Questões de Inglês

  In 1865 Friedrich August Kekulé woke up from a strange dream: he imagined a snake forming a circle and biting its own tail. Like many organic chemists of the time, Kekulé had been working feverishly to describe the true chemical structure of benzene, a problem that continually eluded understanding. But Kekulé’s dream of a snake swallowing its tail, so the story goes, helped him to accurately realize that benzene’s structure formed a ring. This insight paved the way for a new understanding of organic chemistry and earned Kekulé a title of nobility in Germany.

  Although most of us have not been ennobled, there is something undeniably familiar about Kekulé’s problemsolving method. Whether deciding to go to a particular college, accept a challenging job offer or propose to a future spouse, “sleeping on it” seems to provide the clarity we need to piece together life’s puzzles. But how does slumber present us with answers?

  The latest research suggests that while we are peacefully asleep our brain is busily processing the day’s information. It combs through recently formed memories, stabilizing, copying and filing them, so that they will be more useful the next day. A night of sleep can make memories resistant to interference from other information and allow us to recall them for use more effectively the next morning. And sleep not only strengthens memories, it also lets the brain sift through newly formed memories, possibly even identifying what is worth keeping and selectively maintaining or enhancing these aspects of a memory. When a picture contains both emotional and unemotional elements, sleep can save the important emotional parts and let the less relevant background drift away. It can analyze collections of memories to discover relations among them or identify the gist of a memory while the unnecessary details fade—perhaps even helping us find the meaning in what we have learned.

(Scientific American Mind - August 7, 2008)

 

According to the text Friedrich August Kekulé:

Salt

  What substance is essential to life but can damage your health

if taken in excess? What has been used as money and has been

the cause of bitter warfare? What is so important to our culture

that references to it abound in every language around the globe?

[5] Nothing less than salt — that white granular seasoning found on

virtually every dining table.

  Although current nutritional advice warns against consuming

too much salt, without it we would die. In addition, salt is one

of the most effective and widely used food preservatives and its

[10] industrial uses are innumerable. Indeed, salt is vitally important to

agriculture, snow and ice control, water conditioning, the chemical

industry, metals production — to name just a few!

  Salt has a fascinating history and references to it are common

since writing began. Some 2,700 years BC the Peng-Tzao-Kan-Mu

[15] was published in China. This is probably the earliest known treatise

on pharmacology. A major portion of this writing is devoted to

a discussion of more than 40 kinds of salt. The treatise includes

descriptions of two methods of extracting salt and adapting it to a

usable form. The ancient Chinese methods for obtaining salt are

[20] amazingly similar to processes still in use today.

  Salt has also been of crucial economic importance. In some

parts of the world, salt was minted into coins and deemed to be as

valuable as gold. The ancient Greeks traded salt for slaves, giving

rise to the phrase “not worth his salt” to describe someone who

[25] is lazy or does not work hard. The beautiful Italian city of Venice

was built on revenue from the salt trade. Roman soldiers were

partially paid in the mineral known as “salarium argentum”, out

of which comes the common English word “salary”. References

to salt abound in languages around the globe, especially where

[30] salt is important to food. From the Latin “sal”, for example, come

such words for preserved foods as “sauce” and “sausage”.

Costin, Helen. Modern English Digest, 2005. v. 3, p. 8-11. (Adapted)

According to the text, the word deemed (line 22) means nearly the same as

Salt

  What substance is essential to life but can damage your health

if taken in excess? What has been used as money and has been

the cause of bitter warfare? What is so important to our culture

that references to it abound in every language around the globe?

[5] Nothing less than salt — that white granular seasoning found on

virtually every dining table.

  Although current nutritional advice warns against consuming

too much salt, without it we would die. In addition, salt is one

of the most effective and widely used food preservatives and its

[10] industrial uses are innumerable. Indeed, salt is vitally important to

agriculture, snow and ice control, water conditioning, the chemical

industry, metals production — to name just a few!

  Salt has a fascinating history and references to it are common

since writing began. Some 2,700 years BC the Peng-Tzao-Kan-Mu

[15] was published in China. This is probably the earliest known treatise

on pharmacology. A major portion of this writing is devoted to

a discussion of more than 40 kinds of salt. The treatise includes

descriptions of two methods of extracting salt and adapting it to a

usable form. The ancient Chinese methods for obtaining salt are

[20] amazingly similar to processes still in use today.

  Salt has also been of crucial economic importance. In some

parts of the world, salt was minted into coins and deemed to be as

valuable as gold. The ancient Greeks traded salt for slaves, giving

rise to the phrase “not worth his salt” to describe someone who

[25] is lazy or does not work hard. The beautiful Italian city of Venice

was built on revenue from the salt trade. Roman soldiers were

partially paid in the mineral known as “salarium argentum”, out

of which comes the common English word “salary”. References

to salt abound in languages around the globe, especially where

[30] salt is important to food. From the Latin “sal”, for example, come

such words for preserved foods as “sauce” and “sausage”.

Costin, Helen. Modern English Digest, 2005. v. 3, p. 8-11. (Adapted)

According to the text, the process to obtain salt has been

Promoting a Global Dialogue on Water

Water scarcity has been surfacing more and more as a serious

global issue in recent years. That scarcity has caused significant

business disruptions across all sectors and geographies, and with

all the associated technical, economic, political, environmental

and social implications. This reality is projected to worsen in the

future, as a result of climate change and demographics.

The UN Human Development Report 2006 stresses this

critical issue: “Better access to water and sanitation would act as

the catalyst for a giant advance in human development, creating

opportunities for gains in public health, education and economic

growth.” Experience from the climate change debate has shown

that translating awareness to specific action takes many years.

There is a major challenge in catalysing effective action on

a global level. Governments play an important role in helping to

mitigate and adapt to the challenge, but so does the private sector,

through individual company actions and through innovative

public-private partnerships.

Such partnerships can offer a useful solution. Since late 2005,

the Forum’s Water Initiative has focused on creating networks

in South Africa and India. The objective has been to catalyze

ideas for public-private water infrastructure projects and shape

them into well-developed, bankable project propositions, and

financing plans.

http://www.weforum.org/en/initiatives/water/GlobalDialogue/index.htm Access: july, 2008. (Adapted) 

The organization of this text is in the form of

Promoting a Global Dialogue on Water

Water scarcity has been surfacing more and more as a serious

global issue in recent years. That scarcity has caused significant

business disruptions across all sectors and geographies, and with

all the associated technical, economic, political, environmental

and social implications. This reality is projected to worsen in the

future, as a result of climate change and demographics.

The UN Human Development Report 2006 stresses this

critical issue: “Better access to water and sanitation would act as

the catalyst for a giant advance in human development, creating

opportunities for gains in public health, education and economic

growth.” Experience from the climate change debate has shown

that translating awareness to specific action takes many years.

There is a major challenge in catalysing effective action on

a global level. Governments play an important role in helping to

mitigate and adapt to the challenge, but so does the private sector,

through individual company actions and through innovative

public-private partnerships.

Such partnerships can offer a useful solution. Since late 2005,

the Forum’s Water Initiative has focused on creating networks

in South Africa and India. The objective has been to catalyze

ideas for public-private water infrastructure projects and shape

them into well-developed, bankable project propositions, and

financing plans.

http://www.weforum.org/en/initiatives/water/GlobalDialogue/index.htm Access: july, 2008. (Adapted) 

According to the text, we CANNOT say that water scarcity, worldwide,

Heroism: why heroes are important

 

The term “hero” comes from the ancient Greeks. For

them, a hero was a mortal who had done something

so far beyond the normal scope of human experience

that he left an immortal memory behind him when

[5]  he died, and thus received worship like that due to

the gods. But people who had committed unthinkable

crimes were also called heroes. Originally, heroes

were not necessarily good, but they were always

extraordinary; to be a hero was to expand people’s

[10]  sense of what was possible for a human being.

Today, it is much harder to detach the concept of

heroism from morality; we only call heroes those whom

we admire and wish to emulate. But still the concept

retains that original link to possibility. We need heroes

[15]  first and foremost because our heroes help define the

limits of our aspirations. We largely define our ideals

by the heroes we choose, and our ideals – things like

courage, honor and justice – largely define us. Our

heroes are symbols for us of all the qualities we would

[20]  like to possess and all the ambitions we would like

to satisfy. A person who chooses Martin Luther King

as a hero is going to have a very different sense of

what human excellence involves than someone who

chooses, say, Madonna.

[25]  That is why it is so important for us as a society,

globally and locally, to try to shape these choices. Of 

course, this is a perennial moral issue, but it is clear

that the greatest obstacle to the appreciation and

adoption of heroes in our society is pervasive and

[30]  corrosive cynicism and skepticism. This obstacle of

cynicism has been seriously increased by scandals

like the steroids mess in sports competitions and by

our leaders’ opportunistic use of heroic imagery for

short term political gain.

[35]  The best antidote to this cynicism is realism about the

limits of human nature. We are cynical because so often

our ideals have been betrayed. We need to separate

out the things that make our heroes noteworthy, and

forgive the shortcomings that blemish their heroic

[40]  perfection. The false steps and frailties of heroic

people make them more like us, and since most of us

are not particularly heroic, that may seem to reduce

the heroes’ stature. But this pulls in the other direction

as well: these magnificent spirits, these noble souls,

[45]  amazingly, they are like us, they are human too.

Again, the critical moral contribution of heroes is the

expansion of our sense of possibility. Heroes can help

us lift our eyes a little higher to build more boldly

and beautifully than others, and we may all benefit

[50]  by their examples. And Heaven knows we need those

examples now. 

SCOTT LABARGE www.scu.edu 

The author claims that skepticism is an obstacle to the adoption of heroes.
The reason for this is best expressed in the following fragment: