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Sobre passado simples | simple past em inglês
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/
2021/sep/27/
The World Might Be Running Low on Americans
The world has been stricken by scarcity. Our post-pandemic pantry has run bare of gasoline, lumber, microchips, chicken wings, ketchup packets, cat food, used cars and Chickfil-A sauce. Like the Great Toilet Paper Scare of 2020, though, many of these shortages are the consequence of near-term, Covid-related disruptions. Soon enough there will again be a chicken wing in every pot and more than enough condiments to go with it.
But there is one recently announced potential shortage that should give Americans great reason for concern. It is a shortfall that the nation has rarely had to face, and nobody quite knows how things will work when we begin to run out.
I speak, of course, of all of us: The world may be running low on Americans — most crucially, tomorrow’s working-age, childbearing, idea-generating, community-building young Americans. Late last month, the Census Bureau released the first results from its 2020 count, and the numbers confirmed what demographers have been warning of for years: The United States is undergoing “demographic stagnation,” transitioning from a relatively fast-growing country of young people to a slow-growing, older nation.
Many Americans might consider slow growth a blessing. Your city could already be packed to the gills, the roads clogged with traffic and housing prices shooting through the roof. Why do we need more folks? And, anyway, aren’t we supposed to be conserving resources on a planet whose climate is changing? Yet demographic stagnation could bring its own high costs, among them a steady reduction in dynamism, productivity and a slowdown in national and individual prosperity, even a diminishment of global power.
And there is no real reason we have to endure such a transition, not even an environmental one. Even if your own city is packed like tinned fish, the U.S. overall can accommodate millions more people. Most of the counties in the U.S. are losing working-age adults; if these declines persist, local economies will falter, tax bases will dry up, and local governments will struggle to maintain services. Growth is not just an option but a necessity — it’s not just that we can afford to have more people, it may be that we can’t afford not to.
But how does a country get more people? There are two ways: Make them, and invite them in. Increasing the first is relatively difficult — birthrates are declining across the world, and while family-friendly policies may be beneficial for many reasons, they seem to do little to get people to have more babies. On the second method, though, the United States enjoys a significant advantage — people around the globe have long been clamoring to live here, notwithstanding our government’s recent hostility to foreigners. This fact presents a relatively simple policy solution to a vexing long-term issue: America needs more people, and the world has people to send us. All we have to do is let more of them in.
For decades, the United States has enjoyed a significant economic advantage over other industrialized nations — our population was growing faster, which suggested a more youthful and more prosperous future. But in the last decade, American fertility has gone down. At the same time, there has been a slowdown in immigration.
The Census Bureau’s latest numbers show that these trends are catching up with us. As of April 1, it reports that there were 331,449,281 residents in the United States, an increase of just 7.4 percent since 2010 — the second-smallest decade-long growth rate ever recorded, only slightly ahead of the 7.3 percent growth during the Depression-struck 1930s.
The bureau projects that sometime next decade — that is, in the 2030s — Americans over 65 will outnumber Americans younger than 18 for the first time in our history. The nation will cross the 400-million population mark sometime in the late 2050s, but by then we’ll be quite long in the tooth — about half of Americans will be over 45, and one fifth will be older than 85.
The idea that more people will lead to greater prosperity may sound counterintuitive — wouldn’t more people just consume more of our scarce resources? Human history generally refutes this simple intuition. Because more people usually make for more workers, more companies, and most fundamentally, more new ideas for pushing humanity forward, economic studies suggest that population growth is often an important catalyst of economic growth.
A declining global population might be beneficial in some ways; fewer people would most likely mean less carbon emission, for example — though less than you might think, since leading climate models already assume slowing population growth over the coming century. And a declining population could be catastrophic in other ways. In a recent paper, Chad Jones, an economist at Stanford, argues that a global population decline could reduce the fundamental innovativeness of humankind. The theory is simple: Without enough people, the font of new ideas dries up, Jones argues; without new ideas, progress could be imperiled.
There are more direct ways that slow growth can hurt us. As a country’s population grows heavy with retiring older people and light with working younger people, you get a problem of too many eaters and too few cooks. Programs for seniors like Social Security and Medicare may suffer as they become dependent on ever-fewer working taxpayers for funding. Another problem is the lack of people to do all the work. For instance, experts predict a major shortage of health care workers, especially home care workers, who will be needed to help the aging nation.
In a recent report, Ali Noorani, the chief executive of the National Immigration Forum, an immigration-advocacy group, and a co-author, Danilo Zak, say that increasing legal immigration by slightly more than a third each year would keep America’s ratio of working young people to retired old people stable over the next four decades.
As an immigrant myself, I have to confess I
find much of the demographic argument in favor
of greater immigration quite a bit too anodyne.
Immigrants bring a lot more to the United States
than simply working-age bodies for toiling in
pursuit of greater economic growth. I also believe
that the United States’ founding idea of universal
equality will never be fully realized until we
recognize that people outside our borders are as
worthy of our ideals as those here through an
accident of birth.
The World Might Be Running Low on Americans
The world has been stricken by scarcity. Our post-pandemic pantry has run bare of gasoline, lumber, microchips, chicken wings, ketchup packets, cat food, used cars and Chickfil-A sauce. Like the Great Toilet Paper Scare of 2020, though, many of these shortages are the consequence of near-term, Covid-related disruptions. Soon enough there will again be a chicken wing in every pot and more than enough condiments to go with it.
But there is one recently announced potential shortage that should give Americans great reason for concern. It is a shortfall that the nation has rarely had to face, and nobody quite knows how things will work when we begin to run out.
I speak, of course, of all of us: The world may be running low on Americans — most crucially, tomorrow’s working-age, childbearing, idea-generating, community-building young Americans. Late last month, the Census Bureau released the first results from its 2020 count, and the numbers confirmed what demographers have been warning of for years: The United States is undergoing “demographic stagnation,” transitioning from a relatively fast-growing country of young people to a slow-growing, older nation.
Many Americans might consider slow growth a blessing. Your city could already be packed to the gills, the roads clogged with traffic and housing prices shooting through the roof. Why do we need more folks? And, anyway, aren’t we supposed to be conserving resources on a planet whose climate is changing? Yet demographic stagnation could bring its own high costs, among them a steady reduction in dynamism, productivity and a slowdown in national and individual prosperity, even a diminishment of global power.
And there is no real reason we have to endure such a transition, not even an environmental one. Even if your own city is packed like tinned fish, the U.S. overall can accommodate millions more people. Most of the counties in the U.S. are losing working-age adults; if these declines persist, local economies will falter, tax bases will dry up, and local governments will struggle to maintain services. Growth is not just an option but a necessity — it’s not just that we can afford to have more people, it may be that we can’t afford not to.
But how does a country get more people? There are two ways: Make them, and invite them in. Increasing the first is relatively difficult — birthrates are declining across the world, and while family-friendly policies may be beneficial for many reasons, they seem to do little to get people to have more babies. On the second method, though, the United States enjoys a significant advantage — people around the globe have long been clamoring to live here, notwithstanding our government’s recent hostility to foreigners. This fact presents a relatively simple policy solution to a vexing long-term issue: America needs more people, and the world has people to send us. All we have to do is let more of them in.
For decades, the United States has enjoyed a significant economic advantage over other industrialized nations — our population was growing faster, which suggested a more youthful and more prosperous future. But in the last decade, American fertility has gone down. At the same time, there has been a slowdown in immigration.
The Census Bureau’s latest numbers show that these trends are catching up with us. As of April 1, it reports that there were 331,449,281 residents in the United States, an increase of just 7.4 percent since 2010 — the second-smallest decade-long growth rate ever recorded, only slightly ahead of the 7.3 percent growth during the Depression-struck 1930s.
The bureau projects that sometime next decade — that is, in the 2030s — Americans over 65 will outnumber Americans younger than 18 for the first time in our history. The nation will cross the 400-million population mark sometime in the late 2050s, but by then we’ll be quite long in the tooth — about half of Americans will be over 45, and one fifth will be older than 85.
The idea that more people will lead to greater prosperity may sound counterintuitive — wouldn’t more people just consume more of our scarce resources? Human history generally refutes this simple intuition. Because more people usually make for more workers, more companies, and most fundamentally, more new ideas for pushing humanity forward, economic studies suggest that population growth is often an important catalyst of economic growth.
A declining global population might be beneficial in some ways; fewer people would most likely mean less carbon emission, for example — though less than you might think, since leading climate models already assume slowing population growth over the coming century. And a declining population could be catastrophic in other ways. In a recent paper, Chad Jones, an economist at Stanford, argues that a global population decline could reduce the fundamental innovativeness of humankind. The theory is simple: Without enough people, the font of new ideas dries up, Jones argues; without new ideas, progress could be imperiled.
There are more direct ways that slow growth can hurt us. As a country’s population grows heavy with retiring older people and light with working younger people, you get a problem of too many eaters and too few cooks. Programs for seniors like Social Security and Medicare may suffer as they become dependent on ever-fewer working taxpayers for funding. Another problem is the lack of people to do all the work. For instance, experts predict a major shortage of health care workers, especially home care workers, who will be needed to help the aging nation.
In a recent report, Ali Noorani, the chief executive of the National Immigration Forum, an immigration-advocacy group, and a co-author, Danilo Zak, say that increasing legal immigration by slightly more than a third each year would keep America’s ratio of working young people to retired old people stable over the next four decades.
As an immigrant myself, I have to confess I
find much of the demographic argument in favor
of greater immigration quite a bit too anodyne.
Immigrants bring a lot more to the United States
than simply working-age bodies for toiling in
pursuit of greater economic growth. I also believe
that the United States’ founding idea of universal
equality will never be fully realized until we
recognize that people outside our borders are as
worthy of our ideals as those here through an
accident of birth.
THE STORY OF ELLIS ISLAND
Mass migrations have marked the history of the human race ever since people began to dream of a better life
Disponível em: <https://linguapress.com/advanced/ellis-island.htm>. Acesso em: 7 out. 2019. Adaptado.
Read Text to
answer question.
The article analyzes the relationship of Indigenous
Peoples with the public policy of Social Assistance (AS) in Brazil. Based on
data collected during field work carried out in 2014, will analyze the case of
the Indigenous Reserve of Dourados, Mato Grosso do Sul. In the first part, I
characterize the unequal relationship between society and national state with
Indigenous Peoples to, then approach the Welfare State politics as an
opportunity to face the violation of rights resulting from the colonial siege. Then
we will see if Dourados to illustrate the dilemmas and possibilities of
autonomy and indigenous role faced with this public policy. It is expected to
contribute to the discussion of statehood pointing concrete cases where the
local implementation of AS policy is permeable to a greater or lesser extent,
the demands of Indigenous Peoples by adaptation to their social organizations
and worldviews.
(BORGES, Júlio César. Brazilian society has made us poor: Social Assistance and ethnic autonomy of Indiggenous Peoples. The case of Dourados, Mato Grosso do Sul. Horiz. antropol. Disponível em: <http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_abstract&pid=S0104-71832016000200303&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=en>. Acesso em: 10 nov. 2018).
Cleir Avila Ferreira Júnior was born in Campo Grande, Mato Grosso do Sul State, Brazil. He is a self-taught artist. He has painted professionally since he was 18 years old. He has begun his artistic works with a hyperrealist influence, where he portrayed some regional and ecological themes, especially the Pantanal nature, presented in almost all his art.
In 1994, he started his mural work on the sides of some Campo Grande’s buildings, as example: the great "Onça Pintada" (50m high and 220m2) took him and his team a month of execution, and the "Tuiuiús" (40m high and 300m2) was his second mural. In 1995, he painted the "Blue Macaw" (45m high and 430m2). In 1996, he built the "Macaws’ Monument" in front of the international airport in Campo Grande, MS. In 1998, he painted a mural of 700m2 in Corumbá, MS, where he portrayed the red macaw in one of its walls and in the other two a big gold fish. Therefore, he did uncountable art around Mato Grosso do Sul State, mainly into the touristic cities.
(FERREIRA JÚNIOR, Cleir Avila. Disponível em: <http://www.artenossaterra.xpg.com.br/index.html>. Acesso em: 10 nov. 2018).
Based on part of the Text II, answer the question: In which verb tense are the following sentences?
“In 1995, he painted the ‘Blue Macaw’ (45m high and 430m2 ). In 1996, he built the ‘Macaws Monument’ in front of the international airport in Campo Grande, MS. In 1998, he painted a mural of 700m2 in Corumbá, MS, where he portrayed the red macaw in one of its walls and in the other two a big gold fish. Therefore, he did uncountable art around Mato Grosso do Sul State, mainly into the touristic cities”.
Os verbos destacados abaixo estão conjugados no passado simples. Observe as alternativas e assinale a opção em que a sequência dos verbos corresponda à sua forma normal.
Marched-grew-became
Texto 1
US President Donald Trump has defended his use of social media in a series of tweets, following a row over comments he made about two MSNBC TV presenters.
"My use of social media is not presidential – it's modern day presidential," he tweeted on Saturday.
His tweets are condemned by Democrats and Republicans alike, despite the White House springing to his defence.
Mr Trump's aides have previously expressed concern over his tweets.
But the president said on Saturday that social media gave him the opportunity to connect directly to the public, bypassing the mainstream media, whose content Mr Trump regularly labels as "fake news".
"The FAKE & FRAUDULENT NEWS MEDIA is working hard to convince Republicans and others I should not use social media," he tweeted, adding: "But remember, I won the 2016 election with interviews, speeches and social media."
Mr Trump also stepped up his attack on CNN after the US news network retracted an article alleging that one of the president's aides was under investigation by Congress.
"I am extremely pleased to see that @CNN has finally been exposed as #FakeNews and garbage journalism. It's about time!"
The story that caused the upset, which was later removed from the website following an internal investigation, resulted in the resignations of three CNN journalists: Thomas Frank, investigative unit editor and Pulitzer Prize winner Eric Lictblau and Lex Harris, who oversaw the investigations unit.
Disponível em: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40471536.
INSTRUÇÃO: Para responder à questão, considere o texto abaixo.
(Excerpt from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, By Robert M. Pirsig. New York: Harpertorch, 1974)
I - “began” (l. 01) e “didn't spend” (l. 06) estão no passado simples.
II - “seems” (l. 02) e “prefers” (l. 04) estão no presente simples.
III - “would never have become” (l. 06) é uma estrutura usada para algo que não teria acontecido com uma condição, expressa por uma outra oração com o verbo no passado simples.
IV - “we´ve been thinking” (l. 08) e “has been” (l. 10) estão no presente perfeito contínuo.
Assinale a alternativa correta.
I - “began” (l. 01) e “didn't spend” (l. 06) estão no passado simples.
II - “seems” (l. 02) e “prefers” (l. 04) estão no presente simples.
III - “would never have become” (l. 06) é uma estrutura usada para algo que não teria acontecido com uma condição, expressa por uma outra oração com o verbo no passado simples.
IV - “we´ve been thinking” (l. 08) e “has been” (l. 10) estão no presente perfeito contínuo.
Assinale a alternativa correta.
Text 3
Al Capone
Born in 1899 in Brooklyn, New York, to poor immigrant parents, Al Capone went on to become the most infamous gangster in American history. In 1920 during the height of Prohibition, Capone’s multi-million dollar Chicago operation in bootlegging, prostitution and gambling dominated the organized crime scene. Capone was responsible for many brutal acts of violence, mainly against other gangsters. The most famous of these was the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in 1929, in which he ordered the assassination of seven rivals. Capone was never indicted for his racketeering but was finally brought to justice for income-tax evasion in 1931. After serving six-and-a-half years, Capone was released. He died in 1947 in Miami. Capone’s life captured the public imagination, and his gangster persona has been immortalized in the many movies and books inspired by his exploits.
(Excerpt from the site: http://www.history.com/topics/alcapone. Researched on: October 2015)
TEXTO 8
CAPÍTULO IV
Este Quincas Borba, se acaso me fizeste o favor de ler as Memórias póstumas de Brás Cubas, é aquele mesmo náufrago da existência, que ali aparece, mendigo, herdeiro inopinado, e inventor de uma filosofia. Aqui o tens agora em Barbacena. Logo que chegou, enamorou-se de uma viúva, senhora de condição mediana e parcos meios de vida; mas, tão acanhada, que os suspiros no namorado ficavam sem eco. Chamava-se Maria da Piedade. Um irmão dela, que é o presente Rubião, fez todo o possível para casá-los. Piedade resistiu, um pleuris a levou.
Foi esse trechozinho de romance que ligou os dois homens. Saberia Rubião que o nosso Quincas Borba trazia aquele grãozinho de sandice, que um médico supôs achar-lhe? Seguramente, não; tinha-o por homem esquisito. É, todavia, certo que o grãozinho não se despegou do cérebro de Quincas Borba, — nem antes, nem depois da moléstia que lentamente o comeu. Quincas Borba tivera ali alguns parentes, mortos já agora em 1867; o último foi o tio que o deixou por herdeiro de seus bens. Rubião ficou sendo o único amigo do filósofo. Regia então uma escola de meninos, que fechou para tratar do enfermo. Antes de professor, metera ombros a algumas empresas, que foram a pique.
Durou o cargo de enfermeiro mais de cinco meses, perto de seis. Era real o desvelo de Rubião, paciente, risonho, múltiplo, ouvindo as ordens do médico, dando os remédios às horas marcadas, saindo a passeio com o doente, sem esquecer nada, nem o serviço da casa, nem a leitura dos jornais, logo que chegava a mala da Corte ou a de Ouro Preto.
— Tu és bom, Rubião, suspirava Quincas Borba.
— Grande façanha! Como se você fosse mau!
A opinião ostensiva do médico era que a doença do Quincas Borba iria saindo devagar. Um dia, o nosso Rubião, acompanhando o médico até à porta da rua, perguntou-lhe qual era o verdadeiro estado do amigo. Ouviu que estava perdido, completamente perdido; mas, que o fosse animando. Para que tornar-lhe a morte mais aflitiva pela certeza...?
— Lá isso, não, atalhou Rubião; para ele, morrer é negócio fácil. Nunca leu um livro que ele escreveu, há anos, não sei que negócio de filosofia...
— Não; mas filosofia é uma coisa, e morrer de verdade é outra; adeus.
(ASSIS, Machado de. Quincas Borba. São Paulo: Ática, 2011. p. 23-24.)
In Text 8, most of the verbs in Portuguese are conjugated in the past tense, such as “chegou”, “enamorou-se” e “resistiu”. Complete the following text using the correct past tense conjugation of the verbs in parenthesis in English:
Last night Susan (go) ____________ to her friend’s birthday party. She (dance) ____________ with her boyfriend, and (eat) ____________ cake. After they (leave) ____________ the party, Susan and her boyfriend (decide) ____________ to go and watch a movie at the theater. They (see) ____________ the new Transformer’s movie, and then they went home. When she (get) ____________ home, Susan (take) ____________ a shower and (fall) ____________ asleep quickly.
Choose the correct option from the ones listed below:
INSTRUCTION: Answer question according to text 2.
Conheça nossos planos