Questões de Inglês

Read the text below and answer question.

Will we ever grow replacement hands?

Over the past few weeks on the BBC News website we have looked at the potential for bionic body parts and artificial organs to repair the human body. Now we take a look at "growing-your-own".

There is a pressing need. A shortage of available organs means many die on waiting lists and those that get an organ must spend a lifetime on immunosuppressant drugs to avoid rejection.

The idea is that using a patient's own stem cells to grow new body parts avoids the whole issue of rejection as well as waiting for a donor.

Dr Anthony Atala, director of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in North Carolina, US, has made breakthroughs in building bladders and urethras.

• Flat structures, such as the skin, are the simplest to engineer as they are generally made up of just the one type of cell.

• Tubes, such as blood vessels and urethras, which have two types of cells and act as a conduit.

• Hollow non-tubular organs like the bladder and the stomach, which have more complex structures and functions.

• Solid organs, such as the kidney, heart and liver, are the most complex to engineer. They are exponentially more complex, have many different cell types, and more challenges in the blood supply.

"We've been able to implant the first three in humans. We don't have any examples yet of solid organs in humans because its much more complex," Dr Atala told the BBC.

Adapted from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-16679010 June 2012.

INSTRUCTION: Answer question in relation to text.

TEXT

Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful

    At work, as in life, attractive women get a lot of
the breaks. Studies have shown that they are more
likely to be promoted than their plain-Jane colleagues.
Because people tend to project positive traits onto
[5] them, such as sensitivity and poise, they may also
be at an advantage in job interviews. But research
by two Israelis suggests otherwise.
    These researchers looked at what happens
when job hunters include photos with their curricula
[10] vitae (CV), as is the norm in much of Europe and
Asia. They sent fictional applications to over 2,500
real-life vacancies. For each job they sent two very
similar résumés, one with a photo, one without. For
men, the results were as expected. Hunks were more
[15] likely to be called for an interview if they included a
photo. Ugly men were better off not including one.
However, for women this was reversed. Attractive
females were less likely to be offered an interview if
they included their photo.
[20]    At first they considered that people assume
beautiful women to be stupid. However, the photos
had also been rated on how intelligent people
thought each subject looked; there was no correlation
between perceived intellect and physical beauty. So
[25] the cause of the discrimination must lie elsewhere.
Human Resource (HR) departments tend to be staffed
mostly by women. Indeed, 93% of those tasked with
selecting whom to invite for an interview were female.
The researchers unavoidable – and unpalatable
[30] – conclusion is that old-fashioned jealousy led the
women to discriminate against pretty candidates.

(Source: The Economist – Mar 31st 2012, adapted)

INSTRUCTION: Answer question in relation to text.

TEXT

Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful

    At work, as in life, attractive women get a lot of
the breaks. Studies have shown that they are more
likely to be promoted than their plain-Jane colleagues.
Because people tend to project positive traits onto
[5] them, such as sensitivity and poise, they may also
be at an advantage in job interviews. But research
by two Israelis suggests otherwise.
    These researchers looked at what happens
when job hunters include photos with their curricula
[10] vitae (CV), as is the norm in much of Europe and
Asia. They sent fictional applications to over 2,500
real-life vacancies. For each job they sent two very
similar résumés, one with a photo, one without. For
men, the results were as expected. Hunks were more
[15] likely to be called for an interview if they included a
photo. Ugly men were better off not including one.
However, for women this was reversed. Attractive
females were less likely to be offered an interview if
they included their photo.
[20]    At first they considered that people assume
beautiful women to be stupid. However, the photos
had also been rated on how intelligent people
thought each subject looked; there was no correlation
between perceived intellect and physical beauty. So
[25] the cause of the discrimination must lie elsewhere.
Human Resource (HR) departments tend to be staffed
mostly by women. Indeed, 93% of those tasked with
selecting whom to invite for an interview were female.
The researchers unavoidable – and unpalatable
[30] – conclusion is that old-fashioned jealousy led the
women to discriminate against pretty candidates.

(Source: The Economist – Mar 31st 2012, adapted)

INSTRUCTION: Answer question in relation to text.

TEXT

Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful

    At work, as in life, attractive women get a lot of
the breaks. Studies have shown that they are more
likely to be promoted than their plain-Jane colleagues.
Because people tend to project positive traits onto
[5] them, such as sensitivity and poise, they may also
be at an advantage in job interviews. But research
by two Israelis suggests otherwise.
    These researchers looked at what happens
when job hunters include photos with their curricula
[10] vitae (CV), as is the norm in much of Europe and
Asia. They sent fictional applications to over 2,500
real-life vacancies. For each job they sent two very
similar résumés, one with a photo, one without. For
men, the results were as expected. Hunks were more
[15] likely to be called for an interview if they included a
photo. Ugly men were better off not including one.
However, for women this was reversed. Attractive
females were less likely to be offered an interview if
they included their photo.
[20]    At first they considered that people assume
beautiful women to be stupid. However, the photos
had also been rated on how intelligent people
thought each subject looked; there was no correlation
between perceived intellect and physical beauty. So
[25] the cause of the discrimination must lie elsewhere.
Human Resource (HR) departments tend to be staffed
mostly by women. Indeed, 93% of those tasked with
selecting whom to invite for an interview were female.
The researchers unavoidable – and unpalatable
[30] – conclusion is that old-fashioned jealousy led the
women to discriminate against pretty candidates.

(Source: The Economist – Mar 31st 2012, adapted)

INSTRUCTION: Answer question about text.

TEXT

    One stereotype of wisdom is a wizened Zen-master
smiling benevolently at the antics of his pupils, while
referring to them as little grasshoppers, safe in the
knowledge that one day they, too, will have been set
[5] on the path that leads to wizened masterhood. ______
A study two years ago in North America, by Igor
Grossmann of the University of Waterloo, in Canada,
suggested that it is. In as much as it is possible to
quantify wisdom, Dr. Grossmann found that elderly
[10] Americans had more of it than youngsters. Now he
has extended his investigation to Asia – the land of
the wizened Zen-master – and, in particular, to Japan.
There, he found, in contrast to the West, that the
grasshoppers are their masters’ equals almost from
[15] the beginning.
    Dr. Grossmann’s study, just published in
Psychological Science, recruited 186 Japanese from
various walks of life and compared them with 225
Americans. Participants were asked to read a series of
[20] pretend newspaper articles and then asked “What do
you think will happen after that?” The responses were
scored on a scale of one to three, to capture the degree
to which they discussed what psychologists consider
five crucial aspects of wise reasoning: willingness to
[25] seek opportunities to resolve conflict; willingness to
search for compromise; recognition of the limits of
personal knowledge; awareness that more than one
perspective on a problem can exist; and appreciation
of the fact that things may get worse before they get
[30] better.
    Taken at face value, these results suggest
Japanese learn wisdom faster than Americans.
Generally, America is seen as an individualistic society,
whereas Japan is quite collectivist. Yet Japanese
[35] have higher scores than Americans for the sort of
interpersonal wisdom you might think would be useful
in an individualistic society. Americans, by contrast – at
least in the maturity of old age – have more intergroup
wisdom than the purportedly collectivist Japanese.
[40] Perhaps, then, you need individual skills when society
is collective, and social ones when it is individualistic.

(Source: The Economist. Internet site April 11, 2012)

Glossary:

wizened (adj) old and with a lot of wrinkles on the skin. E.g. a wizened old man.

antics (noun) behavior that is funny or silly in an enjoyable way.

pretend (adj) imaginary. E.g. The kids are passing around pretend cookies.

INSTRUCTION: Answer question about text.

TEXT

    One stereotype of wisdom is a wizened Zen-master
smiling benevolently at the antics of his pupils, while
referring to them as little grasshoppers, safe in the
knowledge that one day they, too, will have been set
[5] on the path that leads to wizened masterhood. ______
A study two years ago in North America, by Igor
Grossmann of the University of Waterloo, in Canada,
suggested that it is. In as much as it is possible to
quantify wisdom, Dr. Grossmann found that elderly
[10] Americans had more of it than youngsters. Now he
has extended his investigation to Asia – the land of
the wizened Zen-master – and, in particular, to Japan.
There, he found, in contrast to the West, that the
grasshoppers are their masters’ equals almost from
[15] the beginning.
    Dr. Grossmann’s study, just published in
Psychological Science, recruited 186 Japanese from
various walks of life and compared them with 225
Americans. Participants were asked to read a series of
[20] pretend newspaper articles and then asked “What do
you think will happen after that?” The responses were
scored on a scale of one to three, to capture the degree
to which they discussed what psychologists consider
five crucial aspects of wise reasoning: willingness to
[25] seek opportunities to resolve conflict; willingness to
search for compromise; recognition of the limits of
personal knowledge; awareness that more than one
perspective on a problem can exist; and appreciation
of the fact that things may get worse before they get
[30] better.
    Taken at face value, these results suggest
Japanese learn wisdom faster than Americans.
Generally, America is seen as an individualistic society,
whereas Japan is quite collectivist. Yet Japanese
[35] have higher scores than Americans for the sort of
interpersonal wisdom you might think would be useful
in an individualistic society. Americans, by contrast – at
least in the maturity of old age – have more intergroup
wisdom than the purportedly collectivist Japanese.
[40] Perhaps, then, you need individual skills when society
is collective, and social ones when it is individualistic.

(Source: The Economist. Internet site April 11, 2012)

Glossary:

wizened (adj) old and with a lot of wrinkles on the skin. E.g. a wizened old man.

antics (noun) behavior that is funny or silly in an enjoyable way.

pretend (adj) imaginary. E.g. The kids are passing around pretend cookies.