Questões de Inglês

Men in the 21st century
John Edmonson defends modern man´s role in society

    1.° Back in the 1980´s everyone was talking about the “new man”. Every magazine was full of pictures of him holding babies and saucepans, and we were told that no self-respecting modern man would expect his wife to do all the childcare or housework. So, we didn´t. The division of domestic labour changed and men got in touch with their feminine side. Or at least that´s what I thought.

    2.° However, read any of the articles written today on the subject and anyone would think that men haven´t changed since the beginning of time. No one seems to think the division of labour has really improved and apparently we´re supposed to feel guilty about it. But all of my married friends are new men compared to their father´s generation. They don´t expect their wives to do everything for them and they all spend quality time with their kids.
    3.° I´ve got two older brothers and both of them do most of the cooking for their families, as well as being the main breadwinners. Neither of them spend hours in the pub with their friends watching football. And I don´t think either of my brothers want the lifestyle our father´s generation had – certainly none of my friends do. However, no newspaper reports that. Instead we get surveys such as the one quoted in The Guardian saying that on an average day in Britain, men only spend 13 minutes caring for their children, 45 minutes cooking and doing housework, but three hours watching TV.
    4.° It´s hard to find anything that shows men in a positive light these days. And each time I read about how selfish and unhelpful men are, my blood boils! In fact, I´ve read two articles on the subject recently, and each article suggests that all women are capable of being the breadwinner as well as running the home – apparently men aren´t necessary anymore! Would a woman tell a man that when she needed a tyre changed or when there was a burglar climbing through her window at four in the morning? I think not!
(Face2face, Upper intermediate, p. 80, Cambridge University Press, 2007)

ORGANIC FOOD: WHY?
    A recent survey by a leading market research company found that 82% of UK consumers want a return to traditional farming, even if it means paying more for food. Today, many illnesses are laid at the feet of conventional farming. BSE (mad-cow disease), foot-and-mouth, pollution, obesity and the disappearance of many birds have all been blamed on modern agriculture. And governments across Europe are keen to show they care. They are increasingly willing to be seen as promoting not conventional farming methods, but the new age version: organic. Europe is now the biggest market for organic food in the world, expanding by 25% a year over the past 10 years. The German agriculture minister wants to make 20% of German agriculture organic by 2010, and Denmark´s agriculture minister is herself an organic farmer.
    Organic farming is often claimed to be safer than conventional farming – for the environment, for our children and for us. Yet, after lengthy and ongoing research worldwide, science continues to reject this claim. The UK´s cross-party House of Commons committee on agriculture announced that, despite exhaustive investigation, it had failed to find any scientific evidence to prove that any of the many claims made for organic farming are always invariably true.
    The notion that organic food is safer than “normal” food is contradicted by the fact that many of our most common foods are full of natural toxins. Yet, educated Europeans are more scared of eating traces of a few, strictly regulated, man-made chemicals than they are of eating the ones that nature created directly. Why? For most of human history the more artificial and elaborate your diet, the better; when dominating nature was a constant battle, it was a sign of cultured living. The ancient Romans distinguished between foods not as proteins versus carbohydrates, or even meat versus vegetables, but as cultivated versus wild. Farmed animals were a more civilized food than game. Wine and bread, because they were created by man, were symbols of cultured living – only barbarians ate wild plants.
    Today, Europeans, surrounded by plentiful food, fear not nature, but science. Our obsession with the ethics and safety of what we eat with antibiotics in animals, additives, genetically modified foods, and so on – are symptomatic of a highly technological society that has lost faith in its ability to put technology to a positive end. In this context, the less touched by human hand something is, the more virtue we see in it.
    A dominant contemporary fear is that we are wrecking nature. This is the real significance of the survey. It is not a vote of positive support for “traditional” or organic farming – about which most of us are blissfully ignorant – but rather a vote against human intervention in the countryside.
(Adapted from: Solutions, Upper-Intermediate, Oxford, 2009, p. 80)

ORGANIC FOOD: WHY?
    A recent survey by a leading market research company found that 82% of UK consumers want a return to traditional farming, even if it means paying more for food. Today, many illnesses are laid at the feet of conventional farming. BSE (mad-cow disease), foot-and-mouth, pollution, obesity and the disappearance of many birds have all been blamed on modern agriculture. And governments across Europe are keen to show they care. They are increasingly willing to be seen as promoting not conventional farming methods, but the new age version: organic. Europe is now the biggest market for organic food in the world, expanding by 25% a year over the past 10 years. The German agriculture minister wants to make 20% of German agriculture organic by 2010, and Denmark´s agriculture minister is herself an organic farmer.
    Organic farming is often claimed to be safer than conventional farming – for the environment, for our children and for us. Yet, after lengthy and ongoing research worldwide, science continues to reject this claim. The UK´s cross-party House of Commons committee on agriculture announced that, despite exhaustive investigation, it had failed to find any scientific evidence to prove that any of the many claims made for organic farming are always invariably true.
    The notion that organic food is safer than “normal” food is contradicted by the fact that many of our most common foods are full of natural toxins. Yet, educated Europeans are more scared of eating traces of a few, strictly regulated, man-made chemicals than they are of eating the ones that nature created directly. Why? For most of human history the more artificial and elaborate your diet, the better; when dominating nature was a constant battle, it was a sign of cultured living. The ancient Romans distinguished between foods not as proteins versus carbohydrates, or even meat versus vegetables, but as cultivated versus wild. Farmed animals were a more civilized food than game. Wine and bread, because they were created by man, were symbols of cultured living – only barbarians ate wild plants.
    Today, Europeans, surrounded by plentiful food, fear not nature, but science. Our obsession with the ethics and safety of what we eat with antibiotics in animals, additives, genetically modified foods, and so on – are symptomatic of a highly technological society that has lost faith in its ability to put technology to a positive end. In this context, the less touched by human hand something is, the more virtue we see in it.
    A dominant contemporary fear is that we are wrecking nature. This is the real significance of the survey. It is not a vote of positive support for “traditional” or organic farming – about which most of us are blissfully ignorant – but rather a vote against human intervention in the countryside.
(Adapted from: Solutions, Upper-Intermediate, Oxford, 2009, p. 80)

ORGANIC FOOD: WHY?
    A recent survey by a leading market research company found that 82% of UK consumers want a return to traditional farming, even if it means paying more for food. Today, many illnesses are laid at the feet of conventional farming. BSE (mad-cow disease), foot-and-mouth, pollution, obesity and the disappearance of many birds have all been blamed on modern agriculture. And governments across Europe are keen to show they care. They are increasingly willing to be seen as promoting not conventional farming methods, but the new age version: organic. Europe is now the biggest market for organic food in the world, expanding by 25% a year over the past 10 years. The German agriculture minister wants to make 20% of German agriculture organic by 2010, and Denmark´s agriculture minister is herself an organic farmer.
    Organic farming is often claimed to be safer than conventional farming – for the environment, for our children and for us. Yet, after lengthy and ongoing research worldwide, science continues to reject this claim. The UK´s cross-party House of Commons committee on agriculture announced that, despite exhaustive investigation, it had failed to find any scientific evidence to prove that any of the many claims made for organic farming are always invariably true.
    The notion that organic food is safer than “normal” food is contradicted by the fact that many of our most common foods are full of natural toxins. Yet, educated Europeans are more scared of eating traces of a few, strictly regulated, man-made chemicals than they are of eating the ones that nature created directly. Why? For most of human history the more artificial and elaborate your diet, the better; when dominating nature was a constant battle, it was a sign of cultured living. The ancient Romans distinguished between foods not as proteins versus carbohydrates, or even meat versus vegetables, but as cultivated versus wild. Farmed animals were a more civilized food than game. Wine and bread, because they were created by man, were symbols of cultured living – only barbarians ate wild plants.
    Today, Europeans, surrounded by plentiful food, fear not nature, but science. Our obsession with the ethics and safety of what we eat with antibiotics in animals, additives, genetically modified foods, and so on – are symptomatic of a highly technological society that has lost faith in its ability to put technology to a positive end. In this context, the less touched by human hand something is, the more virtue we see in it.
    A dominant contemporary fear is that we are wrecking nature. This is the real significance of the survey. It is not a vote of positive support for “traditional” or organic farming – about which most of us are blissfully ignorant – but rather a vote against human intervention in the countryside.
(Adapted from: Solutions, Upper-Intermediate, Oxford, 2009, p. 80)

ORGANIC FOOD: WHY?
    A recent survey by a leading market research company found that 82% of UK consumers want a return to traditional farming, even if it means paying more for food. Today, many illnesses are laid at the feet of conventional farming. BSE (mad-cow disease), foot-and-mouth, pollution, obesity and the disappearance of many birds have all been blamed on modern agriculture. And governments across Europe are keen to show they care. They are increasingly willing to be seen as promoting not conventional farming methods, but the new age version: organic. Europe is now the biggest market for organic food in the world, expanding by 25% a year over the past 10 years. The German agriculture minister wants to make 20% of German agriculture organic by 2010, and Denmark´s agriculture minister is herself an organic farmer.
    Organic farming is often claimed to be safer than conventional farming – for the environment, for our children and for us. Yet, after lengthy and ongoing research worldwide, science continues to reject this claim. The UK´s cross-party House of Commons committee on agriculture announced that, despite exhaustive investigation, it had failed to find any scientific evidence to prove that any of the many claims made for organic farming are always invariably true.
    The notion that organic food is safer than “normal” food is contradicted by the fact that many of our most common foods are full of natural toxins. Yet, educated Europeans are more scared of eating traces of a few, strictly regulated, man-made chemicals than they are of eating the ones that nature created directly. Why? For most of human history the more artificial and elaborate your diet, the better; when dominating nature was a constant battle, it was a sign of cultured living. The ancient Romans distinguished between foods not as proteins versus carbohydrates, or even meat versus vegetables, but as cultivated versus wild. Farmed animals were a more civilized food than game. Wine and bread, because they were created by man, were symbols of cultured living – only barbarians ate wild plants.
    Today, Europeans, surrounded by plentiful food, fear not nature, but science. Our obsession with the ethics and safety of what we eat with antibiotics in animals, additives, genetically modified foods, and so on – are symptomatic of a highly technological society that has lost faith in its ability to put technology to a positive end. In this context, the less touched by human hand something is, the more virtue we see in it.
    A dominant contemporary fear is that we are wrecking nature. This is the real significance of the survey. It is not a vote of positive support for “traditional” or organic farming – about which most of us are blissfully ignorant – but rather a vote against human intervention in the countryside.
(Adapted from: Solutions, Upper-Intermediate, Oxford, 2009, p. 80)

Brazilian medical council condemns plan to bring in

6,000 Cuban doctors

Published by The Guardian (The text below has been slightly modified to better suit the exam)

1. Brazil plans to hire 6,000 Cuban doctors to serve in remote parts of the country where medical services are deficient or nonexistent, despite controversy over the quality of their training.
2. The Brazilian foreign minister, Antonio Patriota, said negotiations were under way involving the Washington-based Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) to allow the Cuban doctors to practice in Brazil.

3. Brazilian medical associations have opposed Cuban-trained doctors practicing in their country, arguing that standards at Cuba's medical schools are lower than in Brazil and equivalent in some cases to a nursing education.
4. Over the past decade Cuba's communist government has sent 30,000 doctors to work in poor neighbourhoods of Venezuela, Havana's closest political ally in Latin America, under an agreement reached with the late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez that involved an exchange of medical services for cheap oil.
5. The Cubans are expected to be sent to poor corners of the northeast of Brazil and the Amazon jungle, where Brazilian doctors are reluctant to serve.
6. "Cuba is very proficient in the areas of medicine, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology and Brazil is considering receiving Cuban doctors in talks that involve PAHO," Patriota said at a news conference with the Cuban foreign minister, Bruno Rodríguez.
7. The Federal Council of Medicine, a body that represents doctors in Brazil, said the proposal was "irresponsible" as the Cuban doctors' "technical and ethical quality was in doubt". It issued a statement demanding foreign doctors be recertified in Brazil before being allowed to practice.
8. Patriota said the plan would strengthen ties between Havana and Brasília that have expanded since the leftist Worker's party came to power a decade ago.
9. He said Brazil would pay for the modernisation of five airports in Cuba, where Brazilian construction conglomerate Odebrecht is already building a container terminal at the port of Mariel.
10. On Monday, Brazil's trade minister Fernando Pimentel signed an agreement in Havana setting conditions for a $176m (£113m) loan from its giant development bank BNDES to upgrade and expand the airports of Havana, Santa Clara, Holguín, Cayo Coco and Cayo Largo.