Questões de Inglês

“Isolation”, “consolidation” and “self-reliance” are different

terms used among Moscow´s political and business elite to

mean the same thing. In the face of international sanctions

occasioned by its support of the rebels in eastern Ukraine and its

[5]  earlier annexation of Crimea, Russia is preparing to pull inward

and face a long period of diplomatic antagonism and economic

hardship. That process appears to be accelerating. On August

6th the Kremlin responded to Western pressure by announcing

that it will ban agricultural import from countries imposing

[10]  sanctions on Russia.

By increasing his support of the rebels last month, Mr. Putin

has shown that he values his own understanding of Russia´s

historic destiny more than the economic well-being of his

country and its global reputation. He is making a risky bet that

[15]  challenging the architecture of the post-cold-war order will reap

its own rewards and compensate for a drop in living standards.

Despite the crisis, such problems have not yet hurt Mr. Putin.

Indeed he is more popular than ever and his propaganda

apparatus is proving to be highly effective.

[20]  Mr. Putin may be sending in Russian troops on the pretence

of a “humanitarian” operation. According to NATO, 20,000

Russian soldiers have amassed at the Ukrainian border. Even if

troops do not cross the border, the confrontation between

Russia and the West looks set to continue through the rule of

[25]  President Vladimir Putin and, perhaps, beyond.

(from How to Lose Friends in THE ECONOMIST, August 9th 2014)

“Isolation”, “consolidation” and “self-reliance” are different

terms used among Moscow´s political and business elite to

mean the same thing. In the face of international sanctions

occasioned by its support of the rebels in eastern Ukraine and its

[5]  earlier annexation of Crimea, Russia is preparing to pull inward

and face a long period of diplomatic antagonism and economic

hardship. That process appears to be accelerating. On August

6th the Kremlin responded to Western pressure by announcing

that it will ban agricultural import from countries imposing

[10]  sanctions on Russia.

By increasing his support of the rebels last month, Mr. Putin

has shown that he values his own understanding of Russia´s

historic destiny more than the economic well-being of his

country and its global reputation. He is making a risky bet that

[15]  challenging the architecture of the post-cold-war order will reap

its own rewards and compensate for a drop in living standards.

Despite the crisis, such problems have not yet hurt Mr. Putin.

Indeed he is more popular than ever and his propaganda

apparatus is proving to be highly effective.

[20]  Mr. Putin may be sending in Russian troops on the pretence

of a “humanitarian” operation. According to NATO, 20,000

Russian soldiers have amassed at the Ukrainian border. Even if

troops do not cross the border, the confrontation between

Russia and the West looks set to continue through the rule of

[25]  President Vladimir Putin and, perhaps, beyond.

(from How to Lose Friends in THE ECONOMIST, August 9th 2014)

From earliest childhood, Ned Lawrence knew that his family

was different, in some unspoken way, from other families, and

that he was not at all like his four brothers. Such tough

beginnings can either inhibit a personality or stimulate its

[5]  growth. As is well explained in “The Young T.E. Lawrence”, a

quirky but rigorous biographical study by Anthony Sattin, a

British travel-writer, the man best known as Lawrence of Arabia

fell firmly in the second category.

Other books about Lawrence, and a famous film, present

[10]  him as a hero of the first world war who rallied the Arabs to rise

against the Ottoman empire, guided them to great victories and

lobbied for the Arab cause, with disappointing results, in post –

war negotiations. Mr. Sattin, whose book came out in Britain

last October and is only now being published in America, looks

[15]  instead at Lawrence´s life before that: growing up and studying

in Oxford, then excelling as an archaeologist in Syria and

Palestine.

As a middle-class boy growing up in Oxford at the turn of

the 20th century, young Lawrence was secretive as well as

[20]  inquisitive, skeptical of received truths, easily bored by mentors

but passionate about medieval history. Piecing together clues

was something he learned early. He knew there was something

odd about his parents´ relationship but could not divine what;

only later did he learn that, scandalously for those times, they

[25]  had never married. His father was an Anglo-Irish baronet who

had left his legal wife for Lawrence´s mother, a governess.

His letters from teenage cycling trips round France

contained lots of information about castles, but only

intermittent signs of real feelings. The same might be said of

[30]  the letters he wrote from the Levant. As a result, posterity

is still guessing about what was probably the most important

relationship in Lawrence´s life: an Arab youth, Dahoum, who

was just 13 or 14 when they met. If Lawrence ever gave a full

account of his friendship with Dahoum, it may have been in the

[35]  memoirs he burned in august 1914.

Mr. Sattin avoids adding to the speculation about the exact

nature of this friendship, but he is defensive about it. “There

was more than paternal care; there was love,” he writes. Like

their subject matter, biographers have to be diggers and

[40]  restorers, sifting a mass of evidence and gluing the bits

together. But these bits never quite constitute a whole,

comprehensible human being; much about Lawrence remains

an enigma because he wanted it that way.

(from Books and Arts in THE ECONOMIST, February 14th – 20th 2015)

From earliest childhood, Ned Lawrence knew that his family

was different, in some unspoken way, from other families, and

that he was not at all like his four brothers. Such tough

beginnings can either inhibit a personality or stimulate its

[5]  growth. As is well explained in “The Young T.E. Lawrence”, a

quirky but rigorous biographical study by Anthony Sattin, a

British travel-writer, the man best known as Lawrence of Arabia

fell firmly in the second category.

Other books about Lawrence, and a famous film, present

[10]  him as a hero of the first world war who rallied the Arabs to rise

against the Ottoman empire, guided them to great victories and

lobbied for the Arab cause, with disappointing results, in post –

war negotiations. Mr. Sattin, whose book came out in Britain

last October and is only now being published in America, looks

[15]  instead at Lawrence´s life before that: growing up and studying

in Oxford, then excelling as an archaeologist in Syria and

Palestine.

As a middle-class boy growing up in Oxford at the turn of

the 20th century, young Lawrence was secretive as well as

[20]  inquisitive, skeptical of received truths, easily bored by mentors

but passionate about medieval history. Piecing together clues

was something he learned early. He knew there was something

odd about his parents´ relationship but could not divine what;

only later did he learn that, scandalously for those times, they

[25]  had never married. His father was an Anglo-Irish baronet who

had left his legal wife for Lawrence´s mother, a governess.

His letters from teenage cycling trips round France

contained lots of information about castles, but only

intermittent signs of real feelings. The same might be said of

[30]  the letters he wrote from the Levant. As a result, posterity

is still guessing about what was probably the most important

relationship in Lawrence´s life: an Arab youth, Dahoum, who

was just 13 or 14 when they met. If Lawrence ever gave a full

account of his friendship with Dahoum, it may have been in the

[35]  memoirs he burned in august 1914.

Mr. Sattin avoids adding to the speculation about the exact

nature of this friendship, but he is defensive about it. “There

was more than paternal care; there was love,” he writes. Like

their subject matter, biographers have to be diggers and

[40]  restorers, sifting a mass of evidence and gluing the bits

together. But these bits never quite constitute a whole,

comprehensible human being; much about Lawrence remains

an enigma because he wanted it that way.

(from Books and Arts in THE ECONOMIST, February 14th – 20th 2015)

From earliest childhood, Ned Lawrence knew that his family

was different, in some unspoken way, from other families, and

that he was not at all like his four brothers. Such tough

beginnings can either inhibit a personality or stimulate its

[5]  growth. As is well explained in “The Young T.E. Lawrence”, a

quirky but rigorous biographical study by Anthony Sattin, a

British travel-writer, the man best known as Lawrence of Arabia

fell firmly in the second category.

Other books about Lawrence, and a famous film, present

[10]  him as a hero of the first world war who rallied the Arabs to rise

against the Ottoman empire, guided them to great victories and

lobbied for the Arab cause, with disappointing results, in post –

war negotiations. Mr. Sattin, whose book came out in Britain

last October and is only now being published in America, looks

[15]  instead at Lawrence´s life before that: growing up and studying

in Oxford, then excelling as an archaeologist in Syria and

Palestine.

As a middle-class boy growing up in Oxford at the turn of

the 20th century, young Lawrence was secretive as well as

[20]  inquisitive, skeptical of received truths, easily bored by mentors

but passionate about medieval history. Piecing together clues

was something he learned early. He knew there was something

odd about his parents´ relationship but could not divine what;

only later did he learn that, scandalously for those times, they

[25]  had never married. His father was an Anglo-Irish baronet who

had left his legal wife for Lawrence´s mother, a governess.

His letters from teenage cycling trips round France

contained lots of information about castles, but only

intermittent signs of real feelings. The same might be said of

[30]  the letters he wrote from the Levant. As a result, posterity

is still guessing about what was probably the most important

relationship in Lawrence´s life: an Arab youth, Dahoum, who

was just 13 or 14 when they met. If Lawrence ever gave a full

account of his friendship with Dahoum, it may have been in the

[35]  memoirs he burned in august 1914.

Mr. Sattin avoids adding to the speculation about the exact

nature of this friendship, but he is defensive about it. “There

was more than paternal care; there was love,” he writes. Like

their subject matter, biographers have to be diggers and

[40]  restorers, sifting a mass of evidence and gluing the bits

together. But these bits never quite constitute a whole,

comprehensible human being; much about Lawrence remains

an enigma because he wanted it that way.

(from Books and Arts in THE ECONOMIST, February 14th – 20th 2015)

From earliest childhood, Ned Lawrence knew that his family

was different, in some unspoken way, from other families, and

that he was not at all like his four brothers. Such tough

beginnings can either inhibit a personality or stimulate its

[5]  growth. As is well explained in “The Young T.E. Lawrence”, a

quirky but rigorous biographical study by Anthony Sattin, a

British travel-writer, the man best known as Lawrence of Arabia

fell firmly in the second category.

Other books about Lawrence, and a famous film, present

[10]  him as a hero of the first world war who rallied the Arabs to rise

against the Ottoman empire, guided them to great victories and

lobbied for the Arab cause, with disappointing results, in post –

war negotiations. Mr. Sattin, whose book came out in Britain

last October and is only now being published in America, looks

[15]  instead at Lawrence´s life before that: growing up and studying

in Oxford, then excelling as an archaeologist in Syria and

Palestine.

As a middle-class boy growing up in Oxford at the turn of

the 20th century, young Lawrence was secretive as well as

[20]  inquisitive, skeptical of received truths, easily bored by mentors

but passionate about medieval history. Piecing together clues

was something he learned early. He knew there was something

odd about his parents´ relationship but could not divine what;

only later did he learn that, scandalously for those times, they

[25]  had never married. His father was an Anglo-Irish baronet who

had left his legal wife for Lawrence´s mother, a governess.

His letters from teenage cycling trips round France

contained lots of information about castles, but only

intermittent signs of real feelings. The same might be said of

[30]  the letters he wrote from the Levant. As a result, posterity

is still guessing about what was probably the most important

relationship in Lawrence´s life: an Arab youth, Dahoum, who

was just 13 or 14 when they met. If Lawrence ever gave a full

account of his friendship with Dahoum, it may have been in the

[35]  memoirs he burned in august 1914.

Mr. Sattin avoids adding to the speculation about the exact

nature of this friendship, but he is defensive about it. “There

was more than paternal care; there was love,” he writes. Like

their subject matter, biographers have to be diggers and

[40]  restorers, sifting a mass of evidence and gluing the bits

together. But these bits never quite constitute a whole,

comprehensible human being; much about Lawrence remains

an enigma because he wanted it that way.

(from Books and Arts in THE ECONOMIST, February 14th – 20th 2015)