Questões Militares de Inglês - Interpretação de texto | Reading comprehension

Texto 2

LIVING TOGETHER

TAKING THE NEXT STEP

Couples who move in together may be rejecting, at least temporarily. Old-fashioned notions of marriage. But when it comes to deciding whether to wed, they fall into the same gender roles as staunch traditionalists.

In other words, the guy still calls the shots. This according to a survey that looked at nearly 400 cohabiting couples and what happens when only one partner thinks the twosome will eventually marry.

If the man is the one hearing wedding bells, it seems, a couple is nearly as likely to marry as when both partners plan to say “I do”. But if it's the woman who hopes to wed, the couple is only half as likely to wind up at the altar.

All of which surpised Bowling Green State University's Wendy Manning, Ph.D. “This is a group that subscribes to less traditional gender roles. So we just assumed they would behave in a less traditional manner.” -Alyssa Rarraport

Psychology Today – March/April 1996_

Fonte: GAMA, Angela N. M. In Introdução à leitura em inglês. RJ:

Gama Filho, 2001, p.76.

Texto 1

CAN A VIRUS MAKE YOU FAT?

Although the idea sounds more like the premise of a B movie than scientific theory two scientists at the University of Wisconsin in Madison believe they've found a virus that causes some people to get fat. Nikhil Dhurandhar and Richard Atkinson reported recently that when they injected a virus known as AD36 into mice and chickens, the animals' body fat increased. Because humans were unlikely to volinteer for such exiperimentation, the scientists decided to test for the presence of antibodies to the virus. Of 154

people tested, about 15 percent of those who were obese had the antibodies. None of the lean people did.

However, the findings don't necessarily prove that the virus caused obesity in the test group. As several virologists have pointed out, obese people may simply be more susceptible to such a virus.

Gregory “Greg” Heffley is an American middle school student and also the main protagonist of the book series Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

Greg is lazy, petty, slightly narcissistic, sociopathic, egotistical, eccentric, egocentric, usually backstabbing, and sometimes even selfish and dishonest, and apparently lacks talent. He hardly has any skills aside from video games and possibly singing. However, despite all this, Greg has had his kind and caring moments, but not that often.

Adapted from https://diary-of-a-wimpy-kid.fandom.com/wiki/Greg_Heffley

What happened at Pearl Harbor?

    On the morning of 7 December 1941, at 7.55am local time, 183 aircraft of the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked the United States Naval base at Pearl Harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii.

    The first attack wave __________ bombing the hangars and parked aircraft of the island’s airfields while at the same time launching torpedoes against the US warships moored in the harbour.

    This devastating attack was followed an hour and a half later by a second wave of 170 Japanese aircraft. Within two hours, 18 US warships had been sunk or damaged, 188 aircraft destroyed and 2,403 American servicemen and women killed.

Adapted from https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/what-happened-at-pearl-harbor.

    Sibling rivalry is a competition between brothers and sisters. Which brother is smarter? Who gets good grades than the other? Sibling rivalry is not unusual in families. It is more unusual on the tennis court. The Williams sisters, Venus and Serena, are star tennis players. They often compete. Is it the easiest or the most difficult part of playing against your own sister? The sisters say the game is important – not the other player. Does their relationship make their game more interesting? Some people think the game is not as exciting when sisters play. I don’t agree. I think their games are more exciting. Venus and Serena are both better as most other players in the world – sisters or not. 

Mandela

    Nelson Mandela has achieved many things, but his greatest influence may be for something he didn’t do: run for a second term as South Africa’s leader. As the first President of a post-apartheid South Africa, he was, like George Washington, aware that everything he did would be a model for those who would follow. He once said, “I don’t want to be an octogenarian President.”

    What he really meant was that no man - not even one unfairly imprisoned for 27 years - should be above the law or the people. Mandela will remain perhaps the only figure on the world stage who has been an unambiguous moral giant. He could be considered a hero precisely because he always admitted his errors and then tried to rise above them. And never stop learning. He had to catch up on almost three decades of social change, and one of the things he had to learn about was AIDS. At first, this man didn’t have the most enlightened view. But within a year-long before other, younger South African leaders - he understood that AIDS was an enormous tragedy for his country and his continent, and he saw it as another moral challenge in a life of facing up to them. That’s a moral leadership.

Adapted from Grad Two

The Printing Press

    If you asked a large number of people what the most important invention has been, many would say the printing press. Others might say the wheel. But even though it’s debatable whether the appearance of the printing press affects the course of history more than the wheel. The printing press ranks within the top two or three inventions in history. Long before the telephone, the TV, the radio and the computer, the written word was the only way to communicate ideas to people too far away to talk with. Until the sixth or seventh century, all books had to be written by hand. Creating a book was difficult, and in comparison with today, very few books existed. Therefore, very few people read books.”

Adapted from Top Noch. 

Corruption

    People all over the world complain about the corruption of police, government officials, and business leader. Three examples of corruption are:

    • a police officer takes money from a driver so he doesn’t give the driver a ticket for speeding.

    • a public official gives a government contract to a company in which he, or she has a financial interest.

    • a company that wants to do business with a government agency offers public official money, or a gift to choose that company for the job.

    Some people feel that power promotes corruption and that corruption is just an unavoidable part of human nature. But everyone agrees that it’s a terrible problem all over the world.

Adapted from Top Noch.

Diary: your life day by day

    Most people consider diaries indispensable - a reminder of what they have to do each day. This is especially true in the professional world. A diary can help you keep track of your agenda and make it easier for you to follow a planned schedule. In this sense, it is similar to a notebook with dates in which you write meetings and other things to remember. At school or at work, diaries are very useful.

    However, a diary can be more than a list of appointments: it can be a secret record of private thoughts. People write these diaries for different reasons: for fun or to read them years later. “It makes you think and form an opinion on what you are writing” - when you express your feelings and experiences, it’s easier to overcome your problems; it’s like a therapy.

    Nowadays, some people write e-diaries, called blogs or web logs. “They open their hearts” to other people on the Net.

     In fact, many people, famous or ordinary in fiction or in real life, write diaries.

Adapted from Inglês de olho no mundo do trabalho.