Questões de Vestibular
Sobre vocabulário | vocabulary em inglês
Foram encontradas 506 questões
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)
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)
An increasing body of evidence suggests that the time we spend on our smartphones is interfering with our sleep, self-esteem, relationships, memory, attention spans, creativity, productivity and problem-solving and decision-making skills. But there is another reason for us to rethink our relationships with our devices. By chronically raising levels of cortisol, the body’s main stress hormone, our phones may be threatening our health and shortening our lives.
If they happened only occasionally, phone-induced cortisol spikes might not matter. But the average American spends four hours a day staring at their smartphone and keeps it within arm’s reach nearly all the time, according to a tracking app called Moment.
“Your cortisol levels are elevated when your phone is in sight or nearby, or when you hear it or even think you hear it,” says David Greenfield, professor of clinical psychiatry at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine and founder of the Center for Internet and Technology Addiction. “It’s a stress response, and it feels unpleasant, and the body’s natural response is to want to check the phone to make the stress go away.”
But while doing so might soothe you for a second, it probably will make things worse in the long run. Any time you check your phone, you’re likely to find something else stressful waiting for you, leading to another spike in cortisol and another craving to check your phone to make your anxiety go away. This cycle, when continuously reinforced, leads to chronically elevated cortisol levels. And chronically elevated cortisol levels have been tied to an increased risk of serious health problems, including depression, obesity, metabolic syndrome, Type 2 diabetes, fertility issues, high blood pressure, heart attack, dementia and stroke.
(Catherine Price. www.nytimes.com, 24.04.2019. Adaptado.)
Leia o texto para responder à questão.
W.H.O. calls ‘vaccine hesitancy’ an increasing concern globally
Rick Gladstone
August 18, 2015
The World Health Organization warned Tuesday of what it called the growing problem of “vaccine hesitancy,” when people delay or refuse vaccines for themselves or their children. In a statement on its website, the organization called the problem “a growing challenge for countries seeking to close the immunization gap.” Globally, the organization said, one in five children still do not receive routine lifesaving immunizations, and 1.5 million children die each year of diseases that could have been thwarted by vaccines.
(www.nytimes.com)
Leia o texto para responder à questão.
Social life in youth may impact health decades later
Robert Preidt
August 6, 2015
Having good social connections at age 20 can lead to improved well-being later in life, a new study suggests. Previous research has shown that people with poor social links are at increased risk for early death. “In fact, having few social connections is equivalent to tobacco use, and [the risk is] higher than for those who drink excessive amounts of alcohol, or who suffer from obesity,” study author Cheryl Carmichael, who conducted the study while a doctoral candidate at the University of Rochester in New York, said in a university news release.
The study included 133 people who enrolled when they were 20-year-old college students in the 1970s. The participants kept track of their daily social interactions at ages 20 and 30. At age 50, they completed an online survey about the quality of their social lives and emotional well-being, including questions about loneliness and depression, and their relationships with close friends.
The findings showed that frequent social interactions at age 20 and good-quality relationships – defined as intimate and satisfying – at age 30 were associated with higher levels of well-being at age 50. The study findings were published in a recent issue of the journal Psychology and Aging.
A high number of social interactions at age 20 are beneficial later in life because they help young adults determine who they are, the researchers said. “It’s often around this age that we meet people from diverse backgrounds, with opinions and values that are different from our own, and we learn how to best manage those differences,” said Carmichael, now an assistant professor of psychology at Brooklyn College. “Considering everything else that goes on in life over those 30 years – marriage, raising a family and building a career – it is extraordinary that there appears to be a relationship between the kinds of interactions college students and young adults have and their emotional health later in life,” she concluded.
(www.nlm.nih.gov)
Daily baths and showers polluting the environment
Richard Alleyne
Available:
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/7513258/Daily-baths-and-showers-polluting-the-environment.html>. [31/03/2010].
Choose the alternative(s) in which the information about the prepositions used in the text is correct.
“of” in “hundreds of” (line 40) is used to talk about a
particular amount of something.
Daily baths and showers polluting the environment
Richard Alleyne
Available:
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/7513258/Daily-baths-and-showers-polluting-the-environment.html>. [31/03/2010].
Choose the alternative(s) in which the definition for the word from the text is(are) correct.
“sewage” (line 28): ingredients found in pills.
Daily baths and showers polluting the environment
Richard Alleyne
Available:
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/7513258/Daily-baths-and-showers-polluting-the-environment.html>. [31/03/2010].
Choose the alternative(s) in which the definition for the word from the text is(are) correct.
“waste” (line 14): drinking water.
Daily baths and showers polluting the environment
Richard Alleyne
Available:
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/7513258/Daily-baths-and-showers-polluting-the-environment.html>. [31/03/2010].
Choose the alternative(s) in which the definition for the word from the text is(are) correct.
“lavatory” (line 11): means the same as WC.
Daily baths and showers polluting the environment
Richard Alleyne
Available:
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/7513258/Daily-baths-and-showers-polluting-the-environment.html>. [31/03/2010].
Choose the alternative(s) in which the definition for the word from the text is(are) correct.
“toiletries” (line 7): products used to clean
bathrooms.
Daily baths and showers polluting the environment
Richard Alleyne
Available:
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/7513258/Daily-baths-and-showers-polluting-the-environment.html>. [31/03/2010].
Choose the alternative(s) in which the information about the words from the text is correct.
The expression “due to” (line 2) is the same as
“because of”.
The Boom Is Nigh
Why the coming recovery will hurt like hell.
Here is what you really need to know: a Sonic Boom is coming. It will be caused by globalization. And while globalization may be driving you crazy, it’s just getting started. Thirty years ago, Shenzhen, China, did not exist; today, it has nearly 9 million residents, roughly the same as New York City. In a single generation, it has grown from a village of tarpaper shacks into an important urban center. It has become the world’s fourth-busiest port, busier than Los Angeles and Long Beach combined. Never before has a great city been built so fast, nor a productive economy established from so little.
The international recession that began in 2008 has made the Sonic Boom quieter, but history shows that when a crisis ends, the larger trends in place before the crisis usually resume. Shenzhen represents the larger trend of growth, change, and transformation at unprecedented velocity. Thanks to vast increases in productivity, worldwide economic growth soon will pick up, creating rising prosperity and higher living standards for most people in most nations. The world will be far more interconnected, leading to better and more affordable products, as well as ever better communication among nations.
But there’s a big catch: just as favorable economic and social trends are likely to resume, many problems that have characterized recent decades are likely to get worse, too. Job instability, economic insecurity, a sense of turmoil, the fear that even when things seem good a hammer is about to fall—these are also part of the larger trend. As world economies become ever more linked by computers, job stress will become a 24/7 affair. Frequent shakeups in industries will cause increasing uncertainty. The horizon has never been brighter, but we may not feel particularly happy about it.
Pseudoscientific claims that music helps plants grow have been made for decades, despite evidence that is shaky at best. Yet new research suggests some flora may be capable of sensing sounds, such as the gurgle of water through a pipe or the buzzing of insects.
In a recent study, Monica Gagliano, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Western Australia, and her colleagues placed pea seedlings in pots shaped like an upside-down Y. One arm of each pot was placed in either a tray of water or a coiled plastic tube through which water flowed; the other arm had dry soil. The roots grew toward the arm of the pipe with the fluid, regardless of whether it was easily accessible or hidden inside the tubing. “They just knew the water was there, even if the only thing to detect was the sound of it flowing inside the pipe,” Gagliano says. Yet when the seedlings were given a choice between the water tube and some moistened soil, their roots favored the latter. She hypothesizes that these plants use sound waves to detect water at a distance but follow moisture gradients to home in on their target when it is closer.
The research, reported earlier this year in Oecologia, is not the first to suggest flora can detect and interpret sounds. A 2014 study showed the rock cress Arabidopsis can distinguish between caterpillar chewing sounds and wind vibrations – the plant produced more chemical toxins after “hearing” a recording of feeding insects. “We tend to underestimate plants because their responses are usually less visible to us. But leaves turn out to be extremely sensitive vibration detectors,” says lead study author Heidi M. Appel, an environmental scientist now at the University of Toledo.
Leia o texto para responder à questão.
There is nothing conventional about 17-year-old Michael Fuller’s relationship with music. As someone with high-functioning autism who sees the world through sound, creating melodies from the bustle of the high street or trains on the tracks feels more natural than any social interaction. This hardwired connection to sound has been with him for as long as he can remember.
By the age of 11, Michael could play Mozart by ear, having taught himself to play the piano through a mobile phone app. The app highlighted notes on a keyboard as classical music played. He describes his unusual musical talent as “downloading” music into his head. His mother, Nadine, remembers that as a child Michael would “suddenly pop up and say: ‘I’ve got a symphony’”. Michael took to the piano and found he could quickly perform complex pieces from memory.
“I liked what I was hearing, sought more music and began studying through Google and YouTube,” he remembers. “It was very organic. I would listen in great depth and the music would be implanted in my mind. I could then just play it on the piano – all without being taught.”
Growing up in a family that listened to reggae over classical music, Michael feels “very much aware” of how different his approach is to music – symbolised by the way he taught himself piano as a child. This, his mother says, came as a “surprise to the family and myself – I’d never listened to classical music in my life”.
It was not long after learning to play the piano that Michael started composing his own works. Describing this process as “making music with my mind”, Michael says composing classical symphonies “helps me to express myself through music – it makes me calm”. Michael wants to nurture his song writing to achieve his ambition of becoming a modern mainstream classical artist. He wants to control the creative process, unlike typical modern-day composers, who he says “write blobs on a page, hand it over to the musicians – then say bye-bye and stay in the background and get no recognition”. Instead, Michael is determined to take centre stage.
(Alex Taylor. www.bbc.com, 27.03.2018. Adaptado.)
Leia o texto para responder à questão.
There is nothing conventional about 17-year-old Michael Fuller’s relationship with music. As someone with high-functioning autism who sees the world through sound, creating melodies from the bustle of the high street or trains on the tracks feels more natural than any social interaction. This hardwired connection to sound has been with him for as long as he can remember.
By the age of 11, Michael could play Mozart by ear, having taught himself to play the piano through a mobile phone app. The app highlighted notes on a keyboard as classical music played. He describes his unusual musical talent as “downloading” music into his head. His mother, Nadine, remembers that as a child Michael would “suddenly pop up and say: ‘I’ve got a symphony’”. Michael took to the piano and found he could quickly perform complex pieces from memory.
“I liked what I was hearing, sought more music and began studying through Google and YouTube,” he remembers. “It was very organic. I would listen in great depth and the music would be implanted in my mind. I could then just play it on the piano – all without being taught.”
Growing up in a family that listened to reggae over classical music, Michael feels “very much aware” of how different his approach is to music – symbolised by the way he taught himself piano as a child. This, his mother says, came as a “surprise to the family and myself – I’d never listened to classical music in my life”.
It was not long after learning to play the piano that Michael started composing his own works. Describing this process as “making music with my mind”, Michael says composing classical symphonies “helps me to express myself through music – it makes me calm”. Michael wants to nurture his song writing to achieve his ambition of becoming a modern mainstream classical artist. He wants to control the creative process, unlike typical modern-day composers, who he says “write blobs on a page, hand it over to the musicians – then say bye-bye and stay in the background and get no recognition”. Instead, Michael is determined to take centre stage.
(Alex Taylor. www.bbc.com, 27.03.2018. Adaptado.)
Texto 1
Call to halve target for added sugar
People need to more than halve their intake of added sugar to tackle the obesity crisis, according to scientific advice for the government in England.
A report by the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition
(SACN) says sugar added to food or naturally present in fruit
juice and honey should account for 5% of energy intake.
Many fail to meet the old 10% target. The sugar industry said
“demonizing one ingredient” would not “solve the obesity
epidemic”
The body reviewed 600 scientific studies on the evidence
of carbohydrates – including sugar – on health to develop the
new recommendations. One 330ml can of soft drink would
take a typical adult up to the proposed 5% daily allowance,
without factoring in sugar from any other source.
Prof Ian MacDonald, chairman of the SACN working group
on carbohydrates, said: “The evidence that we have analyzed
shows quite clearly that high free sugars intake in adults is
associated with increased energy intake and obesity. There
is also an association between sugar-sweetened beverages
and type-2 diabetes. In children there is clear demonstration
that sugar-sweetened beverages are associated with obesity.
By reducing it to 5% you would reduce the risk of all of those
things, the challenge will be to get there.”
The target of 5% of energy intake from free sugars
amounts to 25g for women (five to six teaspoons) and 35g
(seven to eight teaspoons) for men, based on the average
diet.
Public Health Minister for England, Jane Ellison, said: “We
know eating too much sugar can have a significant impact on
health, and this advice confirms that. We want to help people
make healthier choices and get the nation into healthy habits
for life. This report will inform the important debate taking
place about sugar.”
(www.bbc.com. Adaptado.)
Texto 2
Eating more fruits and veggies won’t make you lose weight
We’re often told to eat more fruits and vegetables, but the
chances that you’ll lose weight just by eating more of these
foods are slim. New research suggests increased fruit and
vegetable intake is only effective for weight loss if you make
an effort to reduce your calorie intake overall.
In other words, you need to exercise or consume fewer
calories to shed those pounds.
Don’t let that stop you from including more fruits and
veggies in your diet, though. Even if they don’t directly help
you lose weight, these foods still provide a number of health
benefits.
(http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com. Adaptado.)