Inglês


Responda a todas as perguntas EM PORTUGUÊS.


Leia o texto abaixo e responda à questão 1:



(Silberstein, S. Where the sidewalk ends. Harper & Row Publishers, New York, 1974, p.87)


1. Por que Jane está nessa posição?


Leia o texto abaixo e responda às questões 2, 3 e 4 :

Sixty million 'missing' women



All things being equal, it is the female of the species who is the stronger of the two. She is more likely to survive birth and to live longer: this biological advantage is reflected in countries such as Britain and America in a population containing more females than males about 105 to 100).
But all things are not equal in parts of Asia, northen Africa and China. There the ratio is weighted toward the male. Statistics compiled by the United Nations show that in India there are 93 females per 100 males. In Bangladesh and Afghanistan the ratio is 94 to 100 and in Pakistan it is 92. Converting official Chinese figures show that the ratio there is about 88 females to 100 males.
Every increment on that ratio represents hundreds of thousands and in some case millions of women and girls. In the case of Pakistan, for instance, there are 6.3 million more men than women. Overall it has been estimated that up to 60 million women are ‘missing’ in the world. It is not know how many of those were due to infanticide or to abortion after ultrasound determined the sex of the foetus. ‘One of the reasons it is de difficult to get information is that infanticide is illegal and so it’s almost impossible to monitor’, said Tom Lawson of the UN’s children’s agency (Unicef).
'Having a son is like having two eyes; having a daughter is like having only one eye,’ goes the proverb. And so it seems in many of the countries where the preference among mothers is for sons. The places with such preference include Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. Somehow, as the statistics here show, their wishes do come true.

(The National Times, October 1996)




2. Explique porque a palavra "missing" está entre aspas no texto.

3. Por que o infanticídio e o aborto são mencionados no texto?


4. Explique o sentido do provérbio "Having a son is like having two eyes; having a daughter is like having only one eye" , relacionando-o com o restante do parágrafo em que ele aparece.


As questões 5 e 6 dizem respeito ao texto abaixo:

Alcohol, Driving and Youth

Drunk driving is the most recent catalyst for public activism against alcohol abuse. At the end of the 1970s, two groups appeared with the goal of combating alcohol-related accidents: Remove Intoxicated Drivers (RID) on the East Coast and Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) in California. Both groups attacked weak drunk-driving laws and judicial laxness, especially in cases where drivers may have been repeatedly arrested for drunk driving - including some who had killed others in crashes - but never imprisoned.
Across the nation RID and MADD have strengthened the drunk-driving laws. Although sometimes at odds with each other, both have successfully lobbied for laws reducing the legal threshold of intoxication, increasing the likelihood of incarceration and suspending drivers’ licenses without a hearing if their blood alcohol levels exceed a state’s legal limit, typically about 0.1 percent.
In 1981 Students Against Driving Drunk (SADD) was established to improve the safety of high school students. The group promotes a contract between parents and their children in which the children agree to call for transportation if they have been drinking, and the parents agree to provide it. As a result, however, RID and MADD have accused SADD of sanctioning youthful drinking rather than trying to eliminate it.

(Alcohol in American History. Scientific American, April 1996)



5. Transfira o quadro abaixo para seu caderno de respostas, preenchendo-o com informações obtidas a partir do texto:


ASSOCIAÇÕES
RID
MADD
SADD
a) Origem __________ __________ __________
b) Atuando desde... __________ __________ __________
c) Forma de Atuação __________ __________ __________


6. O texto explicita um conflito entre associações. Que conflito é esse?

Leia o texto abaixo e responda à questão 7:

Forest as fuel...


People all over the world are taking direct action to save forests which continue to be decimated. In ten countries the forest is being destroyed at a rate of more than two per cent a year. The reforestation going on in some Western countries is almost entirely of conifers rather than of traditionally diverse woods that include broad-leaved deciduous trees.


But who are the saints and who are the sinners here? Bangladesh, for - and at 4.4 gigajoules (4,400 million joules) its consumption of energy while, maY be replanting but it is the worid's third-largest importer of Energy consu£lption per head (I99I, in gigajoules)

(The National Times, October 1996)


7. O texto coloca uma pergunta. Ao invés de respondê-la, cita exemplos. Responda à pergunta a partir dos exemplos.

As questões 8 e 9 dizem respeito ao trecho abaixo:


STRICTLY SPEAKING, this story should not be written or told at all. To write it or to tell it is to spoil it. This is because the man who had the strange experience we are going to talk about never mentioned it to anybody, and the fact that he kept his secret and sealed it up completely in his memory is the whole point of the story. Thus we must admit that handicap at the beginning – that it is absurd for us to tell the story, absurd for anybody to listen to it and unthinkable that anybody should believe it.
We will, however, do this man one favour. We will refrain from mentioning him by his complete name. This will enable us to tell his secret and permit him to continue looking his friends in the eye. But we can say that his surname is Duffy. There are thousands of these Duffys in the world; even at this moment there is probably a new Duffy making his appearance in some corner of it. We can even go so far as to say that he is John Duffy’s brother. We do not break faith in saying so, because if there are only one hundred John Duffys in existence, and even if each one of them could be met and questioned, no embarrassing enlightenments would be forthcoming. That is because the John Duffy in question never left his house, never left his bed, never talked to anybody in his life and was never seen by more than one man. That man’s name was Gumley. Gumley was a doctor. He was present when John Duffy was born and also when he died, one hour later.
(O’Brien, F. Stories and Plays. Penguin Books, 1974, p.91.)


8. Quem é o personagem principal da estória que o texto vai contar?

9. Que tipo de estória vai ser contada? Justifique sua resposta.

Leia os dois trechos a seguir e responda às questões 10, 11 e 12:

Heat of Lotus Attracts Insects And Scientists

By CAROL KAESUB YOON

The sacred lotus, which gracefully raises its elegant flower above the murky waters where it grows, has long been revered by both Bud- dhists snd Hindus. Now a study has recruited biologists as well as the flower's devotees. Researchers report that the lotus has the remarkable ability to regulate the temperature oI its flowers to within a narrow range just as humans and ther warmblooded animals do.
Dr. Roger S. Seymour and Dr. Paul Schultze-Motel, physiologlsts at the UNversity of Adelaide fn Australia, found that lotus flowers blooming in the Adelaide Bo- tanic Gardens maintained a temperature of 86 to 95 degrees Fahrenheit, even when the air temperature dropped to 50 degrees. They suspect the flowers may be turning up the heat for the benefit of their coldblooded insect pollInators.

(The New York Times, October 1, 1996)


nature science update

Hothouse flowers

The sacred lotus (Nelumbo nucifera) features strongly in the mythology of many ancient cultures and religions, and it has now excited scientific interest. A report in the 26 September issue of Nature shows that the lotus not only generates heat, but can regulate its temperature in much the same was as 'warm-blooded' birds and mammals.
The emergence from the mud of a beautiful white flower has been taken by Buddhists as a symbol of life and rebirth. Not without cause -- research by Dr Jane Shen-Miller at the University of California, Los Angeles and colleagues, published in the American Journal of Botany, showed how lotus seeds, preserved in the sediment of Chinese monastery ponds for more than a thousand years, could still germinate. The ancient Egyptians were also captivated by the flower, believing that the sun God Re emerged from a sacred blue lotus that grew out of the mud. And the lotus-eaters described by Homer in the Odyssey, intoxicated by the fruit of the lotus, lost track of the passage of time.

Dr Roger Seymour and Dr Paul Schultze-Motel, botanists at the University of Adelaide, Australia, are equally captivated by the sacred lotus. Although lotuses, like some other plants, are known to generate heat, the researchers were surprised to discover that the lotus could maintain a constant temperature even as ambient air temperature fell.

The researchers speculate on why the lotus should go to the considerable trouble of maintaining a constant 30 oC., It so happens that this is precisely the temperature that insects such as bees and beetles need to reach liefore they are warm enough to fly. These insects are pollinators of the sacred lotus, so perhaps the flower keeps these insects warm so that they can fly off, without extra effort, to another lotus flower, taking the pollen with them.

©NATURE NEWS SERVICE 1996


10. Dentre as descobertas científicas recentes sobre a flor de lotus citadas no texto da Nature, uma parece justificar a dimensão simbólica que ela tem para os budistas.
a) Qual é a descoberta?
b) Qual é a dimensão simbólica que ela tem para os budistas?


11. Transfira o quadro abaixo para seu caderno de respostas, preenchendo-o com informações obtidas a partir dos dois textos:


Propriedade Térmica
a)Algumas Plantas _______________________
b) Flor de Lotus ________________________


12. O texto do The New York Times afirma, no último parágrafo: “They [the phisiologists] suspect the flowers may be turning up the heat for the benefit of their coldblooded insect pollinators”. Use as informações do texto da Nature para explicar os aspectos grifados da afirmação.


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