Questões de Vestibular
Sobre vocabulário | vocabulary em inglês
Foram encontradas 506 questões
By Jeremy Warner
3 Sep 2015
When in trouble, shoot the messenger. This timehonoured approach to dealing with unwelcome news was much in evidence in China this week when nearly 200 people were rounded up and criminally charged with spreading “false" rumours about the stock market and the economy, or otherwise profiting from their travails.
One luckless financial journalist was ritually paraded on state TV, tearfully confessing his “crimes". Meanwhile, the head of the Chinese desk of one London-based hedge fund group was summoned to a “meeting" with regulators, and hasn't been heard of since. Her Chinese husband says “she's gone on holiday". We can only hope it is not to the re-indoctrination of the asbestos mines. Despite the massive progress of recent decades, old habits die hard.
China was meant to have embraced free market reform, yet these latest actions suggest an altogether different approach. Roughly summarised, it amounts to: “Reform good, but woe betide the free market if it doesn't do what the high command wants it to." When the stock market was going up, the Chinese authorities were perfectly happy to tolerate what, to virtually all Western observers, looked like a dangerously speculative bubble, vaingloriously believing it to be a fair reflection of the wondrous successes of the Chinese economy.
The first rule of stock market investment – that share prices can go down as well as up – seems to have been almost wholly forgotten in the scramble for instant riches. When, inevitably, the stock market crashed, the authorities threw the kitchen sink at the problem, but they failed to halt the carnage. This was an even ruder awakening – for it demonstrated to an already disillusioned public that policy-makers were no longer in control of events. Perhaps they hadn't noticed, but there are today more Chinese with stock trading accounts – some 90 million – than there are members of the Communist Party – “just" 80 million. In any case, powerless before the storm, the authorities have instead turned to scapegoating.
Apparently more liberal, advanced economies, it ought to be said, are by no means averse to this kind of behaviour either. A few years back, Italian prosecutors charged nine employees of Standard & Poor's and Fitch Rating with market abuse for daring to downgrade Italy's credit rating, while it is still commonplace in France to blame Anglo-Saxon speculators and their cronies in the London press for any financial or economic setback.
Nor are Western governments and central bankers averse to a little market manipulation when it suits them. What is “quantitative easing" other than money printing to prop up asset prices, including stocks and shares? Chinese refusal to accept the judgments of “Mr Market", it might be argued, is just a more extreme version of the same thing. Small wonder that European officials sometimes look longingly across at the state-directed capitalism practised in China, and pronounce it a model we might perhaps aspire to ourselves.
As recent events have demonstrated, we should not. China's stock market crash is not the work of malicious financial journalists and short-selling hedge funds, but a signal of difficult time ahead and perhaps even of an economic roadcrash to come. After nearly 35 years of spectacular progress, the Chinese economy faces multiple challenges on many fronts which are not going to be solved by denying harsh realities and imprisoning journalists.
The progress of recent decades belies an industrial sector which in truth has become quite seriously uncompetitive by international standards. Many of China's factories need completely retooling to keep up with developments in robotics and other forms of mechanisation. Yet if industry is to get less labour intensive, this only further steepens the challenge of employment creation.
It is reckoned that China needs to create some 20 million jobs a year just to keep pace with employment demand as the population shifts from land to town, eight million of them in high-end professions to cater for the country's burgeoning output of graduates. China's modernisation has created a monster which it is struggling to feed.
As the export-growth story waned, China compensated by unleashing a massive investment boom, which internal demand is now struggling to keep up with, rendering many of the country's shiny new constructs uneconomic and overburdened with bad debts.
The Chinese leadership looks to growth in consumption and service industries to plug the gap, but these new sources of demand can't do so without further free-market reform, which in turn requires further loosening of the shackles of political control. Without growth, the Communist Party loses its political legitimacy, yet the old growth model is broken, and to achieve a new one, the authorities must cede the very power and influence that sustains them. Rumour-mongering journalists and short-selling speculators can only be blamed for so long.
(http://www.telegraph.co.uk. Adapted)
INSTRUÇÃO: A questão refere-se ao texto abaixo.
Victoria and Albert: how a royal love changed culture
By Lucinda Hawksley
Disponível em: <http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20150623-victoria-albert-cultural-impact>.
Acesso em: 3 ago. 15. (Parcial e adaptado.)
INSTRUÇÃO: A questão refere-se ao texto abaixo.
Victoria and Albert: how a royal love changed culture
By Lucinda Hawksley
Disponível em: <http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20150623-victoria-albert-cultural-impact>.
Acesso em: 3 ago. 15. (Parcial e adaptado.)
TEXTO 4
A dúvida, continuou Laura, maldita dúvida. Essa é minha companheira, a sombra inconveniente que me segura pelos calcanhares, que há de seguir comigo até o túmulo. A morte de Tomázia, será que ela me convinha? Talvez me conviesse. Essa hipótese, eu não tenho como descartar. Seu desaparecimento anularia a prova de meu crime? Teria poder para apaziguar a culpa que continuava latejando mesmo depois de meu rompimento definitivo com Vítor? A dúvida acabou se revelando muito superior à certeza. Mil, um milhão de vezes mais forte. Talvez se eu tivesse sido obrigada a confessar meu crime aos pés de um juiz, se tivesse sido enjaulada entre mulheres que me odiavam, que me submetessem ao horror do estupro, que atentassem contra minha pessoa, a sensação de culpa tivesse sido atenuada. Juro que cheguei a sentir inveja do destino reservado às muçulmanas que cometem o pecado do adultério. Desejei, sim, ser publicamente difamada, arrastada pelos cabelos, enterrada até o pescoço, e, finalmente, ter a cabeça esfacelada a pedradas. Qualquer coisa, qualquer situação limite teria sido menos penosa do que seguir carregando a culpa, enquanto simulava a mais absoluta indiferença. Não tenho vocação para o disfarce, a simulação. Ah, como eu lamentei a perda de meu direito de exibir minha fraqueza como outras mulheres faziam! Mas não, eu tinha a permanente obrigação de ser forte, de estar preparada para o momento em que meu mundo viesse abaixo, como veio.
A visão de mulheres com as cabeças esfaceladas, transformadas em um bolo de carne sangrento e disforme, partículas de cérebro espatifadas pra tudo que é lado, arrepiou meu corpo dolorido. Sentindo um princípio de náusea, comecei a fungar uma emoçãozinha desconfiada. Essa bruxa tá me embromando, penso, daqui a pouco eu entro na dela, caio em prantos e, alagada de piedade, abraço a velha, aliso seus cabelos grisalhos, cubro-lhe a face enrugada com beijinhos consoladores. Calma, tia, calma! Cuidado com a pressão. Tem aí algum tranquilizante que eu possa lhe dar?
(BARROS, Adelice da Silveira. A mesa dos inocentes. Goiânia: Kelps, 2010. p. 23.)
Read the following text on blood pressure, and choose the correct words from the options below to fill in the blanks in the text.
“Blood ______________ is the force of your blood pushing against the ______________ of your arteries. Each time your heart ______________, it pumps blood into the arteries. Your blood pressure is highest when your heart beats, pumping the blood. This is called systolic pressure. When your ______________ is at rest, between beats, your blood pressure falls. This is called diastolic pressure. Your blood pressure reading uses these two ______________. Usually the systolic number comes before or above the diastolic number."
(Available at: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/highbloodpressure.html. Accessed on: 1 jan. 2014.)
TEXTO 3
A dor do mundo
Eu não queria sair do meu brinquedo. Eu escrevia versos na areia na clara areia sob a paineira frondosa ou pensava mundos com a mão enquanto mexia com a terra. Eram formas de nada que acabavam compondo seres estranhos, animais de outro mundo, fantasmas, tudo o que a areia podia fornecer às minhas mãos de oito anos. Mas mãos de oito anos já suportam a alça de um balde com água, ou um feixe de gravetos para ajudar a fazer fogo no fogão a lenha. Mãos de oito anos já podem fazer coisas concretas, como tirar água da cisterna se o balde não for muito grande. Elas não servem apenas para criar mundos com terra molhada ou escrever poemas na areia seca. Não se pode dizer que é feio ser pobre, mas não há como negar que a pobreza dói. E essa dor sentida pelo adulto é intuída pela criança das mais variadas formas. Todas elas repousam na intrincada natureza do não. Era tão simples o meu modo de brincar. Do que vivenciei na infância, ficaram os mais puros fios de tristeza. As alegrias ficaram nas intenções de ser. As mais puras veias de dor. As sensações de não compreensão por estar ali, fazendo o quê? O que fazia ali, um menino com dor de ter de ficar ali, no canto do mundo, mirando e mirando as coisas em si? Todas elas ali, do mesmo jeito do monte de lenha, ou das galinhas no terreiro que aprendi desde cedo a entender sua forma enigmática de olhar o mundo. Elas olhavam ao ar como se vissem algo que pudesse anunciar um estranhamento qualquer com que se devesse ter cuidado. O universo das galinhas é uma espécie de síntese crucial da humanidade. Uma de minhas obrigações era colher os ovos nos ninhos esparramados pelo quintal. Eu gostava e não gostava de fazer esse trabalho. De procurar eu gostava. Os ninhos ficavam bem escondidos e arquitetonicamente perfeitos. Eram construídos em espaços difíceis. Ao construírem seus ninhos, as galinhas optam pelo difícil, como os bons poetas. Suas escolhas se apresentam desde a topologia do lugar onde constroem até o detalhamento, a perfeição na elaboração do ninho. Havia ninhos que ficavam suspensos em filetes secos, ramos complexos, espaços abertos. Havia ninhos que ficavam suspensos e presos por poucos ramos. Mas ficavam muito bem protegidos. Encontrá-los era uma emoção, era uma quase de felicidade. Sempre era nova a sensação. Se acontecesse da galinha estar no ninho, eu me afastava rapidamente e da maneira mais delicada possível. Ela poderia se assustar e aquele era um momento mágico. Eu só me aproximava do ninho, na ausência da galinha. Daí, ao ver aquilo, como se fosse a primeira vez que eu via um ninho e ainda mais precioso, como se fosse a primeira vez que eu visse um ninho de galinha com ovos, então eu ficava a contemplar por um tempo, sem saber o que fazer a não ser olhar pro ninho e olhar pros ovos e olhar pro ninho com ovos e ficar olhando. A forma de composição era tão perfeita e tão bonita que minhas mãos não conseguiam tocar os ovos. Era a profunda sensação do proibido que me invadia. Na verdade, era uma espécie de crime o que a gente cometia. Imaginemos como a galinha se sentia ao ver o seu belo ninho quase completamente esvaziado. Eu deixava só um, o endez, para ela não abandonar o ninho. Era bom, por outro lado, encher de ovos o cestinho de vime e ir correndo mostrar pra minha mãe o meu grande feito. Algumas vezes, e isso era raro, surgia entre os ovos, uns dois ou três azuis. Era muito bonito e a gente mostrava pra todo o mundo. Esse universo de aves e ninhos é muito rico e muito próximo do processo de composição artístico. Guimarães Rosa mostrou isso de forma maravilhosa na sua narrativa Uns inhos engenheiros, criando uma analogia entre o processo de criação do ninho do pássaro e o poema lírico. Para mim, a relação era totalmente lúdica.
(GONÇALVES, Aguinaldo. Das estampas. São Paulo: Nankin, 2013. p. 64-65.)
In the text, there are euphemisms to refer to Maya Angelou’s death.
The words used by the author that represent euphemisms are:
Michelle Hanson
Learning to play a musical instrument at any point in life is good for the brain. Who cares if I sound like a 'sick cow'?
It's exciting to know that I have done something right and rewarding – taking up the cello in my 60s. A new study from St. Andrew's University proves it. Taking up a musical instrument, even late in life, is good for the brain, and “can slow, stop, or even reverse, age or illness-related decline in mental functions". Hurrah!
My efforts have been rewarded, because starting the cello was a bit of a struggle, physically and mentally. Back then, my mother was alive, and rather critical: “You sound like a sick cow," she would cry out in a tormented way, but I persisted, joined an orchestra, and now here I am, with a bigger frontal cortex area than I might have otherwise had, and able to “adjust my behaviour more effectively in conflict-rich situations".
The more you practise the better, suggests the research. Good. It will spur me on, sick cow or not. Because I desperately need to keep my brain in order. Don't we all, if we're going to live to over 100? Last week I went for a walk with an old friend of mine and her dog. She is 92 and browned off.
“How are you?" I asked. “Fed up. I want to die." This was my mother's primary aim once she hit 96. “What do you want for your birthday?" we would ask. “To be dead!", she would say. No wonder. What else did life offer? At least my old friend could walk about. My mother could hardly walk, talk or eat.
If only they had played a musical instrument. You can do it sitting down, on your own, with friends, cheer yourself up, be in control, or wildly emotional. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Fonte: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/sep/ 30/why-i-took-up-cello-in-60s
Glossário
took up: aprendi; struggle: luta/muito esforço; spur me on: encorajar/estimular; browned off: sem entusiasmo
Sustainable flight
TAM was the first airline in South America to carry out an experimental flight using biofuel on November 22, 2010. Produced from the oil of 100% domestic nettlespurge, known in Portuguese as pinhão-manso, it reduces carbon emissions by between 65% and 80% compared with petroleum-derived kerosene, according to research. Besides, the plant does not threatens the food chain, as it is not edible for humans nor animals. “Compared with other biofuels, the fuel from this plant is very promising for the Brazilian scenario,” says Paulus Figueiredo, TAM’s fuel manager. The next step in the project is to implement a farming unit, in reduced scale, at TAM’s Technological Center in São Carlos (SP), exclusively to conduct studies and make better cultivation techniques viable. “The objective is to carry out studies concerning technical and economic viability to build a biofuel Brazilian platform based on nettlespurge,” explains TAM’s CEO, Líbano Barroso. The experimental flight was a joint effort between TAM, Airbus, CFM International (joint venture between U.S.’s GE and the French Safran Group) and Air BP. The trip was authorized by Brazil’s National Civil Aviation Agency (ANAC) and by the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA).
(TAM News, January 2011. Adaptado.)
The aviation industry has seen huge growth since its beginning. Today, more than two billion people enjoy the social and economical benefits of flight each year. The ability to fly conveniently and efficiently between nations has been a catalyst for the global economy and has shrunk cultural barriers like no other transport sector. But this progress comes at a cost.
In 2008, the commercial aviation industry produced 677 million tones of carbon dioxide (CO2 ). This is around 2% of the total man-made CO2 emissions of more than 34 billion tones. While this amount is smaller compared with other industry sectors, such as power generation and ground transport, these industries have viable alternative energy sources currently available. For example, the power generation industry can look to wind, hydro, nuclear and solar technologies to make electricity without producing much CO2 . Cars and buses can run on hybrid, flexible fuel engines or electricity.
-powered trains can replace
locomotives.
The aviation industry has identified the development of biofuels as one of the major ways it can reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. Biofuels provide aviation with the capability to partially, and perhaps one day fully, replace carbon-intensive petroleum fuels. They will, over time, enable the industry to reduce its carbon footprint significantly.
Instrução: Leia os quadrinhos para responder à questão.
Machiavellianism" is a ...... used negative term to characterize unscrupulous politicians of the sort Machiavelli described in The Prince. The book itself gained enormous notoriety and wide readership because most readers assumed the author was teaching and endorsing evil and immoral behavior. Because of this, the term "Machiavellian" is often associated with deceit, deviousness, ambition, and brutality. However that was Machiavelli's stylistic device to gain the reader's attention for his close analysis of the actual techniques used by rulers.
(Adapted from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niccol%C3% B2_Machiavelli)
The word that correctly fills in the blank is
The underlined idiomatic expression introduces the idea of:
Conheça nossos planos