Questões Militares de Inglês - Interpretação de texto | Reading comprehension

                                Service Animals

A Therapy Dog is a kind of service animal – an animal that helps people. The most common service animal is a seeing eye dog. A seeing eye dog helps blind people. However, dogs help people in many other ways. Hearing ear dogs help people with hearing problems. These dogs listen for specific noises, such as a fire alarm. When the dog hears the sound, the dog touches the owner. However, if it’s an emergency, the dog may pull the owner out of danger. Usually small dogs are hearing ear dogs because they are easy to care for. Wheelchair assistance dogs are much larger because the dog’s main job is pulling the wheelchair. These dogs also open doors and get items for their owners, such as magazines.

                                             (Adapted from Access Reading – Thompson) 

And Now, Robodoc!

A robot in California performs its first invasive surgery on a human patient.

Medical robots in the U.S. have been used to locate hard-to-find tumors and guide a surgeon’s scalpel, but have never actually performed surgery on people. Now that line has been crossed. At Sutter General Hospital in Sacramento, California, a 90-kg machine called Robodoc has operated on its first human patient: a 64-year-old man with a bad hip.

The robot played a key role in a total hip replacement, one of 500,000 such operations performed each year. The trick in these procedures is to create a snug hole into which the artificial hip snaps. The standard method is to jam a cutting tool into the thighbone with a handheld mallet. Robodoc, using the high-speed drill at the end of its mechanical arm, can ream a cavity that is 20 times as precise.

Robosurgery doesn’t have to stop at the hip. In Europe, where officials are less squeamish about such things, robots have assisted in operations on the brain, the prostate and the inner ear.

(Time International, November 23 1992, p.15)

And Now, Robodoc!

A robot in California performs its first invasive surgery on a human patient.

Medical robots in the U.S. have been used to locate hard-to-find tumors and guide a surgeon’s scalpel, but have never actually performed surgery on people. Now that line has been crossed. At Sutter General Hospital in Sacramento, California, a 90-kg machine called Robodoc has operated on its first human patient: a 64-year-old man with a bad hip.

The robot played a key role in a total hip replacement, one of 500,000 such operations performed each year. The trick in these procedures is to create a snug hole into which the artificial hip snaps. The standard method is to jam a cutting tool into the thighbone with a handheld mallet. Robodoc, using the high-speed drill at the end of its mechanical arm, can ream a cavity that is 20 times as precise.

Robosurgery doesn’t have to stop at the hip. In Europe, where officials are less squeamish about such things, robots have assisted in operations on the brain, the prostate and the inner ear.

(Time International, November 23 1992, p.15)

                                                          The Mona Lisa

Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is widely recognized as the most famous painting of all time. She has aroused admiration, curiosity and suspicion for over 500 years. She can provoke a reaction known as the Mona Lisa Syndrome: the viewer is enchanted by her legendary smile, which becomes increasingly enigmatic the more you look at it.

As it will never be sold, the Mona Lisa is priceless, although for insurance reasons it is believed to be valued at anything up to $ 1 billion.

( Adapted from Move – Intermediate)

GLOSSARY

to arouse – despertar

to enchant – encantar

legendary – fabuloso, lendário

insurance – apólice de seguro