Questões de Vestibular de Inglês

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ 2021/sep/27/

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ 2021/sep/27/

        If you take a look at my smartphone, you’ll know that I like to order out. But am I helping the small local businesses? You would think that if you own a restaurant you’d be thrilled to have an outsourced service that would take care of your delivery operations while leveraging their marketing might to expand your businesses’ brand. However, restaurant owners have complained of lack of quality control once their food goes out the door. They don’t like that the delivery people are the face of their product when it gets into the customer’s hand. Some of the delivery services have been accused of listing restaurants on their apps without the owners’ permission, and oftentimes publish menu items and prices that are incorrect or out of date.

        But there is another reason why restaurant owners aren’t fond of delivery services. It’s the costs, which, for some, are becoming unsustainable. Even with the increased revenues from the delivery services, the fees wind up killing a restaurant’s margins to the extent that it’s at best marginally profitable. Therefore, some restaurants are pushing harder to drive orders from their own websites and offering special deals for customers that use their in-house delivery people.

        The simple fact is that these delivery apps are here to stay. They are enormously popular and have significantly grown. I believe that restaurant owners that resist these apps are hurting their brands by missing out on potential customers. The good news is that the delivery platforms are not as evil as some would portray them. They have some skin in the game. They are competing against other services. They want their listed restaurants to profit. Maybe instead of fighting, the nation’s restaurant industry needs to proactively embrace the delivery service industry and figure out ways to profitably work together.

The Guardian. 02 December, 2020. Adaptado.

        If you take a look at my smartphone, you’ll know that I like to order out. But am I helping the small local businesses? You would think that if you own a restaurant you’d be thrilled to have an outsourced service that would take care of your delivery operations while leveraging their marketing might to expand your businesses’ brand. However, restaurant owners have complained of lack of quality control once their food goes out the door. They don’t like that the delivery people are the face of their product when it gets into the customer’s hand. Some of the delivery services have been accused of listing restaurants on their apps without the owners’ permission, and oftentimes publish menu items and prices that are incorrect or out of date.

        But there is another reason why restaurant owners aren’t fond of delivery services. It’s the costs, which, for some, are becoming unsustainable. Even with the increased revenues from the delivery services, the fees wind up killing a restaurant’s margins to the extent that it’s at best marginally profitable. Therefore, some restaurants are pushing harder to drive orders from their own websites and offering special deals for customers that use their in-house delivery people.

        The simple fact is that these delivery apps are here to stay. They are enormously popular and have significantly grown. I believe that restaurant owners that resist these apps are hurting their brands by missing out on potential customers. The good news is that the delivery platforms are not as evil as some would portray them. They have some skin in the game. They are competing against other services. They want their listed restaurants to profit. Maybe instead of fighting, the nation’s restaurant industry needs to proactively embrace the delivery service industry and figure out ways to profitably work together.

The Guardian. 02 December, 2020. Adaptado.

        Fatbergs are a growing scourge infesting cities around the world— some are more than 800 feet long and weigh more than four humpback whales. These gross globs, which can cause sewer systems to block up and even overflow, have been plaguing the U.S., Great Britain and Australia for the past decade, forcing governments and utilities companies to send workers down into the sewers armed with water hoses, vacuums and scrapers with the unenviable task of prying them loose.  

        "It is hard not to think of [fatbergs] as a tangible symbol of the way we live now, the ultimate product of our disposable, out of sight, out of mind culture," wrote journalist Tim Adams in The Guardian. 

        At their core, fatbergs are the accumulation of oil and grease that's been poured down the drain, congealing around flushed nonbiological waste like tampons, condoms and baby wipes. When fat sticks to the side of sewage pipes, the wipes and other detritus get stuck, accumulating layer upon layer of gunk in a sort of slimy snowball effect. 

        Fatbergs also collect other kinds of debris—London fatbergs have been cracked open to reveal pens, false teeth and even watches. 

        Restaurants are a big contributor to fatbergs: Thames Water, the London utilities company, found nine out of 10 fast-food eateries lacked adequate grease traps to stop fat from entering the sewers. Homeowners also contribute to the problem by pouring grease and fat down the sink. 

        Even though its component materials are soft, fatbergs themselves can be tough as rocks. Researchers have found a host of dangerous bacteria in fatbergs, including listeria and e.coli. 

        Fatbergs are notorious for their fetid smell, which can make even the hardiest sewer workers gag, and chipping away at one can release noxious gases. 

        The key to fatberg prevention is remembering the four Ps: Pee, poo, puke and (toilet) paper are the only things that should be flushed. 

Newsweek, 14 March, 2019. Adaptado.

        Fatbergs are a growing scourge infesting cities around the world— some are more than 800 feet long and weigh more than four humpback whales. These gross globs, which can cause sewer systems to block up and even overflow, have been plaguing the U.S., Great Britain and Australia for the past decade, forcing governments and utilities companies to send workers down into the sewers armed with water hoses, vacuums and scrapers with the unenviable task of prying them loose.  

        "It is hard not to think of [fatbergs] as a tangible symbol of the way we live now, the ultimate product of our disposable, out of sight, out of mind culture," wrote journalist Tim Adams in The Guardian. 

        At their core, fatbergs are the accumulation of oil and grease that's been poured down the drain, congealing around flushed nonbiological waste like tampons, condoms and baby wipes. When fat sticks to the side of sewage pipes, the wipes and other detritus get stuck, accumulating layer upon layer of gunk in a sort of slimy snowball effect. 

        Fatbergs also collect other kinds of debris—London fatbergs have been cracked open to reveal pens, false teeth and even watches. 

        Restaurants are a big contributor to fatbergs: Thames Water, the London utilities company, found nine out of 10 fast-food eateries lacked adequate grease traps to stop fat from entering the sewers. Homeowners also contribute to the problem by pouring grease and fat down the sink. 

        Even though its component materials are soft, fatbergs themselves can be tough as rocks. Researchers have found a host of dangerous bacteria in fatbergs, including listeria and e.coli. 

        Fatbergs are notorious for their fetid smell, which can make even the hardiest sewer workers gag, and chipping away at one can release noxious gases. 

        The key to fatberg prevention is remembering the four Ps: Pee, poo, puke and (toilet) paper are the only things that should be flushed. 

Newsweek, 14 March, 2019. Adaptado.

T E X T

Men Fall Behind in College Enrollment.

Women Still Play Catch-Up at Work.

    The coronavirus upended the lives of millions of college students. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that men have been hit particularly hard — accounting for roughly three-fourths of pandemic-driven dropouts — and depicted an accelerating crisis in male enrollment.

     A closer look at historical trends and the labor market reveals a more complex picture, one in which women keep playing catch-up in an economy structured to favor men.

    In many ways, the college gender imbalance is not new. Women have outnumbered men on campus since the late 1970s. The ratio of female to male undergraduates increased much more from 1970 to 1980 than from 1980 to the present. And the numbers haven’t changed much in recent decades. In 1992, 55 percent of college students were women. By 2019, the number had nudged up to 57.4 percent.

    While the shift in the college gender ratio is often characterized as men “falling behind,” men are actually more likely to go to college today than they were when they were the majority, many decades ago. In 1970, 32 percent of men 18 to 24 were enrolled in college, a level that was most likely inflated by the opportunity to avoid being drafted into the Vietnam War. That percentage dropped to 24 percent in 1978 and then steadily grew to a stable 37 percent to 39 percent over the last decade.

    The gender ratio mostly changed because female enrollment increased even faster, more than doubling over the last half-century.

    Because of the change in ratio, some selective colleges discriminate against women in admissions to maintain a gender balance, as The Journal reported. Generally, admissions officials prefer to limit the disparity to 55 percent female and 45 percent male. Their reason not to let the gender ratio drift further toward 2 to 1 is straightforward: Such a ratio would most likely cause a decrease in applications.

    In a New York Times essay in 2006 titled “To All the Girls I’ve Rejected,” the dean of admissions at Kenyon College at the time explained: “Beyond the availability of dance partners for the winter formal, gender balance matters in ways both large and small on a residential college campus. Once you become decidedly female in enrollment, fewer males and, as it turns out, fewer females find your campus attractive.”

    The raw numbers don’t take into account the varying value of college degrees. Men still dominate in fields like technology and engineering, which offer some of the highest salaries for recent graduates. Perhaps not coincidentally, the professors in those fields remain overwhelmingly male.

    Women surged into college because they were able to, but also because many had to. There are still some good-paying jobs available to men without college credentials. There are relatively few for such women. And despite the considerable cost in time and money of earning a degree, many female-dominated jobs don’t pay well.

    The fact that the male-female wage gap remains large after more than four decades in which women outnumbered men in college strongly suggests that college alone offers a narrow view of opportunity. Women often seem stuck in place: As they overcome obstacles and use their degrees to move into male-dominated fields, the fields offer less pay in return.

    None of this diminishes the significance of the male decrease in college enrollment and graduation. Educators view the male-driven dive in community college enrollment over the last 18 months as a calamity. The pandemic confirmed what was already known. Higher socioeconomic classes are deeply embedded in college and will bear considerable cost and inconvenience to stay there, even if it means watching lectures on a laptop in the room above your parent’s garage and missing a season of parties and football games.

    For other people, college attendance is far more fragile. It does not define their identities and is not as important as earning a steady paycheck or starting and nurturing a family. In a time of crisis, it can be delayed — but the reality is that people who drop out of college are statistically unlikely to complete a degree.

    Last year, women were less likely than men to leave community college, despite their disproportionate responsibility for caregiving and domestic work, because they no doubt understood the bleak long-term job prospects for women without a credential. 

www.nytimes.com/Sept.9,2021