Questões de Linguagens do ENEM

     Antes de iniciar este livro, imaginei construí-lo pela divisão do trabalho.

    Dirigi-me a alguns amigos, e quase todos consentiram de boa vontade em contribuir para o desenvolvimento das letras nacionais. Padre Silvestre ficaria com a parte moral e as citações latinas; João Nogueira aceitou a pontuação, a ortografia e a sintaxe; prometi ao Arquimedes a composição tipográfica; para a composição literária convidei Lúcio Gomes de Azevedo Gondim, redator e diretor do Cruzeiro. Eu traçaria o plano, introduziria na história rudimentos de agricultura e pecuária, faria as despesas e poria o meu nome na capa.

                                                São Bernardo, Graciliano Ramos. 

Propõem-se, nas alternativas abaixo, reformulações para diferentes frases do texto. A única correta, do ponto de vista da norma-padrão, é:

Manifesta-se, no excerto de Quincas Borba, um tema que, relativamente frequente na ficção dos dois últimos séculos, é central nesse romance, a saber, o tema

    RIO DE JANEIRO — Pope Francis on Thursday delivered some of his most politically provocative remarks since his papacy began this year, hopping from his popemobile to walk through a slum in this city before urging young people to fight against corruption, a leading grievance behind the huge street protests that shook dozens of Brazilian cities in June.

    “Do not grow accustomed to evil, but defeat it,” Francis said at the favela, or slum, of Varginha, in an area that has commonly been known here as the Gaza Strip for its gun battles and drug trafficking in the past. “Do not lose trust, do not allow your hope to be extinguished,” he added, acknowledging that it was common for some to “grow disillusioned with news of corruption.”

    By singling out corruption in a folksy visit to a Brazilian favela on his first trip abroad as pope, Francis, an Argentine-born Jesuit, emphasized his aim to refocus the Roman Catholic Church on the neglected margins of society, especially in Brazil and other parts of Latin America where the popularity of evangelical churches has surged among the poor in recent decades.

    In a nod to the Brazilian political authorities who have warmly welcomed him, Francis also praised the government’s antipoverty programs and did not specifically mention the anti-establishment protests in Brazil. But he did critique Rio de Janeiro’s so-called pacification project in the city’s slums, in which security forces assert control over lawless areas.

    “No amount of pacification will be able to last, nor will harmony and happiness be attained in a society that ignores, pushes to the margins or excludes a part of itself,” the pope said in Varginha, a slum that has recently been subjected to pacification. In a remark that could resonate in Latin America and in the United States, which is also grappling with the widening disparity between the haves and the have-nots, Francis said that a society “impoverishes itself” by perpetuating such inequality.

    Care for the poor and marginalized is an integral part of Catholic teaching, and a concern of many popes and encyclicals, including those by Francis’ predecessor, Benedict XVI. But Francis has made it a hallmark of his young papacy, telling journalists in Rome days after his election, “How I would like a church that is poor and for the poor.” He has demonstrated that ideal by living relatively humbly as pope: in a communal guesthouse rather than the opulent papal apartment, wearing a pectoral cross of iron instead of gold, flying commercial. He recently told priests that they should not drive fancy cars, and he has traveled around Rio this week in a compact Fiat.

    “He is helping to wake people up,” said Natalia Morais, 21, a nursing student from Minas Gerais State who traveled to Rio to see the pope as part of World Youth Day, a conference attended by hundreds of thousands of Catholic youth. “When the pope talks, political leaders listen, and that’s what’s needed in Brazil, where our protests are about their corruption,” Ms. Morais said.

    Reaching beyond Brazil, Francis told Argentines who came here for the conference that “the church must be taken into the streets” in a struggle against complacency. “Stir things up, cause confounding, but do not diminish faith in Jesus Christ,” he said in Spanish.

    In each of Francis’ public appearances, he has been accorded a rock-star reception. On an uncommonly cold and rainy morning, hundreds of residents lined the narrow, muddy sidewalks of the Varginha favela to glimpse the first pope from the Americas, who obliged by stopping often to touch and bless people.

    Many onlookers had made their own shirts to commemorate the event, with a photo of Francis. Others draped themselves in Brazilian flags and waved banners bearing his image. Residents darted in and out of their homes, checking their televisions and radios to learn the pope’s whereabouts and calling the information out to their neighbors standing on wet rooftops to get a better view.

    Sônia Curato, 48, a manicurist, said the pope’s visit was different from that of other leaders. “Politicians come all the time. They make promises and leave,” she said. “He is a very simple person. You can tell that. He has charisma. He speaks to the people, doesn’t like going around in an armored car.”

Pope Francis’ optimism could be seen in Varginha, where he told people to

PORTÃO

ANDRADE, Carlos Drummond de. In: Carlos Drummond de Andrade: Poesia e Prosa. Editora Nova Aguilar:1988. p. 506-507.

Considere as seguintes afirmações sobre os dois versos finais.

I. A separação desses dois versos em uma estrofe é um recurso que enfatiza as ideias de exclusão, parcialidade e preconceito presentes no poema.

II. Os dois versos constituem um enunciado que expressa uma afirmação de valor individual ou particular.

III. Esse enunciado apresenta a estrutura linguística do axioma (máxima, provérbio, anexim): é breve, expressa um conceito sobre a realidade, tem o objetivo de ensinar e emprega o presente do indicativo.

Está correto o que se afirma apenas em

Prezado candidato, o texto 1 desta prova foi extraído de uma crônica de Affonso Romano de Sant’Anna, cronista e poeta mineiro. Professor universitário e jornalista, escreveu para os maiores jornais do País. “Com uma produção diversificada e consistente, pensa o Brasil e a cultura do seu tempo, e se destaca como teórico, como poeta, como cronista, como professor, como administrador cultural e como jornalista.”

Porta de colégio 

SANT’ANNA, Affonso Romano de. Affonso Romano de Sant’Anna: seleção e prefácio de Letícia Malard. Coleção Melhores Crônicas. p. 64-66.

Observe a concordância verbal que se dá no trecho seguinte: “um ou outro já transou droga” (linha 17). Nesse trecho,

I. o “ou” indica exclusão.

II. a concordância poderia ser feita no plural: um ou outro já transaram droga.

III. a ação do verbo transar refere-se tanto a um quanto a outro.

Estão corretas as complementações contidas em

Prezado candidato, o texto 1 desta prova foi extraído de uma crônica de Affonso Romano de Sant’Anna, cronista e poeta mineiro. Professor universitário e jornalista, escreveu para os maiores jornais do País. “Com uma produção diversificada e consistente, pensa o Brasil e a cultura do seu tempo, e se destaca como teórico, como poeta, como cronista, como professor, como administrador cultural e como jornalista.”

Porta de colégio 

SANT’ANNA, Affonso Romano de. Affonso Romano de Sant’Anna: seleção e prefácio de Letícia Malard. Coleção Melhores Crônicas. p. 64-66.

Atente para o que se diz sobre as expressões referenciais seguintes: esses meninos e meninas (linha 23) e aquele/a (linhas 25, 28, 29 e 32).

I. Todas essas expressões retomam individualmente o que foi mencionado de maneira geral no trecho das linhas 7, 8 e 9.

II. Enquanto a expressão da linha 23 se refere ao que foi dito (anáfora), todas as outras se referem ao que vai ser dito (catáfora).

III. A expressão aquele (ali) presentifica a cena enunciativa.

Está correto o que se afirma em 

Prezado candidato, o texto 1 desta prova foi extraído de uma crônica de Affonso Romano de Sant’Anna, cronista e poeta mineiro. Professor universitário e jornalista, escreveu para os maiores jornais do País. “Com uma produção diversificada e consistente, pensa o Brasil e a cultura do seu tempo, e se destaca como teórico, como poeta, como cronista, como professor, como administrador cultural e como jornalista.”

Porta de colégio 

SANT’ANNA, Affonso Romano de. Affonso Romano de Sant’Anna: seleção e prefácio de Letícia Malard. Coleção Melhores Crônicas. p. 64-66.

Marque com V o que for verdadeiro e com F o que for falso, em relação à crônica “Porta de colégio”.

( ) O cronista introduz a ideia núcleo do texto logo nas três primeiras linhas e o faz por meio de uma analogia.

( ) No quarto parágrafo, o enunciador responde à pergunta retórica feita no terceiro, empregando o advérbio interrogativo onde. As respostas, no entanto, não correspondem às respostas que se dariam a uma pergunta feita com o advérbio onde. Na pergunta correspondente a essas respostas, deveria constar algo como “Que acontecerá” ou “Como estarão”, não onde.

( ) O vocábulo clima (linha 6) e o vocábulo atmosfera (linha 11) não poderiam intercambiar suas ocorrências no texto sem prejuízo do sentido.

( ) No parágrafo 5 (linhas 37-45), o cronista faz alusão a um conto infantil, para mostrar como os adolescentes só têm segurança dentro da escola.

( ) Os assaltos do “lobo feroz” (linha 40), corresponderiam, no mundo moderno, ao estupro, ao latrocínio, ao homicídio, ao tráfico de crianças e de mulheres, à venda de drogas, em suma, aos perigos da vida moderna.

Está correta a seguinte sequência de cima para baixo:

Prezado candidato, o texto 1 desta prova foi extraído de uma crônica de Affonso Romano de Sant’Anna, cronista e poeta mineiro. Professor universitário e jornalista, escreveu para os maiores jornais do País. “Com uma produção diversificada e consistente, pensa o Brasil e a cultura do seu tempo, e se destaca como teórico, como poeta, como cronista, como professor, como administrador cultural e como jornalista.”

Porta de colégio 

SANT’ANNA, Affonso Romano de. Affonso Romano de Sant’Anna: seleção e prefácio de Letícia Malard. Coleção Melhores Crônicas. p. 64-66.

A crônica é um gênero, digamos, aberto. Dentro dessa rubrica cabem vários conceitos. As quatro opções abaixo apresentam características de crônica, mas só uma expressa as características apresentadas pelo texto de Sant’Anna. Assinale essa opção.

Por otro lado, también representó para la clase media un pasaporte al buen gusto: (l. 28-29)

En la apresentación de los argumentos, el fragmento introducido por la expresión por otro lado tiene la siguiente función:

En la segunda mitad del siglo XIX, mientras la polca ganaba popularidad entre las élites de Río de Janeiro, (l. 5-6)

El verbo subrayado está conjugado en el pretérito imperfecto.

En el fragmento, el uso de esa forma verbal indica una acción que puede ser caracterizada como:

La música ha servido tanto de instrumento para la afirmación ciudadana de las clases obreras y medias, como para la formulación de las políticas disciplinarias y represivas del Estado. (l. 2-3)

En esa afirmación, el autor aclara que la música fue utilizada en Brasil con diferentes objetivos a lo largo del tiempo.

De acuerdo con el texto, el uso disciplinario de la música se pudo presenciar en el siguiente periodo:

para lhe transmitir aquilo que a contrariedade (para não falar indignação) me impediu de dizer de viva voz. (l. 1-2)

Na sequência em que se encontram, as palavras grifadas configuram o seguinte recurso:

     BRASÍLIA — Brazil’s highest court has long viewed itself as a bastion of manners and formality. Justices call one another “Your Excellency,” dress in billowing robes and wrap each utterance in grandiloquence, as if little had changed from the era when marquises and dukes held sway from their vast plantations.

     In one televised feud, Mr. Barbosa questioned another justice about whether he would even be on the court had he not been appointed by his cousin, a former president impeached in 1992. With another justice, Mr. Barbosa rebuked him over what the chief justice considered his condescending tone, telling him he was not his “capanga,” a term describing a hired thug. 

      In one of his most scathing comments, Mr. Barbosa, the high court’s first and only black justice, took on the entire legal system of Brazil — where it is still remarkably rare for politicians to ever spend time in prison, even after being convicted of crimes — contending that the mentality of judges was “conservative, pro-status-quo and pro-impunity.”

     “I have a temperament that doesn’t adapt well to politics,” Mr. Barbosa, 58, said in a recent interview in his quarters here in the Supreme Federal Tribunal, a modernist landmark designed by the architect Oscar Niemeyer. “It’s because I speak my mind so much.” 

     His acknowledged lack of tact notwithstanding, he is the driving force behind a series of socially liberal and establishment-shaking rulings, turning Brazil’s highest court — and him in particular — into a newfound political power and the subject of popular fascination. 

   The court’s recent rulings include a unanimous decision upholding the University of Brasília’s admissions policies aimed at increasing the number of black and indigenous students, opening the way for one of the Western Hemisphere’s most sweeping affirmative action laws for higher education. 

     In another move, Mr. Barbosa used his sway as chief justice and president of the panel overseeing Brazil’s judiciary to effectively legalize same-sex marriage across the country. And in an anticorruption crusade, he is overseeing the precedent-setting trial of senior political figures in the governing Workers Party for their roles in a vast vote-buying scheme.

   Ascending to Brazil’s high court, much less pushing the institution to assert its independence, long seemed out of reach for Mr. Barbosa, the eldest of eight children raised in Paracatu, an impoverished city in Minas Gerais State, where his father worked as a bricklayer.  

    But his prominence — not just on the court, but in the streets as well — is so well established that masks with his face were sold for Carnival, amateur musicians have composed songs about his handling of the corruption trial and posted them on YouTube, and demonstrators during the huge street protests that shook the nation this year told pollsters that Mr. Barbosa was one of their top choices for president in next year’s elections.

     While the protests have subsided since their height in June, the political tumult they set off persists. The race for president, once considered a shoo-in for the incumbent, Dilma Rousseff, is now up in the air, with Mr. Barbosa — who is now so much in the public eye that gossip columnists are following his romance with a woman in her 20s — repeatedly saying he will not run. “I’m not a candidate for anything,” he says. 

     But the same public glare that has turned him into a celebrity has singed him as well. While he has won widespread admiration for his guidance of the high court, Mr. Barbosa, like almost every other prominent political figure in Brazil, has recently come under scrutiny. And for someone accustomed to criticizing the so-called supersalaries awarded to some members of Brazil’s legal system, the revelations have put Mr. Barbosa on the defensive. 

     One report in the Brazilian news media described how he received about $180,000 in payments for untaken leaves of absence during his 19 years as a public prosecutor. (Such payments are common in some areas of Brazil’s large public bureaucracy.) Another noted that he bought an apartment in Miami through a limited liability company, suggesting an effort to pay less taxes on the property. In statements, Mr. Barbosa contends that he has done nothing wrong. 

     In a country where a majority of people now define themselves as black or of mixed race — but where blacks remain remarkably rare in the highest echelons of political institutions and corporations — Mr. Barbosa’s trajectory and abrupt manner have elicited both widespread admiration and a fair amount of resistance. 

     As a teenager, Mr. Barbosa moved to the capital, Brasília, finding work as a janitor in a courtroom. Against the odds, he got into the University of Brasília, the only black student in its law program at the time. Wanting to see the world, he later won admission into Brazil’s diplomatic service, which promptly sent him to Helsinki, the Finnish capital on the shore of the Baltic Sea. 

     Sensing that he would not advance much in the diplomatic service, which he has called “one of the most discriminatory institutions of Brazil,” Mr. Barbosa opted for a career as a prosecutor. He alternated between legal investigations in Brazil and studies abroad, gaining fluency in English, French and German, and earning a doctorate in law at Pantheon-Assas University in Paris. 

   Fascinated by the legal systems of other countries, Mr. Barbosa wrote a book on affirmative action in the United States. He still voices his admiration for figures like Thurgood Marshall, the first black Supreme Court justice in the United States, and William J. Brennan Jr., who for years embodied the court’s liberal vision, clearly drawing inspiration from them as he pushed Brazil’s high court toward socially liberal rulings.

    Still, no decision has thrust Mr. Barbosa into Brazil’s public imagination as much as his handling of the trial of political operatives, legislators and bankers found guilty in a labyrinthine corruption scandal called the mensalão, or big monthly allowance, after the regular payments made to lawmakers in exchange for their votes. 

    Last November, at Mr. Barbosa’s urging, the high court sentenced some of the most powerful figures in the governing Workers Party to years in prison for their crimes in the scheme, including bribery and unlawful conspiracy, jolting a political system in which impunity for politicians has been the norm.  

     Now the mensalão trial is entering what could be its final phases, and Mr. Barbosa has at times been visibly exasperated that defendants who have already been found guilty and sentenced have managed to avoid hard jail time. He has clashed with other justices over their consideration of a rare legal procedure in which appeals over close votes at the high court are examined. 

     Losing his patience with one prominent justice, Ricardo Lewandowski, who tried to absolve some defendants of certain crimes, Mr. Barbosa publicly accused him this month of “chicanery” by using legalese to prop up certain positions. An outcry ensued among some who could not stomach Mr. Barbosa’s talking to a fellow justice like that. “Who does Justice Joaquim Barbosa think he is?” asked Ricardo Noblat, a columnist for the newspaper O Globo, questioning whether Mr. Barbosa was qualified to preside over the court. “What powers does he think he has just because he’s sitting in the chair of the chief justice of the Supreme Federal Tribunal?” 

      Mr. Barbosa did not apologize. In the interview, he said some tension was necessary for the court to function properly. “It was always like this,” he said, contending that arguments are now just easier to see because the court’s proceedings are televised. 

     Linking the court’s work to the recent wave of protests, he explained that he strongly disagreed with the violence of some demonstrators, but he also said he believed that the street movements were “a sign of democracy’s exuberance.” 

     “People don’t want to passively stand by and observe these arrangements of the elite, which were always the Brazilian tradition,” he said. 

In the sentence “Wanting to see the world, he later won admission into Brazil’s diplomatic service,” the underlined phrase can be correctly rewritten as

     BRASÍLIA — Brazil’s highest court has long viewed itself as a bastion of manners and formality. Justices call one another “Your Excellency,” dress in billowing robes and wrap each utterance in grandiloquence, as if little had changed from the era when marquises and dukes held sway from their vast plantations.

     In one televised feud, Mr. Barbosa questioned another justice about whether he would even be on the court had he not been appointed by his cousin, a former president impeached in 1992. With another justice, Mr. Barbosa rebuked him over what the chief justice considered his condescending tone, telling him he was not his “capanga,” a term describing a hired thug. 

      In one of his most scathing comments, Mr. Barbosa, the high court’s first and only black justice, took on the entire legal system of Brazil — where it is still remarkably rare for politicians to ever spend time in prison, even after being convicted of crimes — contending that the mentality of judges was “conservative, pro-status-quo and pro-impunity.”

     “I have a temperament that doesn’t adapt well to politics,” Mr. Barbosa, 58, said in a recent interview in his quarters here in the Supreme Federal Tribunal, a modernist landmark designed by the architect Oscar Niemeyer. “It’s because I speak my mind so much.” 

     His acknowledged lack of tact notwithstanding, he is the driving force behind a series of socially liberal and establishment-shaking rulings, turning Brazil’s highest court — and him in particular — into a newfound political power and the subject of popular fascination. 

   The court’s recent rulings include a unanimous decision upholding the University of Brasília’s admissions policies aimed at increasing the number of black and indigenous students, opening the way for one of the Western Hemisphere’s most sweeping affirmative action laws for higher education. 

     In another move, Mr. Barbosa used his sway as chief justice and president of the panel overseeing Brazil’s judiciary to effectively legalize same-sex marriage across the country. And in an anticorruption crusade, he is overseeing the precedent-setting trial of senior political figures in the governing Workers Party for their roles in a vast vote-buying scheme.

   Ascending to Brazil’s high court, much less pushing the institution to assert its independence, long seemed out of reach for Mr. Barbosa, the eldest of eight children raised in Paracatu, an impoverished city in Minas Gerais State, where his father worked as a bricklayer.  

    But his prominence — not just on the court, but in the streets as well — is so well established that masks with his face were sold for Carnival, amateur musicians have composed songs about his handling of the corruption trial and posted them on YouTube, and demonstrators during the huge street protests that shook the nation this year told pollsters that Mr. Barbosa was one of their top choices for president in next year’s elections.

     While the protests have subsided since their height in June, the political tumult they set off persists. The race for president, once considered a shoo-in for the incumbent, Dilma Rousseff, is now up in the air, with Mr. Barbosa — who is now so much in the public eye that gossip columnists are following his romance with a woman in her 20s — repeatedly saying he will not run. “I’m not a candidate for anything,” he says. 

     But the same public glare that has turned him into a celebrity has singed him as well. While he has won widespread admiration for his guidance of the high court, Mr. Barbosa, like almost every other prominent political figure in Brazil, has recently come under scrutiny. And for someone accustomed to criticizing the so-called supersalaries awarded to some members of Brazil’s legal system, the revelations have put Mr. Barbosa on the defensive. 

     One report in the Brazilian news media described how he received about $180,000 in payments for untaken leaves of absence during his 19 years as a public prosecutor. (Such payments are common in some areas of Brazil’s large public bureaucracy.) Another noted that he bought an apartment in Miami through a limited liability company, suggesting an effort to pay less taxes on the property. In statements, Mr. Barbosa contends that he has done nothing wrong. 

     In a country where a majority of people now define themselves as black or of mixed race — but where blacks remain remarkably rare in the highest echelons of political institutions and corporations — Mr. Barbosa’s trajectory and abrupt manner have elicited both widespread admiration and a fair amount of resistance. 

     As a teenager, Mr. Barbosa moved to the capital, Brasília, finding work as a janitor in a courtroom. Against the odds, he got into the University of Brasília, the only black student in its law program at the time. Wanting to see the world, he later won admission into Brazil’s diplomatic service, which promptly sent him to Helsinki, the Finnish capital on the shore of the Baltic Sea. 

     Sensing that he would not advance much in the diplomatic service, which he has called “one of the most discriminatory institutions of Brazil,” Mr. Barbosa opted for a career as a prosecutor. He alternated between legal investigations in Brazil and studies abroad, gaining fluency in English, French and German, and earning a doctorate in law at Pantheon-Assas University in Paris. 

   Fascinated by the legal systems of other countries, Mr. Barbosa wrote a book on affirmative action in the United States. He still voices his admiration for figures like Thurgood Marshall, the first black Supreme Court justice in the United States, and William J. Brennan Jr., who for years embodied the court’s liberal vision, clearly drawing inspiration from them as he pushed Brazil’s high court toward socially liberal rulings.

    Still, no decision has thrust Mr. Barbosa into Brazil’s public imagination as much as his handling of the trial of political operatives, legislators and bankers found guilty in a labyrinthine corruption scandal called the mensalão, or big monthly allowance, after the regular payments made to lawmakers in exchange for their votes. 

    Last November, at Mr. Barbosa’s urging, the high court sentenced some of the most powerful figures in the governing Workers Party to years in prison for their crimes in the scheme, including bribery and unlawful conspiracy, jolting a political system in which impunity for politicians has been the norm.  

     Now the mensalão trial is entering what could be its final phases, and Mr. Barbosa has at times been visibly exasperated that defendants who have already been found guilty and sentenced have managed to avoid hard jail time. He has clashed with other justices over their consideration of a rare legal procedure in which appeals over close votes at the high court are examined. 

     Losing his patience with one prominent justice, Ricardo Lewandowski, who tried to absolve some defendants of certain crimes, Mr. Barbosa publicly accused him this month of “chicanery” by using legalese to prop up certain positions. An outcry ensued among some who could not stomach Mr. Barbosa’s talking to a fellow justice like that. “Who does Justice Joaquim Barbosa think he is?” asked Ricardo Noblat, a columnist for the newspaper O Globo, questioning whether Mr. Barbosa was qualified to preside over the court. “What powers does he think he has just because he’s sitting in the chair of the chief justice of the Supreme Federal Tribunal?” 

      Mr. Barbosa did not apologize. In the interview, he said some tension was necessary for the court to function properly. “It was always like this,” he said, contending that arguments are now just easier to see because the court’s proceedings are televised. 

     Linking the court’s work to the recent wave of protests, he explained that he strongly disagreed with the violence of some demonstrators, but he also said he believed that the street movements were “a sign of democracy’s exuberance.” 

     “People don’t want to passively stand by and observe these arrangements of the elite, which were always the Brazilian tradition,” he said. 

The sentence “They are televising the court’s proceedings” in the passive becomes

     BRASÍLIA — Brazil’s highest court has long viewed itself as a bastion of manners and formality. Justices call one another “Your Excellency,” dress in billowing robes and wrap each utterance in grandiloquence, as if little had changed from the era when marquises and dukes held sway from their vast plantations.

     In one televised feud, Mr. Barbosa questioned another justice about whether he would even be on the court had he not been appointed by his cousin, a former president impeached in 1992. With another justice, Mr. Barbosa rebuked him over what the chief justice considered his condescending tone, telling him he was not his “capanga,” a term describing a hired thug. 

      In one of his most scathing comments, Mr. Barbosa, the high court’s first and only black justice, took on the entire legal system of Brazil — where it is still remarkably rare for politicians to ever spend time in prison, even after being convicted of crimes — contending that the mentality of judges was “conservative, pro-status-quo and pro-impunity.”

     “I have a temperament that doesn’t adapt well to politics,” Mr. Barbosa, 58, said in a recent interview in his quarters here in the Supreme Federal Tribunal, a modernist landmark designed by the architect Oscar Niemeyer. “It’s because I speak my mind so much.” 

     His acknowledged lack of tact notwithstanding, he is the driving force behind a series of socially liberal and establishment-shaking rulings, turning Brazil’s highest court — and him in particular — into a newfound political power and the subject of popular fascination. 

   The court’s recent rulings include a unanimous decision upholding the University of Brasília’s admissions policies aimed at increasing the number of black and indigenous students, opening the way for one of the Western Hemisphere’s most sweeping affirmative action laws for higher education. 

     In another move, Mr. Barbosa used his sway as chief justice and president of the panel overseeing Brazil’s judiciary to effectively legalize same-sex marriage across the country. And in an anticorruption crusade, he is overseeing the precedent-setting trial of senior political figures in the governing Workers Party for their roles in a vast vote-buying scheme.

   Ascending to Brazil’s high court, much less pushing the institution to assert its independence, long seemed out of reach for Mr. Barbosa, the eldest of eight children raised in Paracatu, an impoverished city in Minas Gerais State, where his father worked as a bricklayer.  

    But his prominence — not just on the court, but in the streets as well — is so well established that masks with his face were sold for Carnival, amateur musicians have composed songs about his handling of the corruption trial and posted them on YouTube, and demonstrators during the huge street protests that shook the nation this year told pollsters that Mr. Barbosa was one of their top choices for president in next year’s elections.

     While the protests have subsided since their height in June, the political tumult they set off persists. The race for president, once considered a shoo-in for the incumbent, Dilma Rousseff, is now up in the air, with Mr. Barbosa — who is now so much in the public eye that gossip columnists are following his romance with a woman in her 20s — repeatedly saying he will not run. “I’m not a candidate for anything,” he says. 

     But the same public glare that has turned him into a celebrity has singed him as well. While he has won widespread admiration for his guidance of the high court, Mr. Barbosa, like almost every other prominent political figure in Brazil, has recently come under scrutiny. And for someone accustomed to criticizing the so-called supersalaries awarded to some members of Brazil’s legal system, the revelations have put Mr. Barbosa on the defensive. 

     One report in the Brazilian news media described how he received about $180,000 in payments for untaken leaves of absence during his 19 years as a public prosecutor. (Such payments are common in some areas of Brazil’s large public bureaucracy.) Another noted that he bought an apartment in Miami through a limited liability company, suggesting an effort to pay less taxes on the property. In statements, Mr. Barbosa contends that he has done nothing wrong. 

     In a country where a majority of people now define themselves as black or of mixed race — but where blacks remain remarkably rare in the highest echelons of political institutions and corporations — Mr. Barbosa’s trajectory and abrupt manner have elicited both widespread admiration and a fair amount of resistance. 

     As a teenager, Mr. Barbosa moved to the capital, Brasília, finding work as a janitor in a courtroom. Against the odds, he got into the University of Brasília, the only black student in its law program at the time. Wanting to see the world, he later won admission into Brazil’s diplomatic service, which promptly sent him to Helsinki, the Finnish capital on the shore of the Baltic Sea. 

     Sensing that he would not advance much in the diplomatic service, which he has called “one of the most discriminatory institutions of Brazil,” Mr. Barbosa opted for a career as a prosecutor. He alternated between legal investigations in Brazil and studies abroad, gaining fluency in English, French and German, and earning a doctorate in law at Pantheon-Assas University in Paris. 

   Fascinated by the legal systems of other countries, Mr. Barbosa wrote a book on affirmative action in the United States. He still voices his admiration for figures like Thurgood Marshall, the first black Supreme Court justice in the United States, and William J. Brennan Jr., who for years embodied the court’s liberal vision, clearly drawing inspiration from them as he pushed Brazil’s high court toward socially liberal rulings.

    Still, no decision has thrust Mr. Barbosa into Brazil’s public imagination as much as his handling of the trial of political operatives, legislators and bankers found guilty in a labyrinthine corruption scandal called the mensalão, or big monthly allowance, after the regular payments made to lawmakers in exchange for their votes. 

    Last November, at Mr. Barbosa’s urging, the high court sentenced some of the most powerful figures in the governing Workers Party to years in prison for their crimes in the scheme, including bribery and unlawful conspiracy, jolting a political system in which impunity for politicians has been the norm.  

     Now the mensalão trial is entering what could be its final phases, and Mr. Barbosa has at times been visibly exasperated that defendants who have already been found guilty and sentenced have managed to avoid hard jail time. He has clashed with other justices over their consideration of a rare legal procedure in which appeals over close votes at the high court are examined. 

     Losing his patience with one prominent justice, Ricardo Lewandowski, who tried to absolve some defendants of certain crimes, Mr. Barbosa publicly accused him this month of “chicanery” by using legalese to prop up certain positions. An outcry ensued among some who could not stomach Mr. Barbosa’s talking to a fellow justice like that. “Who does Justice Joaquim Barbosa think he is?” asked Ricardo Noblat, a columnist for the newspaper O Globo, questioning whether Mr. Barbosa was qualified to preside over the court. “What powers does he think he has just because he’s sitting in the chair of the chief justice of the Supreme Federal Tribunal?” 

      Mr. Barbosa did not apologize. In the interview, he said some tension was necessary for the court to function properly. “It was always like this,” he said, contending that arguments are now just easier to see because the court’s proceedings are televised. 

     Linking the court’s work to the recent wave of protests, he explained that he strongly disagreed with the violence of some demonstrators, but he also said he believed that the street movements were “a sign of democracy’s exuberance.” 

     “People don’t want to passively stand by and observe these arrangements of the elite, which were always the Brazilian tradition,” he said. 

The sentences “he is the driving force behind a series of socially liberal and establishmentshaking rulings” and “Mr. Barbosa was one of their top choices for president in next year’s elections” contain, respectively, a/an

     BRASÍLIA — Brazil’s highest court has long viewed itself as a bastion of manners and formality. Justices call one another “Your Excellency,” dress in billowing robes and wrap each utterance in grandiloquence, as if little had changed from the era when marquises and dukes held sway from their vast plantations.

     In one televised feud, Mr. Barbosa questioned another justice about whether he would even be on the court had he not been appointed by his cousin, a former president impeached in 1992. With another justice, Mr. Barbosa rebuked him over what the chief justice considered his condescending tone, telling him he was not his “capanga,” a term describing a hired thug. 

      In one of his most scathing comments, Mr. Barbosa, the high court’s first and only black justice, took on the entire legal system of Brazil — where it is still remarkably rare for politicians to ever spend time in prison, even after being convicted of crimes — contending that the mentality of judges was “conservative, pro-status-quo and pro-impunity.”

     “I have a temperament that doesn’t adapt well to politics,” Mr. Barbosa, 58, said in a recent interview in his quarters here in the Supreme Federal Tribunal, a modernist landmark designed by the architect Oscar Niemeyer. “It’s because I speak my mind so much.” 

     His acknowledged lack of tact notwithstanding, he is the driving force behind a series of socially liberal and establishment-shaking rulings, turning Brazil’s highest court — and him in particular — into a newfound political power and the subject of popular fascination. 

   The court’s recent rulings include a unanimous decision upholding the University of Brasília’s admissions policies aimed at increasing the number of black and indigenous students, opening the way for one of the Western Hemisphere’s most sweeping affirmative action laws for higher education. 

     In another move, Mr. Barbosa used his sway as chief justice and president of the panel overseeing Brazil’s judiciary to effectively legalize same-sex marriage across the country. And in an anticorruption crusade, he is overseeing the precedent-setting trial of senior political figures in the governing Workers Party for their roles in a vast vote-buying scheme.

   Ascending to Brazil’s high court, much less pushing the institution to assert its independence, long seemed out of reach for Mr. Barbosa, the eldest of eight children raised in Paracatu, an impoverished city in Minas Gerais State, where his father worked as a bricklayer.  

    But his prominence — not just on the court, but in the streets as well — is so well established that masks with his face were sold for Carnival, amateur musicians have composed songs about his handling of the corruption trial and posted them on YouTube, and demonstrators during the huge street protests that shook the nation this year told pollsters that Mr. Barbosa was one of their top choices for president in next year’s elections.

     While the protests have subsided since their height in June, the political tumult they set off persists. The race for president, once considered a shoo-in for the incumbent, Dilma Rousseff, is now up in the air, with Mr. Barbosa — who is now so much in the public eye that gossip columnists are following his romance with a woman in her 20s — repeatedly saying he will not run. “I’m not a candidate for anything,” he says. 

     But the same public glare that has turned him into a celebrity has singed him as well. While he has won widespread admiration for his guidance of the high court, Mr. Barbosa, like almost every other prominent political figure in Brazil, has recently come under scrutiny. And for someone accustomed to criticizing the so-called supersalaries awarded to some members of Brazil’s legal system, the revelations have put Mr. Barbosa on the defensive. 

     One report in the Brazilian news media described how he received about $180,000 in payments for untaken leaves of absence during his 19 years as a public prosecutor. (Such payments are common in some areas of Brazil’s large public bureaucracy.) Another noted that he bought an apartment in Miami through a limited liability company, suggesting an effort to pay less taxes on the property. In statements, Mr. Barbosa contends that he has done nothing wrong. 

     In a country where a majority of people now define themselves as black or of mixed race — but where blacks remain remarkably rare in the highest echelons of political institutions and corporations — Mr. Barbosa’s trajectory and abrupt manner have elicited both widespread admiration and a fair amount of resistance. 

     As a teenager, Mr. Barbosa moved to the capital, Brasília, finding work as a janitor in a courtroom. Against the odds, he got into the University of Brasília, the only black student in its law program at the time. Wanting to see the world, he later won admission into Brazil’s diplomatic service, which promptly sent him to Helsinki, the Finnish capital on the shore of the Baltic Sea. 

     Sensing that he would not advance much in the diplomatic service, which he has called “one of the most discriminatory institutions of Brazil,” Mr. Barbosa opted for a career as a prosecutor. He alternated between legal investigations in Brazil and studies abroad, gaining fluency in English, French and German, and earning a doctorate in law at Pantheon-Assas University in Paris. 

   Fascinated by the legal systems of other countries, Mr. Barbosa wrote a book on affirmative action in the United States. He still voices his admiration for figures like Thurgood Marshall, the first black Supreme Court justice in the United States, and William J. Brennan Jr., who for years embodied the court’s liberal vision, clearly drawing inspiration from them as he pushed Brazil’s high court toward socially liberal rulings.

    Still, no decision has thrust Mr. Barbosa into Brazil’s public imagination as much as his handling of the trial of political operatives, legislators and bankers found guilty in a labyrinthine corruption scandal called the mensalão, or big monthly allowance, after the regular payments made to lawmakers in exchange for their votes. 

    Last November, at Mr. Barbosa’s urging, the high court sentenced some of the most powerful figures in the governing Workers Party to years in prison for their crimes in the scheme, including bribery and unlawful conspiracy, jolting a political system in which impunity for politicians has been the norm.  

     Now the mensalão trial is entering what could be its final phases, and Mr. Barbosa has at times been visibly exasperated that defendants who have already been found guilty and sentenced have managed to avoid hard jail time. He has clashed with other justices over their consideration of a rare legal procedure in which appeals over close votes at the high court are examined. 

     Losing his patience with one prominent justice, Ricardo Lewandowski, who tried to absolve some defendants of certain crimes, Mr. Barbosa publicly accused him this month of “chicanery” by using legalese to prop up certain positions. An outcry ensued among some who could not stomach Mr. Barbosa’s talking to a fellow justice like that. “Who does Justice Joaquim Barbosa think he is?” asked Ricardo Noblat, a columnist for the newspaper O Globo, questioning whether Mr. Barbosa was qualified to preside over the court. “What powers does he think he has just because he’s sitting in the chair of the chief justice of the Supreme Federal Tribunal?” 

      Mr. Barbosa did not apologize. In the interview, he said some tension was necessary for the court to function properly. “It was always like this,” he said, contending that arguments are now just easier to see because the court’s proceedings are televised. 

     Linking the court’s work to the recent wave of protests, he explained that he strongly disagreed with the violence of some demonstrators, but he also said he believed that the street movements were “a sign of democracy’s exuberance.” 

     “People don’t want to passively stand by and observe these arrangements of the elite, which were always the Brazilian tradition,” he said. 

One of the Chief Justice’s positive actions the text mentions was

Para la pregunta abajo, presentamos cuatro respuestas. Elija la correcta.

“¿Le mandaste eso a tu padre?”

En la expresión “Comer y beber” (noveno consejo) hay el empleo de la conjunción copulativa “y”. Dicha conjunción está también correcta en

“los brazos y las piernas” (décimo consejo) son dos partes del cuerpo humano. Los “codos” también lo son y están en