Questões de Inglês do ENEM

Instrução: Leia a história em quadrinhos de Archie, What goes up, para responder a questão.

 

(Tales from…Riverdale. Archie Comic Publications, dezembro de 2006.)

Qual o significado, na história, dos termos cable bill, a good time e report card, respectivamente ?

     So a scientist walks into a shopping mall to watch people laugh. There’s no punchline. Laughter is a serious scientific subject, one that researchers are still trying to figure out. Laughing is primal, our first way of communicating. Apes laugh. So do dogs and rats. Babies laugh long before they speak. No one teaches you how to laugh. You just do. And often you laugh involuntarily, in a specific rhythm and in certain spots in conversation.
    You may laugh at a prank on April Fools’ Day. But surprisingly,  only 10 to 15 percent of laughter is the result of someone making a joke, said Baltimore neuroscientist Robert Provine, who has studied laughter for decades. Laughter is mostly about social responses rather than reaction to a joke. “Laughter above all else is a social thing,’’ Provine said. “The requirement for laughter is another person.’’  
    Over the years, Provine, a professor with the University of Maryland Baltimore County, has boiled laughter down to its basics. “All language groups laugh ‘ha-ha-ha’ basically the same way,’’ he said. “Whether you speak Mandarin, French or English, everyone will understand laughter. ... There’s a pattern generator in our brain that produces this sound.’’
    Each “ha’’ is about one-15th of a second, repeated every fifth of a second, he said. Laugh faster or slower than that and it sounds more like panting or something else. Deaf people laugh without hearing, and people on cell phones laugh without seeing, illustrating that laughter isn’t dependent on a single sense but on social interactions, said Provine, author of the book “Laughter: A Scientific Investigation.’’   
    “It’s joy, it’s positive engagement with life,’’ said Jaak Panksepp, a Bowling Green University psychology professor. “It’s deeply social.’’ And it’s not just a people thing either. Chimps tickle each other and even laugh when another chimp pretends to tickle them. By studying rats, Panksepp and other scientists can figure out what’s going on in the brain during laughter. And it holds promise for human ills.
    Northwestern biomedical engineering professor Jeffrey Burgdorf has found that laughter in rats produces an insulin-like growth factor chemical that acts as an antidepressant and anxietyreducer. He thinks the same thing probably happens in humans, too. This would give doctors a new chemical target in the brain in their effort to develop drugs that fight depression and anxiety in people. Even so, laughter itself hasn’t been proven to be the best medicine, experts said.

     So a scientist walks into a shopping mall to watch people laugh. There’s no punchline. Laughter is a serious scientific subject, one that researchers are still trying to figure out. Laughing is primal, our first way of communicating. Apes laugh. So do dogs and rats. Babies laugh long before they speak. No one teaches you how to laugh. You just do. And often you laugh involuntarily, in a specific rhythm and in certain spots in conversation.
    You may laugh at a prank on April Fools’ Day. But surprisingly,  only 10 to 15 percent of laughter is the result of someone making a joke, said Baltimore neuroscientist Robert Provine, who has studied laughter for decades. Laughter is mostly about social responses rather than reaction to a joke. “Laughter above all else is a social thing,’’ Provine said. “The requirement for laughter is another person.’’  
    Over the years, Provine, a professor with the University of Maryland Baltimore County, has boiled laughter down to its basics. “All language groups laugh ‘ha-ha-ha’ basically the same way,’’ he said. “Whether you speak Mandarin, French or English, everyone will understand laughter. ... There’s a pattern generator in our brain that produces this sound.’’
    Each “ha’’ is about one-15th of a second, repeated every fifth of a second, he said. Laugh faster or slower than that and it sounds more like panting or something else. Deaf people laugh without hearing, and people on cell phones laugh without seeing, illustrating that laughter isn’t dependent on a single sense but on social interactions, said Provine, author of the book “Laughter: A Scientific Investigation.’’   
    “It’s joy, it’s positive engagement with life,’’ said Jaak Panksepp, a Bowling Green University psychology professor. “It’s deeply social.’’ And it’s not just a people thing either. Chimps tickle each other and even laugh when another chimp pretends to tickle them. By studying rats, Panksepp and other scientists can figure out what’s going on in the brain during laughter. And it holds promise for human ills.
    Northwestern biomedical engineering professor Jeffrey Burgdorf has found that laughter in rats produces an insulin-like growth factor chemical that acts as an antidepressant and anxietyreducer. He thinks the same thing probably happens in humans, too. This would give doctors a new chemical target in the brain in their effort to develop drugs that fight depression and anxiety in people. Even so, laughter itself hasn’t been proven to be the best medicine, experts said.

 Instrução: Leia o texto para responder às questões de números 31 a 39.

               Brazil: the natural knowledge economy
Kirsten Bound – THE ATLAS OF IDEAS

    If you grew up in Europe or North America you will no doubt have been taught in school that the Wright Brothers from Ohio invented and flew the first aeroplane – the Kitty Hawk – in 1903. But if you grew up in Brazil you will have been taught that the real inventor was in fact a Brazilian from Minas Gerais called
Alberto Santos Dumont, whose 14-bis aeroplane took to the skies in 1906. This fierce historical debate, which turns on definitions of ‘practical airplanes’, the ability to launch unaided, length of time spent in the air and the credibility of witnesses, will not be resolved here. Yet it is a striking example of the lack of global recognition for Brazil’s achievements in innovation.
    Almost a century later, in 2005, Santos Dumont’s intellectual heirs, the company Empresa Brasileira de Aeronáutica (EMBRAER), made aviation history of a different kind when they unveiled the Ipanema, the world’s first commercially produced aircraft to run solely on biofuels. This time, the world
was watching. Scientific American credited it as one of the most important inventions of the year. The attention paid to the Ipanema reflects the growing interest in biofuels as a potential solution to climate change and rising energy demand. To their advocates, biofuels – most commonly bioethanol or biodiesel – offer a more secure, sustainable energy supply that can reduce carbon emissions by 50–60 per cent compared to fossil fuels.
      From learning to fly to learning to cope with the environmental costs of flight, biofuel innovations like the Ipanema reflect some of the tensions of modern science, in which expanding the frontiers of human ingenuity goes hand in hand with managing the consequences. The recent backlash against biofuels, which has seen them blamed for global food shortages as land is reportedly diverted from food crops, points to a growing interdependence between the science and innovation systems of different countries, and between innovation, economics and environmental sustainability.
    The debates now raging over biofuels reflect some of the wider dynamics in Brazil’s innovation system. They remind us that Brazil’s current strengths and achievements have deeper historical roots than is sometimes imagined. They reflect the fact that Brazil’s natural resources and assets are a key area of opportunity for science and innovation – a focus that leads us to characterise Brazil as a ‘natural knowledge economy’. Most importantly, they highlight the propitious timing of Brazil’s growing strength in these areas at a time when climate change, the environment, food scarcity and rising worldwide energy demand are at the forefront of global consciousness. What changed between the maiden flight of the 14-bis and the maiden flight of the Ipanema is not just Brazil’s capacity for technological and scientific innovation, but the rest of the world’s appreciation of the potential of that innovation to address some of the pressing challenges that confront us all.

 Instrução: Leia o texto para responder às questões de números 31 a 39.

               Brazil: the natural knowledge economy
Kirsten Bound – THE ATLAS OF IDEAS

    If you grew up in Europe or North America you will no doubt have been taught in school that the Wright Brothers from Ohio invented and flew the first aeroplane – the Kitty Hawk – in 1903. But if you grew up in Brazil you will have been taught that the real inventor was in fact a Brazilian from Minas Gerais called
Alberto Santos Dumont, whose 14-bis aeroplane took to the skies in 1906. This fierce historical debate, which turns on definitions of ‘practical airplanes’, the ability to launch unaided, length of time spent in the air and the credibility of witnesses, will not be resolved here. Yet it is a striking example of the lack of global recognition for Brazil’s achievements in innovation.
    Almost a century later, in 2005, Santos Dumont’s intellectual heirs, the company Empresa Brasileira de Aeronáutica (EMBRAER), made aviation history of a different kind when they unveiled the Ipanema, the world’s first commercially produced aircraft to run solely on biofuels. This time, the world
was watching. Scientific American credited it as one of the most important inventions of the year. The attention paid to the Ipanema reflects the growing interest in biofuels as a potential solution to climate change and rising energy demand. To their advocates, biofuels – most commonly bioethanol or biodiesel – offer a more secure, sustainable energy supply that can reduce carbon emissions by 50–60 per cent compared to fossil fuels.
      From learning to fly to learning to cope with the environmental costs of flight, biofuel innovations like the Ipanema reflect some of the tensions of modern science, in which expanding the frontiers of human ingenuity goes hand in hand with managing the consequences. The recent backlash against biofuels, which has seen them blamed for global food shortages as land is reportedly diverted from food crops, points to a growing interdependence between the science and innovation systems of different countries, and between innovation, economics and environmental sustainability.
    The debates now raging over biofuels reflect some of the wider dynamics in Brazil’s innovation system. They remind us that Brazil’s current strengths and achievements have deeper historical roots than is sometimes imagined. They reflect the fact that Brazil’s natural resources and assets are a key area of opportunity for science and innovation – a focus that leads us to characterise Brazil as a ‘natural knowledge economy’. Most importantly, they highlight the propitious timing of Brazil’s growing strength in these areas at a time when climate change, the environment, food scarcity and rising worldwide energy demand are at the forefront of global consciousness. What changed between the maiden flight of the 14-bis and the maiden flight of the Ipanema is not just Brazil’s capacity for technological and scientific innovation, but the rest of the world’s appreciation of the potential of that innovation to address some of the pressing challenges that confront us all.

 Instrução: Leia o texto para responder às questões de números 31 a 39.

               Brazil: the natural knowledge economy
Kirsten Bound – THE ATLAS OF IDEAS

    If you grew up in Europe or North America you will no doubt have been taught in school that the Wright Brothers from Ohio invented and flew the first aeroplane – the Kitty Hawk – in 1903. But if you grew up in Brazil you will have been taught that the real inventor was in fact a Brazilian from Minas Gerais called
Alberto Santos Dumont, whose 14-bis aeroplane took to the skies in 1906. This fierce historical debate, which turns on definitions of ‘practical airplanes’, the ability to launch unaided, length of time spent in the air and the credibility of witnesses, will not be resolved here. Yet it is a striking example of the lack of global recognition for Brazil’s achievements in innovation.
    Almost a century later, in 2005, Santos Dumont’s intellectual heirs, the company Empresa Brasileira de Aeronáutica (EMBRAER), made aviation history of a different kind when they unveiled the Ipanema, the world’s first commercially produced aircraft to run solely on biofuels. This time, the world
was watching. Scientific American credited it as one of the most important inventions of the year. The attention paid to the Ipanema reflects the growing interest in biofuels as a potential solution to climate change and rising energy demand. To their advocates, biofuels – most commonly bioethanol or biodiesel – offer a more secure, sustainable energy supply that can reduce carbon emissions by 50–60 per cent compared to fossil fuels.
      From learning to fly to learning to cope with the environmental costs of flight, biofuel innovations like the Ipanema reflect some of the tensions of modern science, in which expanding the frontiers of human ingenuity goes hand in hand with managing the consequences. The recent backlash against biofuels, which has seen them blamed for global food shortages as land is reportedly diverted from food crops, points to a growing interdependence between the science and innovation systems of different countries, and between innovation, economics and environmental sustainability.
    The debates now raging over biofuels reflect some of the wider dynamics in Brazil’s innovation system. They remind us that Brazil’s current strengths and achievements have deeper historical roots than is sometimes imagined. They reflect the fact that Brazil’s natural resources and assets are a key area of opportunity for science and innovation – a focus that leads us to characterise Brazil as a ‘natural knowledge economy’. Most importantly, they highlight the propitious timing of Brazil’s growing strength in these areas at a time when climate change, the environment, food scarcity and rising worldwide energy demand are at the forefront of global consciousness. What changed between the maiden flight of the 14-bis and the maiden flight of the Ipanema is not just Brazil’s capacity for technological and scientific innovation, but the rest of the world’s appreciation of the potential of that innovation to address some of the pressing challenges that confront us all.

By Peter Kornbluh

“For the better part of two years, a group of editors, journalism students, and human rights lawyers in Santiago, Chile, have been gathering evidence against their country’s leading media mogul, Agustín Edwards, to, at minimum, have him expelled from the press guild, the Academy of Chilean Journalists. The editor of the leftist magazine Puncto Final, Manuel Cabieses, has filed a formal petition accusing Edwards of violating the academy’s code of ethics by conspiring with the Nixon White House and the CIA between 1970 and 1973 to foment the military coup that overthrew the elected government of Salvador Allende and brought General Augusto Pinochet to power, thirty years ago this month. ‘Doonie’, as Edwards is known to his closest friends, is the patriarch of the press – a Chilean Rupert Murdoch. His media empire encompasses Chile’s renowned national newspaper, El Mercurio, a second national paper, Ultimas Noticias, and Santiago’s leading afternoon paper, La Segunda, along with a dozen smaller regional journals. In September 1970, when Chileans narrowly elected Allende, a Socialist, to the presidency, Edwards was widely considered to be the richest man in Chile – and the individual with the most to lose financially from Allende’s election.

The ethics charges against Edwards are likely to receive a boost from a careful analysis of formerly secret U.S. documents that shed considerable new light on CIA covert media operations in Chile. Since 1975, when a special congressional committee chaired by Idaho Senator Frank Church issued its report, Covert Action in Chile: 1963-1973, it has been no secret that the CIA provided significant funding to El Mercurio, put reporters and editors on its payroll, and used the paper, in the committee’s words, as ‘the most important channel for anti-Allende propaganda.’ But with the declassification of thousands of CIA and White House records at the end of Clinton administration, the history of the ‘El Mercurio Project’ emerges in far greater detail. Among the key revelations in the documents:

• Even before Allende was inaugurated as president of Chile, Edwards came to Washington and discussed with the CIA the ‘timing for possible military action’ to prevent Allende from taking office. • President Nixon directly authorized massive funding in the newspaper. The White House approve close to $2 million dollars – a significant sum when turned into Chilean currency on the black market.

• Secret CIA cables from mid-1973 identified El Mercurio as among the ‘most militant parts of the opposition’ pushing for military intervention to overthrow Allende.

• In the aftermath of the coup, the CIA continued to covertly finance media operations in order to influence Chilean public opinion in favor of the new military regime, despite General Pinochet’s brutal repression.”

From: KORNBLUH, Peter. “The El Mercurio File”. Columbia Journalism Review. New York, p.14-15, September/October 2007.

In the third square, the sentence Neither means that:

Anna Smajdor, an ethicist at the University of East Anglia, claims that people’s control over their reproductive choices will be dramatically altered if sperm and eggs can be created from stray skin cells. A woman could, for example, pick up a bit of bodily detritus from a prominent man, take it to a laboratory and give birth to his genetic child. Smajdor says that what has been termed ‘reprogrammable biology’ gives us the capacity to make cells act in new ways, blurring what we mean by an egg or sperm or even embryo. She points out that the boundaries between these categories have become very fluid, with the development of techniques that allow us to alter their genetic make-up or prompt them to behave in new ways. This raises very perplexing questions about ethics, law and regulation.

    Most religions would welcome ways of giving infertile men and women a possibility to produce sperm and eggs, although they might object if making gametes involved destroying human embryos. Research into the reproductive process has triggered debates among scientists about how far human reproduction should be altered. All agree that men should be capable of producing eggs: the fact that men have an X chromosome, like women, should make it possible. Thus, male gay couples could, with the help of a surrogate mother, have their own biological baby. But things are more complicated when it comes to women becoming fathers: some scientists believe that the Y (male) chromosome is so important to sperm that attempts to use female cells will be doomed. But on one point, everyone can agree: for women to father children and men to make eggs would be as significant a breakthrough as the birth of the first test tube baby 30 years ago.

Adapted from The Daily Telegraph, February 12th, 2008

    One reason growth forecasts for rich nations are so grim is the common assumption that birth rates are falling. Fewer people will produce less income, and shrinking economies. Only the assumption of aging populations may be wrong, according to a recent report by Goldman Sachs that looks at key demographic trends for the 21st century.

    Since bottoming out in 2001, fertility rates in a number of developed economies have actually been on the rise. Among rich economies, the jump is most pronounced in places like the United Kingdom, France, Spain, and the U.S. Larger immigrant populations in these nations have something to do with this, as they tend to have more children. Yet the effect is only short term, as migrants adopt the fertility rates of their new homes within a generation or so.

    Goldman’s new analysis shows that another reason for the unexpected jump, and one that will play a bigger role in the future, is that women in rich countries have been having children later and later in life, something that traditional economic models don’t account for. Standard estimates of fertility are still tabulated assuming that most women are having children in their early 20s, rather than late 20s or even 30s and 40s, as has become more common in rich countries with lots of women in the workforce. “In parts of Europe (this method of calculation) has probably understated true fertility by about 15 to 20 percent,” notes Goldman Sachs economist Peter Berezin.

    Those are big numbers, with potentially very significant ramifications. For starters, it could be that some of the problems faced by aging nations with shrinking tax bases (like, for example, overblown health-care spending, crumbling infrastructure, and budget shortfalls) may not be quite as bad as once envisioned. In fact, there is some evidence to suggest that we may soon start seeing mini baby booms, which, in 20 years or so, could have a significant impact on the size of rich nations’ workforces, a shift that can’t come too soon for countries now struggling with unprecedented levels of national debt. Another bright spot – recent surveys by Eurobarometer show that European women between the ages of 25 and 39 want to have more children, if only it were easier to find a better work-life balance. Note to European leaders: stop worrying about the effects of immigration and start creating better-paid part-time work.

Newsweek, September 28, 2009