vast increases in productivity, worldwide economic growth soon will pick up, creating rising prosperity and higher living standards for most people in most nations. The world will be far more interconnected, leading to better and more affordable products, as well as ever better communication among nations.
    But there’s a big catch: just as favorable economic and social trends are likely to resume, many problems that have characterized recent decades are likely to get worse, too. Job instability, economic insecurity, a sense of turmoil, the fear that even when things seem good a hammer is about to fall—these are also part of the larger trend. As world economies become ever more linked by computers, job stress will become a 24/7 affair. Frequent shakeups in industries will cause increasing uncertainty. The horizon has never been brighter, but we may not feel particularly happy about it.
www.newsweek.com
In the title of the article, the word nigh
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Ano: 2017 Banca: VUNESP Órgão: FAMERP Prova: VUNESP - 2017 - FAMERP - Conhecimentos Gerais |
Q1335936 Inglês

Leia o texto para responder à questão.

Can plants hear?
Flora may be able to detect the sounds of flowing water or munching insects

    Pseudoscientific claims that music helps plants grow have been made for decades, despite evidence that is shaky at best. Yet new research suggests some flora may be capable of sensing sounds, such as the gurgle of water through a pipe or the buzzing of insects.
    In a recent study, Monica Gagliano, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Western Australia, and her colleagues placed pea seedlings in pots shaped like an upside-down Y. One arm of each pot was placed in either a tray of water or a coiled plastic tube through which water flowed; the other arm had dry soil. The roots grew toward the arm of the pipe with the fluid, regardless of whether it was easily accessible or hidden inside the tubing. “They just knew the water was there, even if the only thing to detect was the sound of it flowing inside the pipe,” Gagliano says. Yet when the seedlings were given a choice between the water tube and some moistened soil, their roots favored the latter. She hypothesizes that these plants use sound waves to detect water at a distance but follow moisture gradients to home in on their target when it is closer.
    The research, reported earlier this year in Oecologia, is not the first to suggest flora can detect and interpret sounds. A 2014 study showed the rock cress Arabidopsis can distinguish between caterpillar chewing sounds and wind vibrations – the plant produced more chemical toxins after “hearing” a recording of feeding insects. “We tend to underestimate plants because their responses are usually less visible to us. But leaves turn out to be extremely sensitive vibration detectors,” says lead study author Heidi M. Appel, an environmental scientist now at the University of Toledo.
(Marta Zaraska. www.scientificamerican.com, 17.05.2017.)
No trecho do terceiro parágrafo “The research, reported earlier”, o termo em destaque indica
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Ano: 2019 Banca: UEG Órgão: UEG Prova: UEG - 2019 - UEG - Vestibular - Medicina - Inglês |
Q1300891 Inglês

Leia o texto a seguir para responder à questão. 

Artificial intelligence and the future of medicine

Washington University researchers are working to develop artificial intelligence (AI) systems for health care, which have the potential to transform the diagnosis and treatment of diseases, helping to ensure that patients get the right treatment at the right time.
In health care, artificial intelligence relies on the power of computers to sift through and make sense of reams of electronic data about patients—such as their ages, medical histories, health status, test results, medical images, DNA sequences, and many other sources of health information. AI excels at the complex identification of patterns in these reams of data, and it can do this at a scale and speed beyond human capacity. The hope is that this technology can be harnessed to help doctors and patients make better health-care decisions.


Where are the first places we will start to see AI entering medical practice?

One of the first applications of AI in patient care that we currently see is in imaging, to help improve the diagnosis of cancer or heart problems, for example. There are many types of imaging tests —X-rays, CT scans, MRIs and echocardiograms. But the underlying commonality in all those imaging methods is huge amounts of high-quality data. For AI to work well, it's best to have very complete data sets—no missing numbers, so to speak—and digital images provide that. Plus, the human eye is often blind to some of the patterns that could be present in these images—subtle changes in breast tissue over several years of mammograms, for example. There has been some interesting work done in recognizing early patterns of cancer or early patterns of heart failure that even a highly trained physician would not see.
In many ways, we already have very simple forms of AI in the clinic now. We've had tools for a long time that identify abnormal rhythms in an EKG, for example. An abnormal heartbeat pattern triggers an alert to draw a clinician's attention. This is a computer trying to replicate a human being understanding that data and saying, "This doesn't look normal, you may need to address this problem." Now, we have the capacity to analyze much larger and more complex sources of data, such as the entire electronic health record and perhaps even data pulled from daily life, as more people track their sleep patterns or pulse rates with wearable devices, for example.


What effect will this have on how doctors practice medicine?

It's important to emphasize that these tools are never going to replace clinicians. These technologies will provide assistance, helping care providers see important signals in massive amounts of data that would otherwise remain hidden. But at the same time, there are levels of understanding that computers still can't and may never replicate. To take a treatment recommendation from an AI, even an excellent recommendation, and decide if it's right for the patient is inherently a human decision-making process. What are the patient's preferences? What are the patient's values? What does this mean for the patient's life and for his or her family? That's never going to be an AI function. As these AI systems slowly emerge, we may start to see the roles of physicians changing—in my opinion, in better ways. Doctors' roles may shift from being data collectors and analyzers to being interpreters and councilors for patients as they try to navigate their health. 
Right now, the challenges we need to address as we try to bring AI into medical practice include improving the quality of the data that we feed into AI systems, developing ways to evaluate whether an AI system is actually better than standard of care, ensuring patient privacy and making sure not only that AI doesn't disrupt clinical work flow but in fact improves it. But if doctors do their jobs right and build these systems well, much of what we have described will become so ingrained in the system, people won't even refer to it separately as informatics or AI. It will just be medicine. 

Disponível em: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-12-artificial-intelligence-future-medicine.html. Acesso em: 02 maio 2019.
Analisando-se os aspectos linguísticos e estruturais do texto, constata-se que
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Ano: 2014 Banca: UECE-CEV Órgão: UECE Prova: UECE-CEV - 2014 - UECE - Vestibular - Língua Inglesa - 2ª fase |
Q1285446 Inglês
     Brazil plowed billions of dollars into building a railroad across arid backlands, only for the longdelayed project to fall prey to metal scavengers. Curvaceous new public buildings designed by the famed architect Oscar Niemeyer were abandoned right after being constructed. There was even an illfated U.F.O. museum built with federal funds. Its skeletal remains now sit like a lost ship among the weeds.
     As Brazil sprints to get ready for the World Cup in June, it has run up against a catalog of delays, some caused by deadly construction accidents at stadiums, and cost overruns. It is building bus and rail systems for spectators that will not be finished until long after the games are done. But the World Cup projects are just a part of a bigger national problem casting a pall over Brazil’s grand ambitions: an array of lavish projects conceived when economic growth was surging that now stand abandoned, stalled or wildly over budget. 
    Some economists say the troubled projects reveal a crippling bureaucracy, irresponsible allocation of resources and bastions of corruption.
    Huge street protests have been aimed at costly new stadiums being built in cities like Manaus and Brasília, whose paltry fan bases are almost sure to leave a sea of empty seats after the World Cup events are finished, adding to concerns that even more white elephants will emerge from the tournament. 
   “The fiascos are multiplying, revealing disarray that is regrettably systemic,” said Gil Castello Branco, director of Contas Abertas, a Brazilian watchdog group that scrutinizes public budgets. “We’re waking up to the reality that immense resources have been wasted on extravagant projects when our public schools are still a mess and raw sewage is still in our streets.” 
     The growing list of troubled development projects includes a $3.4 billion network of concrete canals in the drought-plagued hinterland of northeast Brazil — which was supposed to be finished in 2010 — as well as dozens of new wind farms idled by a lack of transmission lines and unfinished luxury hotels blighting Rio de Janeiro’s skyline.
     Economists surveyed by the nation’s central bank see Brazil’s economy growing just 1.63 percent this year, down from 7.5 percent in 2010, making 2014 the fourth straight year of slow growth. 
     President Dilma Rousseff’s supporters contend that the public spending has worked, helping to keep unemployment at historical lows and preventing what would have been a much worse economic slowdown had the government not pumped its considerable resources into infrastructure development.
    Still, a growing chorus of critics argues that the inability to finish big infrastructure projects reveals weaknesses in Brazil’s model of state capitalism. First, they say, Brazil gives extraordinary influence to a web of state-controlled companies, banks and pension funds to invest in ill-advised projects. Then other bastions of the vast public bureaucracy cripple projects with audits and lawsuits.
     “Some ventures never deserved public money in the first place,” said Sérgio Lazzarini, an economist at Insper, a São Paulo business school, pointing to the millions in state financing for the overhaul of the Glória hotel in Rio, owned until recently by a mining tycoon, Eike Batista. The project was left unfinished, unable to open for the World Cup, when Mr. Batista’s business empire crumbled last year. “For infrastructure projects which deserve state support and get it,” Mr. Lazzarini continued, “there’s the daunting task of dealing with the risks that the state itself creates.” 
     The Transnordestina, a railroad begun in 2006 here in northeast Brazil, illustrates some of the pitfalls plaguing projects big and small. Scheduled to be finished in 2010 at a cost of about $1.8 billion, the railroad, designed to stretch more than 1,000 miles, is now expected to cost at least $3.2 billion, with most financing from state banks. Officials say it should be completed around 2016. But with work sites abandoned because of audits and other setbacks months ago in and around Paulistana, a town in Piauí, one of Brazil’s poorest states, even that timeline seems optimistic. Long stretches where freight trains were already supposed to be running stand deserted. Wiry vaqueiros, or cowboys, herd cattle in the shadow of ghostly railroad bridges that tower 150 feet above parched valleys. “Thieves are pillaging metal from the work sites,” said Adailton Vieira da Silva, 42, an electrician who labored with thousands of others before work halted last year. “Now there are just these bridges left in the middle of nowhere.” 
     Brazil’s transportation minister, César Borges, expressed exasperation with the delays in finishing the railroad, which is needed to transport soybean harvests to port. He listed the bureaucracies that delay projects like the Transnordestina: the Federal Court of Accounts; the Office of the Comptroller General; an environmental protection agency; an institute protecting archaeological patrimony; agencies protecting the rights of indigenous peoples and descendants of escaped slaves; and the Public Ministry, a body of independent prosecutors. Still, Mr. Borges insisted, “Projects get delayed in countries around the world, not just Brazil.”
    Some economists contend that the way Brazil is investing may be hampering growth instead of supporting it. The authorities encouraged energy companies to build wind farms, but dozens cannot operate because they lack transmission lines to connect to the electricity grid. Meanwhile, manufacturers worry over potential electricity rationing as reservoirs at hydroelectric dams run dry amid a drought.
     Then there is the extraterrestrial museum in Varginha, a city in southeast Brazil where residents claimed to have seen an alien in 1996. Officials secured federal money to build the museum, but now all that remains of the unfinished project is the rusting carcass of what looks like a flying saucer. “That museum,” said Roberto Macedo, an economist at the University of São Paulo, “is an insult to both extraterrestrials and the terrestrial beings like ourselves who foot the bill for yet another project failing to deliver.”

Adapted from www.nytimes.com/April 12, 2014.
The sentences “Officials secured federal money to build the museum, but now all that remains of the unfinished project is the rusting carcass of what looks like a flying saucer.” and “While an economic crisis here still seems like a remote possibility, investors have grown increasingly pessimistic” contain, respectively,
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Ano: 2014 Banca: UECE-CEV Órgão: UECE Prova: UECE-CEV - 2014 - UECE - Vestibular - Língua Inglesa - 2ª fase |
Q1285443 Inglês
     Brazil plowed billions of dollars into building a railroad across arid backlands, only for the longdelayed project to fall prey to metal scavengers. Curvaceous new public buildings designed by the famed architect Oscar Niemeyer were abandoned right after being constructed. There was even an illfated U.F.O. museum built with federal funds. Its skeletal remains now sit like a lost ship among the weeds.
     As Brazil sprints to get ready for the World Cup in June, it has run up against a catalog of delays, some caused by deadly construction accidents at stadiums, and cost overruns. It is building bus and rail systems for spectators that will not be finished until long after the games are done. But the World Cup projects are just a part of a bigger national problem casting a pall over Brazil’s grand ambitions: an array of lavish projects conceived when economic growth was surging that now stand abandoned, stalled or wildly over budget. 
    Some economists say the troubled projects reveal a crippling bureaucracy, irresponsible allocation of resources and bastions of corruption.
    Huge street protests have been aimed at costly new stadiums being built in cities like Manaus and Brasília, whose paltry fan bases are almost sure to leave a sea of empty seats after the World Cup events are finished, adding to concerns that even more white elephants will emerge from the tournament. 
   “The fiascos are multiplying, revealing disarray that is regrettably systemic,” said Gil Castello Branco, director of Contas Abertas, a Brazilian watchdog group that scrutinizes public budgets. “We’re waking up to the reality that immense resources have been wasted on extravagant projects when our public schools are still a mess and raw sewage is still in our streets.” 
     The growing list of troubled development projects includes a $3.4 billion network of concrete canals in the drought-plagued hinterland of northeast Brazil — which was supposed to be finished in 2010 — as well as dozens of new wind farms idled by a lack of transmission lines and unfinished luxury hotels blighting Rio de Janeiro’s skyline.
     Economists surveyed by the nation’s central bank see Brazil’s economy growing just 1.63 percent this year, down from 7.5 percent in 2010, making 2014 the fourth straight year of slow growth. 
     President Dilma Rousseff’s supporters contend that the public spending has worked, helping to keep unemployment at historical lows and preventing what would have been a much worse economic slowdown had the government not pumped its considerable resources into infrastructure development.
    Still, a growing chorus of critics argues that the inability to finish big infrastructure projects reveals weaknesses in Brazil’s model of state capitalism. First, they say, Brazil gives extraordinary influence to a web of state-controlled companies, banks and pension funds to invest in ill-advised projects. Then other bastions of the vast public bureaucracy cripple projects with audits and lawsuits.
     “Some ventures never deserved public money in the first place,” said Sérgio Lazzarini, an economist at Insper, a São Paulo business school, pointing to the millions in state financing for the overhaul of the Glória hotel in Rio, owned until recently by a mining tycoon, Eike Batista. The project was left unfinished, unable to open for the World Cup, when Mr. Batista’s business empire crumbled last year. “For infrastructure projects which deserve state support and get it,” Mr. Lazzarini continued, “there’s the daunting task of dealing with the risks that the state itself creates.” 
     The Transnordestina, a railroad begun in 2006 here in northeast Brazil, illustrates some of the pitfalls plaguing projects big and small. Scheduled to be finished in 2010 at a cost of about $1.8 billion, the railroad, designed to stretch more than 1,000 miles, is now expected to cost at least $3.2 billion, with most financing from state banks. Officials say it should be completed around 2016. But with work sites abandoned because of audits and other setbacks months ago in and around Paulistana, a town in Piauí, one of Brazil’s poorest states, even that timeline seems optimistic. Long stretches where freight trains were already supposed to be running stand deserted. Wiry vaqueiros, or cowboys, herd cattle in the shadow of ghostly railroad bridges that tower 150 feet above parched valleys. “Thieves are pillaging metal from the work sites,” said Adailton Vieira da Silva, 42, an electrician who labored with thousands of others before work halted last year. “Now there are just these bridges left in the middle of nowhere.” 
     Brazil’s transportation minister, César Borges, expressed exasperation with the delays in finishing the railroad, which is needed to transport soybean harvests to port. He listed the bureaucracies that delay projects like the Transnordestina: the Federal Court of Accounts; the Office of the Comptroller General; an environmental protection agency; an institute protecting archaeological patrimony; agencies protecting the rights of indigenous peoples and descendants of escaped slaves; and the Public Ministry, a body of independent prosecutors. Still, Mr. Borges insisted, “Projects get delayed in countries around the world, not just Brazil.”
    Some economists contend that the way Brazil is investing may be hampering growth instead of supporting it. The authorities encouraged energy companies to build wind farms, but dozens cannot operate because they lack transmission lines to connect to the electricity grid. Meanwhile, manufacturers worry over potential electricity rationing as reservoirs at hydroelectric dams run dry amid a drought.
     Then there is the extraterrestrial museum in Varginha, a city in southeast Brazil where residents claimed to have seen an alien in 1996. Officials secured federal money to build the museum, but now all that remains of the unfinished project is the rusting carcass of what looks like a flying saucer. “That museum,” said Roberto Macedo, an economist at the University of São Paulo, “is an insult to both extraterrestrials and the terrestrial beings like ourselves who foot the bill for yet another project failing to deliver.”

Adapted from www.nytimes.com/April 12, 2014.
The sentence “…immense resources have been wasted on extravagant projects when our public schools are still a mess and raw sewage is still in our streets” contains a/an
Alternativas
Respostas
21: C
22: C
23: D
24: E
25: E
26: A
27: C
28: C
29: A
30: E
31: A
32: E
33: A
34: C
35: E
36: B
37: D
38: A
39: B
40: A