Questões de Inglês

Read the text below and answer the question.

What is Philosophy for?

From a distance, philosophy seems weird, irrelevant, boring – and yet also just a little intriguing. But what are philosophers really for? The answer is helpfully already contained in the word ‘philosophy’ itself: in Ancient Greek, philo means love and sophia means wisdom. Philosophers are people who are devoted to wisdom. Being wise means attempting to live – and die – well. In the pursuit of wisdom, philosophers have developed a very specific skill set: they have over the centuries become experts in many of the things that make people not very wise. Five stand out:
1. We don’t ask big questions
There are lots of big questions around: What’s the meaning of life? What’s a job for? How should society be arranged? Most of us entertain them every now and then. But we despair of trying to answer them. They have the status almost of jokes. We call them pretentious, but they matter deeply, because only with sound answers to them, can we direct our energies meaningfully. Philosophers are people unafraid of asking big questions. They have over the centuries asked the very largest. They realise that these questions can always be broken down into more manageable chunks, and that the only really pretentious thing is to think one’s above raising naive-sounding inquiries.
2. We are vulnerable to errors of common sense
Public opinion, or what gets called ‘common sense’, is sensible and reasonable in countless areas. It’s what you hear about from friends and neighbours – the stuff you take in without even thinking about it. But common sense is often also full of daftness and error. Philosophy gets us to admit all aspects of common sense to reason. It wants us to think for ourselves. Is it really true what people say about love, money, children, travel, work? Philosophers are interested in asking whether an idea is logical, rather than assuming it must be right because it’s popular and long established.
3. We are mentally confused
We are not very good at knowing what goes on in our own minds. Someone we meet is very annoying, but we can’t pin down what the issue is, or we lose our temper but we can’t readily tell what we’re so cross about. We lack insights into our own satisfactions and dislikes. That’s why we need to examine our own minds. Philosophy is committed to self-knowledge and it’s central precept, articulated by the earliest, greatest philosopher Socrates, is just two words long: know yourself.
4. We have muddled ideas about what makes us happy
We’re not very good at making ourselves happy. We overrate the power of some things to improve our lives and underrate others. We make the wrong choices because, guided by advertising and false glamour, we keep on imagining that a particular kind of holiday or car or computer will make a bigger difference than it can. At the same time, we underestimate the contribution of other things, like going for a walk, which may have little prestige but which can contribute deeply to the character of existence. Philosophers seek to be wise by getting more precise about the activities and attitudes that really can help our lives to go better.
5. We panic and lose perspective
Philosophers are good at keeping a sense of what really matters and what doesn’t. On hearing the news that he’d lost all his possessions to a shipwreck, the Stoic philosopher Zeno simple said, ‘fortune commands me to be a less encumbered philosopher’. It’s responses like these that have made the very term ‘philosophical’ a byword for calm, long-term thinking and strength of mind. In short, for perspective.

The wisdom of philosophy is in modern times mostly delivered in the form of books. But, in the past, philosophers sat in market squares and discussed their ideas with shopkeepers or went into government offices and palaces to give advice. It wasn’t abnormal to have a philosopher on your payroll. Philosophy was thought of as a normal, basic activity, rather than as an esoteric, optional extra. Nowadays, it’s not so much that we overtly deny this thought, but we just don’t have the right institutions set up to promulgate wisdom coherently in the world. In the future, though, when the value of philosophy is a little clearer, we can expect to meet more philosophers in daily life. They won’t be locked up, living mainly in university departments, because the points at which our unwisdom bites and messes up our lives are multiple and urgently need attention right now.

Adapted from the website The Philosopher’s Mail. http://thephilosophersmail.com. Access: September, 2018.

Choose the alternative that is INCORRECT about the meaning of philosophy and the role of the philosopher, in a wide perspective:

Read the text below and answer the question

What Is Lost When a Museum Vanishes? In Brazil, a Nation’s Story
By Michael Kimmelman

Ash is still blowing through the park surrounding Brazil’s National Museum, which continues to tally its losses. According to the deputy director at the museum, a 200-year-old Rio de Janeiro institution, the fire that burned down much of the building two weeks ago may have consumed 90 percent of the collection.

That’s thousands, maybe millions, of objects — incomprehensible numbers.

It’s always easier to think in smaller terms, specific examples. The museum preserved documentation of indigenous languages for which there are no longer any living native speakers, as The New York Times has reported. Every one of those records apparently went up in smoke, taking with it a culture, a civilization, the story of a life, a chapter of us.

Because that’s what museums like the National Museum ultimately do. They piece together the narrative of who we are, where we come from, where we belong — in the universe, on this planet, as nations, communities, individuals.
(…)
But during recent years, residents have watched government officials funnel billions toward the Olympics, the World Cup and projects like Santiago Calatrava’s Museum of Tomorrow, ignoring public services and bedrock institutions like the National Museum, whose cash-starved curators, even before the fire, became so desperate that they took to crowdsourcing funds to repair tattered displays.

Writing in the newspaper El País, Washington Fajardo, an architect and planner from Rio, described Brazil as “a happy prisoner of modernity.” His point: The country’s political and business leaders, grasping and reckless, have fixated on projecting Brazil as a global front-runner and neglected the country’s cultural patrimony.
(…)

Adapted version from The New York Times, September, 2018.

In the text, Washington Fajardo, an architect in Rio, asserts that:

Read the text below and answer the question

What Is Lost When a Museum Vanishes? In Brazil, a Nation’s Story
By Michael Kimmelman

Ash is still blowing through the park surrounding Brazil’s National Museum, which continues to tally its losses. According to the deputy director at the museum, a 200-year-old Rio de Janeiro institution, the fire that burned down much of the building two weeks ago may have consumed 90 percent of the collection.

That’s thousands, maybe millions, of objects — incomprehensible numbers.

It’s always easier to think in smaller terms, specific examples. The museum preserved documentation of indigenous languages for which there are no longer any living native speakers, as The New York Times has reported. Every one of those records apparently went up in smoke, taking with it a culture, a civilization, the story of a life, a chapter of us.

Because that’s what museums like the National Museum ultimately do. They piece together the narrative of who we are, where we come from, where we belong — in the universe, on this planet, as nations, communities, individuals.
(…)
But during recent years, residents have watched government officials funnel billions toward the Olympics, the World Cup and projects like Santiago Calatrava’s Museum of Tomorrow, ignoring public services and bedrock institutions like the National Museum, whose cash-starved curators, even before the fire, became so desperate that they took to crowdsourcing funds to repair tattered displays.

Writing in the newspaper El País, Washington Fajardo, an architect and planner from Rio, described Brazil as “a happy prisoner of modernity.” His point: The country’s political and business leaders, grasping and reckless, have fixated on projecting Brazil as a global front-runner and neglected the country’s cultural patrimony.
(…)

Adapted version from The New York Times, September, 2018.

According to the text, select the alternative that is INCORRECT:

Read the text before answering the question:

 

    Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen (an excerpt)

 

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.
However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.

(...)

”Do not you want to know who has taken it?’’ cried his wife impatiently.
“You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it.’’
“Why, my dear, you must know, Mrs. Long says that Netherfield is taken by a young man of large fortune from the north of England (...)
“What is his name?’’
“Bingley.’’
“Is he married or single?’’
“Oh! single, my dear, to be sure! A single man of large fortune; four or five thousand a year. What a fine thing for our girls!’’
“How so? how can it affect them?’’
“My dear Mr. Bennet,’’ replied his wife, “how can you be so tiresome! You must know that I am thinking of his marrying one of them.’’
“Mr. Bennet, how can you abuse your own children in such way? You take delight in vexing me. You have no compassion on my poor nerves.’’
“You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these twenty years at least.’’
“Ah! you do not know what I suffer.’’
“But I hope you will get over it, and live to see many young men of four thousand a year come into the neighbourhood.’’
“It will be no use to us if twenty such should come, since you will not visit them.’’
“Depend upon it, my dear, that when there are twenty I will visit them all.’’
Mr. Bennet was so odd a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humour, reserve, and caprice, that the experience of three and twenty years had been insufficient to make his wife understand his character. Her mind was less difficult to develop. She was a woman of mean understanding, little information, and uncertain temper. When she was discontented, she fancied herself nervous. The business of her life was to get her daughters married; its solace was visiting and news.

From: AUSTEN, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. https://www.janeausten.org/pride-and-prejudice/chapter-1.asp

The meaning of the word “odd” is:

Read the text before answering the question:

 

    Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen (an excerpt)

 

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.
However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.

(...)

”Do not you want to know who has taken it?’’ cried his wife impatiently.
“You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it.’’
“Why, my dear, you must know, Mrs. Long says that Netherfield is taken by a young man of large fortune from the north of England (...)
“What is his name?’’
“Bingley.’’
“Is he married or single?’’
“Oh! single, my dear, to be sure! A single man of large fortune; four or five thousand a year. What a fine thing for our girls!’’
“How so? how can it affect them?’’
“My dear Mr. Bennet,’’ replied his wife, “how can you be so tiresome! You must know that I am thinking of his marrying one of them.’’
“Mr. Bennet, how can you abuse your own children in such way? You take delight in vexing me. You have no compassion on my poor nerves.’’
“You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these twenty years at least.’’
“Ah! you do not know what I suffer.’’
“But I hope you will get over it, and live to see many young men of four thousand a year come into the neighbourhood.’’
“It will be no use to us if twenty such should come, since you will not visit them.’’
“Depend upon it, my dear, that when there are twenty I will visit them all.’’
Mr. Bennet was so odd a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humour, reserve, and caprice, that the experience of three and twenty years had been insufficient to make his wife understand his character. Her mind was less difficult to develop. She was a woman of mean understanding, little information, and uncertain temper. When she was discontented, she fancied herself nervous. The business of her life was to get her daughters married; its solace was visiting and news.

From: AUSTEN, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. https://www.janeausten.org/pride-and-prejudice/chapter-1.asp

According to the text, it would be INCORRECT to say that:

Look at this old advertisement and answer the question – The word anybody used in the advertisement can be substituted by: