Questões de Inglês do ENEM

Are Twitter and Facebook Affecting How We Think?

Is constant use of electronic gadgets reshaping our

brains and making our thinking shallower?

By Neil Tweedie

How many times do you click on your email icon in a day? Or look at Facebook, or Twitter? And how many times when reading on the internet do you click on a link navigating away from the text that was the original object of your enquiry? The web, it seems, is like an electronic sweet shop, forever tempting us in different directions. But does this mental promiscuity, this tendency to flit around online, make us, well, thicker?

Nicholas Carr, the American Science writer, has mined this theme for his new book, “The Shallows”, in which he argues that new media are not just changing our habits but our brains. It turns out that the mature human brain is not an immutable seat of personality and intellect but a changeable thing, subject to “neuroplasticity”. When our activities alter, so does the architecture of our brain. Tm not thinking the way I used to think,” writes Carr. “I feel it most stronglywhen l’m reading.”

Disponível em: www.telegraph.co.uk. Acesso em: 27 fev. 2012.

Neil Tweedie levanta vários questionamentos sobre a utilização de diferentes recursos tecnológicos disponíveis hoje em dia. A partir desses questionamentos e dos argumentos do escritor norte-americano Nicholas Carr, o texto sugere que

Question: Is there anything I can do to train my body to need less sleep?

Karen Weintraub

June 17, 2016

   Many people think they can teach themselves to need less sleep, but they’re wrong, said Dr. Sigrid Veasey, a professor at the Center for Sleep and Circadian Neurobiology at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. We might feel that we’re getting by fine on less sleep, but we’re deluding ourselves, Dr. Veasey said, largely because lack of sleep skews our self-awareness. “The more you deprive yourself of sleep over long periods of time, the less accurate you are of judging your own sleep perception,” she said.

   Multiple studies have shown that people don’t functionally adapt to less sleep than their bodies need. There is a range of normal sleep times, with most healthy adults naturally needing seven to nine hours of sleep per night, according to the National Sleep Foundation. Those over 65 need about seven to eight hours, on average, while teenagers need eight to 10 hours, and school-age children nine to 11 hours. People’s performance continues to be poor while they are sleep deprived, Dr. Veasey said.

   Health issues like pain, sleep apnea or autoimmune disease can increase people’s need for sleep, said Andrea Meredith, a neuroscientist at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. A misalignment of the clock that governs our sleep-wake cycle can also drive up the need for sleep, Dr. Meredith said. The brain’s clock can get misaligned by being stimulated at the wrong time of day, she said, such as from caffeine in the afternoon or evening, digital screen use too close to bedtime, or even exercise at a time of day when the body wants to be winding down.

(http://well.blogs.nytimes.com. Adaptado.)

Depreende-se das informações da figura que

                                           TEXT

      Nearly 250 million young children across the world – 43% of under-fives – are unlikely to fulfil their potential as adults because of stunting and extreme poverty, new figures show.

      The first three years of life are crucial to a child’s development, according to a series of research papers published in the Lancet medical journal, which says there are also economic costs to the failure to help them grow. Those who do not get the nutrition, care and stimulation they need will earn about 26% less than others as adults.

      “The costs of not acting immediately to expand services to improve early childhood development are high for individuals and their families, as well as for societies,” say the researchers. The cost to some countries in GDP (gross domestic product), they estimate, is as much as twice their spending on healthcare.

      The figures come as the World Bank prepares for a summit meeting with finance ministers around the globe to discuss how nurturing children in their early years will help their countries’ economic development. The World Bank president, Jim Yong Kim, has told the Guardian that he intends to use the World Economic Forum in Davos each year to name and shame countries that do not reduce their high stunting rates.

       The Lancet series says the first 24 months of life are the critical time for avoiding stunting. Undernourished children living in extreme poverty end up small and their brain development is affected, so that they find it hard to learn. “Some catch-up is possible in height-for-age after 24 months, with uncertain cognitive gains,” says one of the papers. 

      In sub-Saharan Africa, 66% of children are estimated to be at risk of poor development because of stunting and poverty. In south Asia, the figure is 65%, and 18% in the Caribbean and South America.  

      Mothers need to be well nourished to give their babies a good start in life and be able to breastfeed. Families need help to give children the nutrition and nurturing they need, say researchers. That includes breastfeeding, free pre-school education – which is available in only two-thirds of high-income countries – paid leave for parents and a minimum wage to pull more families out of poverty.

      There are children at risk in all countries, rich and poor. The series points to early childhood programs that have been effective, including Sure Start in the UK, Early Head Start in the US, Chile’s Crece Contigo and Grade R in South Africa

      In a Comment piece in the journal, Dr Margaret Chan, director general of the World Health Organization, Anthony Lake, executive director of the United Nations Children’s Fund, and Keith Hansen, vice-president for human development at the World Bank, write: “The early childhood agenda is truly global, because the need is not limited to low-income countries. Children living in disadvantaged households in middle-income and wealthy countries are also at risk.

      “In targeting our investments, we should give priority to populations in the greatest need, such as families and children in extreme poverty and those who require humanitarian assistance. In addition, we have to build more resilient systems in vulnerable communities to mitigate the disruptive influence of natural disasters, fragility, conflict, and violence.”

      Wanda Wyporska, executive director of the Equality Trust, said: “It’s no surprise that the richer you are, the better your health is likely to be”. But the chasm of health inequality between rich and poor has widened in recent years.

      “Being born into a poor family shouldn’t mean decades of poorer health and even premature death, but that’s the shameful reality of the UK’s health gap. If you rank neighborhoods in the UK from the richest to the poorest, you have almost perfectly ranked health from the best to the worst.”

                                     https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/oct/04

TEXTO 3

                          Escalada para o inferno

Iniciava-se ali, meu estágio no inferno. A ardida solidão corroía cada passo que eu dava. Via crucis vivida aos seis anos de idade, ao sol das duas horas. Vermelhidão por todos os lados daquela rua íngreme e poeirenta. Meus olhos pediam socorro mas só encontravam uma infinitude de terra e desolação. Tentava acompanhar os passos de meu pai. E eles eram enormes. Não só os passos mas as pernas. Meus olhos olhavam duplamente: para os passos e para as pernas e não alcançavam nem um nem outro. Apenas se defrontavam com um vazio empoeirado que entrava no meu ser inteiro. Eu queria chorar mas tinha medo. Tropeçava a cada tentativa de correr para alcançar meu pai. E eu tinha medo de ter medo. E eu tinha medo de chorar. E era um sofrimento com todos os vórtices de agonia. À minha frente, até onde meus olhos conseguiram enxergar, estavam os pés e as pernas de meu pai que iam firmes subindo subindo subindo sem cessar. À minha volta eu podia ver e sentir a terra vermelha e minha vida envolta num turbilhão de desespero. Na verdade eu não sabia muito bem para onde estava indo. Eu era bestializado nos meus próprios passos. Nas minhas próprias pernas. Tinha a impressão que o ponto de chegada era aquele redemoinho em que me encontrava e que dele nunca mais sairia. Na ânsia de ir sem querer ir eu gaguejava no caminhar. E olhava com sofreguidão para os meus pés e via ainda com mais aflição que os bicos de meus sapatos novos estavam sujos daquela poeira impregnante, vasculhante, suja. Eu sempre gostei de sapatos. Eu sempre gostei de sapatos novos. Novos e luzidios. E eles estavam sujos. Cobertos de poeira. E a subida prosseguia inalterada. Tentava olhar para o alto e só conseguia ver os enormes joelhos de meu pai que dobravam num ritmo compassado. Via suas pernas e seus pés. E só. Sentia, lá no fundo, um desejo calado de dizer alguma coisa. De dizer-lhe que parasse. Que fosse mais devagar. Que me amparasse. Mas esse desejo era um calo na minha pequenina garganta que jamais seria curado. E eu prossegui ao extremo de meus limites. Tinha de acontecer: desamarrou o cadarço de meu sapato. A loucura do sol das duas horas parece ter se engraçado pelo meu desatino. Tudo ficou muito mais quente. Tudo ficou mais empoeirado e muito mais vermelho. O desatino me levou ao choro. Não sei se chorei ou se choraminguei. Só sei que dei índices de que eu precisava de meu pai. E ele atendeu. Voltou-se para mim e viu que estava pisando no cadarço. Que estava prestes a cair. Então me socorreu. Olhou-me nos olhos com a expressão casmurra. Levou suas enormes mãos aos meus pés e amarrou o cadarço firmemente com um intrincado nó. A cena me levou a um estado de cegueira anestésica tão intensa que sofri uma espécie de amnésia passageira. Estado de torpor. Quando dei por mim, já tinha chegado ao meu destino: cadeira do barbeiro. Alta, prepotente e giratória. Ele, o barbeiro, cabeça enorme, mãos enormes, enormes unhas, sorriso nos lábios dos quais surgiam grandes caninos. Ele portava enorme máquina que apontava em minha direção. E ouvi a voz do pai: pode tirar quase tudo! deixa só um pouco em cima! Ali, finalmente, para lembrar Rimbaud, ia se encerrar meu estágio no inferno.

(GONÇALVES, Aguinaldo. Das estampas. São Paulo: Nankin, 2013. p. 45-46.)

A campanha desse pôster, direcionada aos croatas, tem como propósito

Orientações à população são encontradas também em sites oficiais. Ao clicar no endereço eletrônico mencionado no cartaz disponível na internet, o leitor tem acesso aos(às)

O TEXTO 2, como um todo, tem por objetivo primordial mostrar:

 TEXT 1

  Houston’s Poor Neighborhoods Could Be Prime Zika Real Estate

The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned of the potential for the explosive spread of the Zika virus through the Americas. Margaret Chan, the director of the WHO, advised that the Americas could be hit by 4 million cases of Zika this year. The outbreak of Zika virus now centered in Brazil has been linked to a sudden increase in severe birth defects including microcephaly, babies born with smaller heads and brains. The National Public Radio – USA (NPR) recently reported that other neurological problems, such as babies born blind, may also be linked to Zika. Researchers do not fully understand Zika or have not yet proven causality, but the circumstantial evidence connecting the Zika outbreak to the sudden, large increase in birth defects is very strong.

Reports quoted experts who said that Zika was a low risk to the United States because the U.S. doesn’t have the poverty and high population densities that have caused the explosive spread of Zika in Brazil. However, Dr. Peter Hotez, a tropical disease researcher who lives in Texas, has warned that poverty and high population density makes Houston highly vulnerable to a Zika outbreak. He warned that the whole Mexican Gulf coast is already suffering from increasing levels of tropical diseases spread by mosquitoes, in particular dengue fever. Because Zika virus is related to dengue fever and has the same mosquito vector, the expansion of dengue in the Gulf coast region is a good indicator of the potential spread of Zika virus.

 Adapted from: <http://www.democraticunderground.com/

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 TEXT 1

  Houston’s Poor Neighborhoods Could Be Prime Zika Real Estate

The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned of the potential for the explosive spread of the Zika virus through the Americas. Margaret Chan, the director of the WHO, advised that the Americas could be hit by 4 million cases of Zika this year. The outbreak of Zika virus now centered in Brazil has been linked to a sudden increase in severe birth defects including microcephaly, babies born with smaller heads and brains. The National Public Radio – USA (NPR) recently reported that other neurological problems, such as babies born blind, may also be linked to Zika. Researchers do not fully understand Zika or have not yet proven causality, but the circumstantial evidence connecting the Zika outbreak to the sudden, large increase in birth defects is very strong.

Reports quoted experts who said that Zika was a low risk to the United States because the U.S. doesn’t have the poverty and high population densities that have caused the explosive spread of Zika in Brazil. However, Dr. Peter Hotez, a tropical disease researcher who lives in Texas, has warned that poverty and high population density makes Houston highly vulnerable to a Zika outbreak. He warned that the whole Mexican Gulf coast is already suffering from increasing levels of tropical diseases spread by mosquitoes, in particular dengue fever. Because Zika virus is related to dengue fever and has the same mosquito vector, the expansion of dengue in the Gulf coast region is a good indicator of the potential spread of Zika virus.

 Adapted from: <http://www.democraticunderground.com/

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    Poverty may hinder kids’ brain development, study says

    Reduced gray matter, lower test scores reported for poor children

July 20, 2015

    Poverty appears to affect the brain development of children, hampering the growth of gray matter and impairing their academic performance, researchers report. Poor children tend to have as much as 10 percent less gray matter in several areas of the brain associated with academic skills, according to a study published July 20 in JAMA Pediatrics. “We used to think of poverty as a ‘social’ issue, but what we are learning now is that it is a biomedical issue that is affecting brain growth,” said senior study author Seth Pollak, a professor of psychology, pediatrics, anthropology and neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

   The results could have profound implications for the United States, where low-income students now represent the majority of kids in public schools, the study authors said in background information. Fifty-one percent of public school students came from low-income families in 2013.

    Previous studies have shown that children living in poverty tend to perform poorly in school, the authors say. They have markedly lower test scores, and do not go as far in school as their well-off peers.

    To see whether this is due to some physical effect that poverty might have on a child’s brain, Pollak and his colleagues analyzed MRI scans of 389 typically developing kids aged 4 to 22, assessing the amount of gray matter in the whole brain as well as the frontal lobe, temporal lobe and hippocampus. “Gray matter contains most of the brain’s neuronal cells,” Pollak said. “In other words, other parts of the brain – like white matter – carry information from one section of the brain to another. But the gray matter is where seeing and hearing, memory, emotions, speech, decision making and self-control occur.”

    Children living below 150 percent of the federal poverty level – US$ 36,375 for a family of four – had 3 percent to 4 percent less gray matter in important regions of their brain, compared to the norm, the authors found. Those in families living below the federal poverty level fared even worse, with 8 percent to 10 percent less gray matter in those same brain regions. The federal poverty level in 2015 is US$ 24,250 for a family of four. These same kids scored an average of four to seven points lower on standardized tests, the researchers said.

    The team estimated that as much as 20 percent of the gap in test scores could be explained by reduced brain development. A host of poverty-related issues likely contribute to developmental lags in children’s brains, Pollak said. Low-income kids are less likely to get the type of stimulation from their parents and environment that helps the brain grow, he said. For example, they hear fewer new words, and have fewer opportunities to read or play games. Their brain development also can be affected by factors related to impoverishment, such as high stress levels, poor sleep, crowding and poor nutrition, Pollak said.

    This study serves as a call to action, given what’s already known about the effects of poverty on child development, said Dr. Joan Luby, a professor of child psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. “The thing that’s really important about this study in the context of the broader literature is that there really is enough scientific evidence to take public health action at this point,” said Luby, who wrote an editorial accompanying the study. “Poverty negatively affects brain development, and we also know that early interventions are powerfully effective,” Luby said. “They are more effective than interventions later in life, and they also are cost-effective.”

(www.nlm.nih.gov. Adaptado.)

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    Poverty may hinder kids’ brain development, study says

    Reduced gray matter, lower test scores reported for poor children

July 20, 2015

    Poverty appears to affect the brain development of children, hampering the growth of gray matter and impairing their academic performance, researchers report. Poor children tend to have as much as 10 percent less gray matter in several areas of the brain associated with academic skills, according to a study published July 20 in JAMA Pediatrics. “We used to think of poverty as a ‘social’ issue, but what we are learning now is that it is a biomedical issue that is affecting brain growth,” said senior study author Seth Pollak, a professor of psychology, pediatrics, anthropology and neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

   The results could have profound implications for the United States, where low-income students now represent the majority of kids in public schools, the study authors said in background information. Fifty-one percent of public school students came from low-income families in 2013.

    Previous studies have shown that children living in poverty tend to perform poorly in school, the authors say. They have markedly lower test scores, and do not go as far in school as their well-off peers.

    To see whether this is due to some physical effect that poverty might have on a child’s brain, Pollak and his colleagues analyzed MRI scans of 389 typically developing kids aged 4 to 22, assessing the amount of gray matter in the whole brain as well as the frontal lobe, temporal lobe and hippocampus. “Gray matter contains most of the brain’s neuronal cells,” Pollak said. “In other words, other parts of the brain – like white matter – carry information from one section of the brain to another. But the gray matter is where seeing and hearing, memory, emotions, speech, decision making and self-control occur.”

    Children living below 150 percent of the federal poverty level – US$ 36,375 for a family of four – had 3 percent to 4 percent less gray matter in important regions of their brain, compared to the norm, the authors found. Those in families living below the federal poverty level fared even worse, with 8 percent to 10 percent less gray matter in those same brain regions. The federal poverty level in 2015 is US$ 24,250 for a family of four. These same kids scored an average of four to seven points lower on standardized tests, the researchers said.

    The team estimated that as much as 20 percent of the gap in test scores could be explained by reduced brain development. A host of poverty-related issues likely contribute to developmental lags in children’s brains, Pollak said. Low-income kids are less likely to get the type of stimulation from their parents and environment that helps the brain grow, he said. For example, they hear fewer new words, and have fewer opportunities to read or play games. Their brain development also can be affected by factors related to impoverishment, such as high stress levels, poor sleep, crowding and poor nutrition, Pollak said.

    This study serves as a call to action, given what’s already known about the effects of poverty on child development, said Dr. Joan Luby, a professor of child psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. “The thing that’s really important about this study in the context of the broader literature is that there really is enough scientific evidence to take public health action at this point,” said Luby, who wrote an editorial accompanying the study. “Poverty negatively affects brain development, and we also know that early interventions are powerfully effective,” Luby said. “They are more effective than interventions later in life, and they also are cost-effective.”

(www.nlm.nih.gov. Adaptado.)

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Nobel winner Malala opens school for Syrian refugees

Sylvia Westall

July 13, 2015

Bekaa Valley, Lebanon

  Malala Yousafzai, the youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, celebrated her 18th birthday in Lebanon on Sunday by opening a school for Syrian refugee girls and called on world leaders to invest in “books not bullets”. Malala became a symbol of defiance after she was shot on a school bus in Pakistan in 2012 by the Taliban for advocating girls’ rights to education. She continued campaigning and won the Nobel in 2014.

   “I decided to be in Lebanon because I believe that the voices of the Syrian refugees need to be heard and they have been ignored for so long,” Malala told Reuters in a schoolroom decorated with drawings of butterflies. The Malala Fund, a non-profit organization that supports local education projects, provided most of the funding for the school, set up by Lebanon’s Kayany Foundation in the Bekaa Valley, close to the Syrian border. The Kayany Foundation, established by Syrian Nora Joumblatt in response to Syria’s refugee crisis, has already completed three other new schools to give free education to Syrian children in Lebanon. The Malala school can welcome up to 200 girls aged 14 to 18.

   “Today on my first day as an adult, on behalf of the world’s children, I demand of leaders we must invest in books instead of bullets,” Malala said in a speech. Lebanon is home to at least 1.2 million of the 4 million refugees that have fled Syria’s war to neighboring countries. There are about 500,000 Syrian school-age children in Lebanon, but only a fifth are in formal education. “We are in danger of losing generations of young Syrian girls due to the lack of education,” Joumblatt said in a speech at the opening of the school. “Desperate and displaced Syrians are increasingly seeing early marriage as a way to secure the social and financial future of their daughters. We need to provide an alternative: Keep young girls in school instead of being pressured into wedlock.”

    Lebanon, which allows informal settlements on land rented by refugees, says it can no longer cope with the influx from Syria’s four-year conflict. More than one in four people living in Lebanon is a refugee. The United Nations says the number of Syrian refugees in neighboring countries is expected to reach 4.27 million by the end of the year. “In Lebanon as well as in Jordan, an increasing number of refugees are being turned back at the border,” Malala said. “This is inhuman and this is shameful.”

    Her father Ziauddin said he was proud she was carrying on her activism into adulthood. “This is the mission we have taken for the last 8-9 years. A small moment for the education of girls in Swat Valley: it is spreading now all over the world,” he said.

(www.reuters.com. Adaptado.)