Questões de Vestibular de Inglês - Interpretação de texto | Reading comprehension
Foram encontradas 4.863 questões
Ano: 2019
Banca:
NC-UFPR
Órgão:
UFPR
Prova:
NC-UFPR - 2019 - UFPR - Vestibular - Conhecimentos Gerais |
Q1292170
Inglês
Texto associado
O texto a seguir é referência para a questão.
How the American Dream has changed
The phrase ‘American Dream’ was officially coined just under 90 years ago in a book called The Epic of America by James Truslow Adams. He argued it was “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.”
Today: No single American Dream?
For some today the American Dream means a chance for fame and celebrity, while for others it means succeeding through the old adage of family values and hard work. Still others believe that the American Dream just represents a world closed to all but the elite with their wealth and contacts […]. Meanwhile, surveys have found that almost half of all millennials believe the American Dream is dead. In an ever-changing country, the idea of what the American Dream means to different people is changing too.
(Disponível em: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/what-the-american-dream-looked-like-the-decade-you-were-born/ss-AABbxjy)
According to the part of the text that starts with “For some today the American Dream…”, how many different meanings
can be related to the American Dream today?
Ano: 2019
Banca:
NC-UFPR
Órgão:
UFPR
Prova:
NC-UFPR - 2019 - UFPR - Vestibular - Conhecimentos Gerais |
Q1292169
Inglês
Texto associado
O texto a seguir é referência para a questão.
How the American Dream has changed
The phrase ‘American Dream’ was officially coined just under 90 years ago in a book called The Epic of America by James Truslow Adams. He argued it was “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.”
Today: No single American Dream?
For some today the American Dream means a chance for fame and celebrity, while for others it means succeeding through the old adage of family values and hard work. Still others believe that the American Dream just represents a world closed to all but the elite with their wealth and contacts […]. Meanwhile, surveys have found that almost half of all millennials believe the American Dream is dead. In an ever-changing country, the idea of what the American Dream means to different people is changing too.
(Disponível em: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/what-the-american-dream-looked-like-the-decade-you-were-born/ss-AABbxjy)
According to the text, it is correct to say that James Truslow Adams:
Ano: 2019
Banca:
NC-UFPR
Órgão:
UFPR
Prova:
NC-UFPR - 2019 - UFPR - Vestibular - Conhecimentos Gerais |
Q1292168
Inglês
Texto associado
O texto a seguir é referência para a questão.
How the American Dream has changed
The phrase ‘American Dream’ was officially coined just under 90 years ago in a book called The Epic of America by James Truslow Adams. He argued it was “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.”
Today: No single American Dream?
For some today the American Dream means a chance for fame and celebrity, while for others it means succeeding through the old adage of family values and hard work. Still others believe that the American Dream just represents a world closed to all but the elite with their wealth and contacts […]. Meanwhile, surveys have found that almost half of all millennials believe the American Dream is dead. In an ever-changing country, the idea of what the American Dream means to different people is changing too.
(Disponível em: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/what-the-american-dream-looked-like-the-decade-you-were-born/ss-AABbxjy)
In the first sentence of the text, the underlined words mean that ‘American Dream’ was:
Ano: 2019
Banca:
NC-UFPR
Órgão:
UFPR
Prova:
NC-UFPR - 2019 - UFPR - Vestibular - Conhecimentos Gerais |
Q1292167
Inglês
Texto associado
O texto a seguir é referência para a questão.
More Than Just Children's Books
Krumulus, a small bookstore in Germany, has everything a kid could want: parties, readings, concerts, plays, puppet shows, workshops and book clubs.
“I knew it was going to be very difficult to open a bookstore, everyone tells you you're crazy, there will be no future,” says Anna Morlinghaus, Krumulus's founder. Still, she wanted to try. A month before her third son was born, she opened the store in Berlin's Kreuzberg district.
BERLIN — On a recent Saturday afternoon, a hush fell in the bright, airy “reading-aloud” room at Krumulus, a small children's bookstore in Berlin, as Sven Wallrodt, one of the store's employees, stood up to speak. Brandishing a newly published illustrated children's book about the life of Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of the printing press, he looked at the crowd of eager, mo stly school-aged children and their parents. “Welcome to this book presentation”, he said. “If you fall asleep, snore quietly”. Everyone laughed, but no one fell asleep. An hour later, the children followed Wallrodt down to the bookstore's basement workshop, whe re he showed them how Gutenberg fit leaden block letters into a metal plate. Then the children printed their own bookmark using a technique similar to Gutenberg's, everyone was thrilled.
(Disponível em: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/20/books/berlin-germany-krumulus.html)
Taking into consideration the expression “Brandishing a newly published illustrated children's book”, it is correct to
say that Sven Wallrodt was:
Ano: 2019
Banca:
NC-UFPR
Órgão:
UFPR
Prova:
NC-UFPR - 2019 - UFPR - Vestibular - Conhecimentos Gerais |
Q1292166
Inglês
Texto associado
O texto a seguir é referência para a questão.
More Than Just Children's Books
Krumulus, a small bookstore in Germany, has everything a kid could want: parties, readings, concerts, plays, puppet shows, workshops and book clubs.
“I knew it was going to be very difficult to open a bookstore, everyone tells you you're crazy, there will be no future,” says Anna Morlinghaus, Krumulus's founder. Still, she wanted to try. A month before her third son was born, she opened the store in Berlin's Kreuzberg district.
BERLIN — On a recent Saturday afternoon, a hush fell in the bright, airy “reading-aloud” room at Krumulus, a small children's bookstore in Berlin, as Sven Wallrodt, one of the store's employees, stood up to speak. Brandishing a newly published illustrated children's book about the life of Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of the printing press, he looked at the crowd of eager, mo stly school-aged children and their parents. “Welcome to this book presentation”, he said. “If you fall asleep, snore quietly”. Everyone laughed, but no one fell asleep. An hour later, the children followed Wallrodt down to the bookstore's basement workshop, whe re he showed them how Gutenberg fit leaden block letters into a metal plate. Then the children printed their own bookmark using a technique similar to Gutenberg's, everyone was thrilled.
(Disponível em: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/20/books/berlin-germany-krumulus.html)
Taking into consideration the last sentence of the text, it is correct to say that after the workshop everybody was:
Ano: 2019
Banca:
NC-UFPR
Órgão:
UFPR
Prova:
NC-UFPR - 2019 - UFPR - Vestibular - Conhecimentos Gerais |
Q1292165
Inglês
Texto associado
O texto a seguir é referência para a questão.
More Than Just Children's Books
Krumulus, a small bookstore in Germany, has everything a kid could want: parties, readings, concerts, plays, puppet shows, workshops and book clubs.
“I knew it was going to be very difficult to open a bookstore, everyone tells you you're crazy, there will be no future,” says Anna Morlinghaus, Krumulus's founder. Still, she wanted to try. A month before her third son was born, she opened the store in Berlin's Kreuzberg district.
BERLIN — On a recent Saturday afternoon, a hush fell in the bright, airy “reading-aloud” room at Krumulus, a small children's bookstore in Berlin, as Sven Wallrodt, one of the store's employees, stood up to speak. Brandishing a newly published illustrated children's book about the life of Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of the printing press, he looked at the crowd of eager, mo stly school-aged children and their parents. “Welcome to this book presentation”, he said. “If you fall asleep, snore quietly”. Everyone laughed, but no one fell asleep. An hour later, the children followed Wallrodt down to the bookstore's basement workshop, whe re he showed them how Gutenberg fit leaden block letters into a metal plate. Then the children printed their own bookmark using a technique similar to Gutenberg's, everyone was thrilled.
(Disponível em: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/20/books/berlin-germany-krumulus.html)
Based on the text, consider the following items:
1. The name of the person who established a small bookstore in Germany.
2. The procedures a person has to undergo in order to open a bookstore in Germany.
3. Some of the activities Krumulus can make available for children.
4. The neighborhood where the entrepreneur decided to open her bookstore.
The item(s) that can be found in the text is/are:
1. The name of the person who established a small bookstore in Germany.
2. The procedures a person has to undergo in order to open a bookstore in Germany.
3. Some of the activities Krumulus can make available for children.
4. The neighborhood where the entrepreneur decided to open her bookstore.
The item(s) that can be found in the text is/are:
Ano: 2019
Banca:
NC-UFPR
Órgão:
UFPR
Prova:
NC-UFPR - 2019 - UFPR - Vestibular - Conhecimentos Gerais |
Q1292164
Inglês
Texto associado
O texto a seguir é referência para a questão.
More Than Just Children's Books
Krumulus, a small bookstore in Germany, has everything a kid could want: parties, readings, concerts, plays, puppet shows, workshops and book clubs.
“I knew it was going to be very difficult to open a bookstore, everyone tells you you're crazy, there will be no future,” says Anna Morlinghaus, Krumulus's founder. Still, she wanted to try. A month before her third son was born, she opened the store in Berlin's Kreuzberg district.
BERLIN — On a recent Saturday afternoon, a hush fell in the bright, airy “reading-aloud” room at Krumulus, a small children's bookstore in Berlin, as Sven Wallrodt, one of the store's employees, stood up to speak. Brandishing a newly published illustrated children's book about the life of Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of the printing press, he looked at the crowd of eager, mo stly school-aged children and their parents. “Welcome to this book presentation”, he said. “If you fall asleep, snore quietly”. Everyone laughed, but no one fell asleep. An hour later, the children followed Wallrodt down to the bookstore's basement workshop, whe re he showed them how Gutenberg fit leaden block letters into a metal plate. Then the children printed their own bookmark using a technique similar to Gutenberg's, everyone was thrilled.
(Disponível em: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/20/books/berlin-germany-krumulus.html)
In relation to the owner of the bookshop, it is correct to say that:
Ano: 2014
Banca:
UECE-CEV
Órgão:
UECE
Prova:
UECE-CEV - 2014 - UECE - Vestibular - Língua Inglesa - 2ª fase |
Q1285448
Inglês
Texto associado
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.
In the sentence “That museum… is an insult
to both extraterrestrials and the terrestrial beings
like ourselves…”, one finds a/an
Ano: 2014
Banca:
UECE-CEV
Órgão:
UECE
Prova:
UECE-CEV - 2014 - UECE - Vestibular - Língua Inglesa - 2ª fase |
Q1285439
Inglês
Texto associado
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 –ING words in “withering criticism”,
“wasteful spending” and “daunting task” are,
respectively,
Ano: 2014
Banca:
UECE-CEV
Órgão:
UECE
Prova:
UECE-CEV - 2014 - UECE - Vestibular - Língua Inglesa - 2ª fase |
Q1285438
Inglês
Texto associado
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.
For some economists, the wasteful spending
in the troublesome projects throughout the country
unveils, among other aspects, questions related to
Ano: 2014
Banca:
UECE-CEV
Órgão:
UECE
Prova:
UECE-CEV - 2014 - UECE - Vestibular - Língua Inglesa - 2ª fase |
Q1285437
Inglês
Texto associado
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.
People supporting the government of
President Dilma Rousseff argue that the spending
of public money in infrastructure projects has
contributed to
Ano: 2014
Banca:
UECE-CEV
Órgão:
UECE
Prova:
UECE-CEV - 2014 - UECE - Vestibular - Língua Inglesa - 2ª fase |
Q1285436
Inglês
Texto associado
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.
According to the text, manufacturers are
worried about having to deal with
Ano: 2014
Banca:
UECE-CEV
Órgão:
UECE
Prova:
UECE-CEV - 2014 - UECE - Vestibular - Língua Inglesa - 2ª fase |
Q1285435
Inglês
Texto associado
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.
In the long list of unfinished projects the
text includes
Ano: 2014
Banca:
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Órgão:
UECE
Prova:
UECE-CEV - 2014 - UECE - Vestibular - Língua Inglesa - 2ª fase |
Q1285434
Inglês
Texto associado
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.
Among the reasons given by César Borges
as justification for the delay in completing the
Transnordestina was the
Ano: 2014
Banca:
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Órgão:
UECE
Prova:
UECE-CEV - 2014 - UECE - Vestibular - Língua Inglesa - 2ª fase |
Q1285433
Inglês
Texto associado
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.
According to an economist, Mr. Lazzarini, the
cruel reality in Brazil is that
Ano: 2014
Banca:
UECE-CEV
Órgão:
UECE
Prova:
UECE-CEV - 2014 - UECE - Vestibular - Língua Inglesa - 2ª fase |
Q1285432
Inglês
Texto associado
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.
According to the article, Brazil’s not being able
to complete huge infrastructure projects shows that
Ano: 2014
Banca:
UECE-CEV
Órgão:
UECE
Prova:
UECE-CEV - 2014 - UECE - Vestibular - Língua Inglesa - 2ª fase |
Q1285431
Inglês
Texto associado
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.
Gil Castelo Branco points to the shocking
reality of huge resources being wasted on
extravagant projects as opposed to
Ano: 2014
Banca:
UECE-CEV
Órgão:
UECE
Prova:
UECE-CEV - 2014 - UECE - Vestibular - Língua Inglesa - 2ª fase |
Q1285430
Inglês
Texto associado
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.
As to the bus and rail systems being built for
this year’s World Cup, the text states that they will
Ano: 2014
Banca:
UECE-CEV
Órgão:
UECE
Prova:
UECE-CEV - 2014 - UECE - Vestibular - Língua Inglesa - 2ª fase |
Q1285429
Inglês
Texto associado
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.
According to the article, 2014 has been the
fourth year of
Ano: 2014
Banca:
UNEB
Órgão:
UNEB
Prova:
UNEB - 2014 - UNEB - Vestibular - Português/Inglês/Ciências |
Q1284518
Inglês
Texto associado
You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.
LINCOLN, Abraham. Disponível em:
The alternative that best explains this quote is
Conheça nossos planos