Questões de Inglês

Text 1

What is Distance Learning and Why Is It So Important?

1 Distance learning – any form of remote education where the student is not physically present for the lesson – is booming thanks to the power of the Internet. In fact, there are a number of advantages of learning remotely over even traditional teaching models. As the Internet blurs the line between near and far, distance learning is set to disrupt the current paradigm of education.

2 Historically, distance learning described correspondence courses in which students would communicate with their schools or teachers by mail. More recently, distance education has moved online to include a huge range of systems and methods on practically any connected device.

3 Distance education is clearly different from regular education in terms of a student or teacher‘s physical presence. For the most part, it translates into increased freedom for both learners and educators, but it also requires higher degrees of discipline and planning to successfully complete the course of study.

4 The enhanced freedom of remote learning is most clearly seen in the fact that students can choose courses that fit their schedules and resources. (Teachers can do the same.) And in the case of digital learning, students can also choose the location and teaching styles that best suit their needs.

5 Remote education is certainly not a magic bullet and there will always be a place for in-class learning. At the same time, distance learning still has a lot of untapped potential to reach students where they are and connect educators and learners in new ways. From increased flexibility to new learning styles, it seems that the future of learning will be as diverse in time and place as it will be in thought.

Disponível em: https://www.viewsonic.com/library/education/what-is-distance-learning-and-why-is-it-so-important/. Texto adaptado. Acesso em: 20 set. 2020.

Text 1

What is Distance Learning and Why Is It So Important?

1 Distance learning – any form of remote education where the student is not physically present for the lesson – is booming thanks to the power of the Internet. In fact, there are a number of advantages of learning remotely over even traditional teaching models. As the Internet blurs the line between near and far, distance learning is set to disrupt the current paradigm of education.

2 Historically, distance learning described correspondence courses in which students would communicate with their schools or teachers by mail. More recently, distance education has moved online to include a huge range of systems and methods on practically any connected device.

3 Distance education is clearly different from regular education in terms of a student or teacher‘s physical presence. For the most part, it translates into increased freedom for both learners and educators, but it also requires higher degrees of discipline and planning to successfully complete the course of study.

4 The enhanced freedom of remote learning is most clearly seen in the fact that students can choose courses that fit their schedules and resources. (Teachers can do the same.) And in the case of digital learning, students can also choose the location and teaching styles that best suit their needs.

5 Remote education is certainly not a magic bullet and there will always be a place for in-class learning. At the same time, distance learning still has a lot of untapped potential to reach students where they are and connect educators and learners in new ways. From increased flexibility to new learning styles, it seems that the future of learning will be as diverse in time and place as it will be in thought.

Disponível em: https://www.viewsonic.com/library/education/what-is-distance-learning-and-why-is-it-so-important/. Texto adaptado. Acesso em: 20 set. 2020.

Leia o texto para responder à questão abaixo.

Underwater noise pollution could damage crucial ocean plants

    Under the Mediterranean Sea lie meadows of Posidonia oceanica, a native seagrass species. It might not look like it’s doing much — just swaying back and forth with the current — but seagrass absorbs carbon dioxide, emits oxygen, protects coasts from erosion and provides habitat for fish.
    But a new threat to seagrass beds has been detected:
underwater noise pollution caused by humans. A team of European scientists reported in the journal Communications Biology that when P. oceanica is exposed to noise, organs in the plant that store energy and detect gravity are destroyed, adding to concern for this already-threatened species.
    Anthropogenic underwater noise is “a big concern,” said Nicola Quick, a marine biologist at Duke University, who was not involved in the study. There certainly have been natural subaquatic sounds from earthquakes and heavy rain, as well as from marine organisms, but humans have been adding noise to the soundscape from activities such as shipping, oil and gas extractions, and renewable energy development.
    Despite P. oceanica’s seeming accessibility, it took the team six months to obtain the authorization needed to collect the protected species. After successfully acquiring the permits, the team collected 84 seagrass plants. They placed the samples in experimental tanks and played sounds with changing frequency from 50 to 400 Hz — the range that covers the noise generated by human activities. The noise level was around 157 dB underwater, equivalent to roughly 95 dB in the air, somewhere between a bass drum and a subway train.
    The team discovered that two hours of noise exposure damaged a plant organ responsible for detecting gravity, meaning noise could affect the plant’s capacity to stay rooted. Moreover, the number of starch grains inside the organ decreased, which could affect the seagrass’s ability to store energy. The starch grains continued to disappear even after the noise stopped.

(Karen Kwon. www.discovermagazine.com, 08.07.2021. Adaptado.)

A questão abaixo se referem ao texto a seguir:

Stretch my legs, Doc!

    Swee Jing paid more money that most Chinese people earn in a year to have both her legs broken and stretched. The pretty college graduate is now lying in a hospital bed, clearly still in pain, after the doctors sawed through the flesh and bone of both legs in eight places. Each leg now has eight steel rods sticking out of it below the knee and these are connected to a steel cage surrounding each leg. Once the broken bones start to heal the doctors will begin to turn the screws on the cage pushing the steel rods apart and so stretching the leg. It is a slow and painful process that will take 18 months to add 8cm to Swee Jing's height.

    Despite the agony, the cost and the inconvenience, the 23-year-old says she does not regret a thing. "It hurts, but it will be worth it to be taller. I'll have more opportunities in life and a better chance of finding a good job and husband."

    Her parents, who financed the operation and are now at her bedside, agree. "It's an investment in our daughter's future. Because she was short, she used to lack confidence, but this should change that."

    Kong Jing-wen is one of a growing number of perfectly healthy Chinese young men and women who are willing to have their legs broken in order to rise up the ladder in height-conscious China.

    In part, the popularity of such surgery can be explained by the surge of interest in fashion and beauty in a country where things like fashion magazines and beauty contests used to be banned. The once closed society is now more open to western influences and the relatively prosperous middle classes have the money to explore cosmetic possibilities. Shops and magazines in the cities show endless images of long-legged western models, inevitably putting pressure on young women.

    There are also domestic pressures. Height is listed among the criteria required on job advertisements. To get a post in the foreign ministry, for instance, male applicants need not bother applying unless they are at least 5ft 7in, while women must be at least 5ft 3in. Chinese diplomats are expected to be tall to match the height of their foreign counterparts.

    For more glamorous positions the conditions are even tougher: air stewardesses have to be over 5ft 5in. But height discrimination is evident even at ground level: in some places, people under 5ft 3in are not even eligible to take a driving test. To get into many law schools, women students need to be over 5ft 1in and men over 5ft 5in. Height requirements are also frequently mentioned in the personal ads of newspapers and magazines.

    Even successful operations can bring pain several months after the initial operation. "During the final weeks of the stretching, I was in so much discomfort that I couldn't sleep at night," says one young woman from Beijing who gave her name as Susan. The 27-year-old is in hospital recovering from an operation to remove the steel rods that have been inside her legs for the past 18 months. Each leg now bears eight circular scars, each half an inch in diameter.

    Now that she is 8cm taller than before, Susan says she would not hesitate to recommend the procedure to her friends. "It hurt at first and had a big impact on my life for a long time because I couldn't walk freely. But it has worked, and I feel very good about that. Before, nobody paid any attention to me because I was short, but now they'll look at me."

Fonte: https://www.fullspate.digitalcounterrevolution.co.uk/english-articlesadvanced/. Acessado no dia 29 de julho de 2021

A questão abaixo se referem ao texto a seguir:

Stretch my legs, Doc!

    Swee Jing paid more money that most Chinese people earn in a year to have both her legs broken and stretched. The pretty college graduate is now lying in a hospital bed, clearly still in pain, after the doctors sawed through the flesh and bone of both legs in eight places. Each leg now has eight steel rods sticking out of it below the knee and these are connected to a steel cage surrounding each leg. Once the broken bones start to heal the doctors will begin to turn the screws on the cage pushing the steel rods apart and so stretching the leg. It is a slow and painful process that will take 18 months to add 8cm to Swee Jing's height.

    Despite the agony, the cost and the inconvenience, the 23-year-old says she does not regret a thing. "It hurts, but it will be worth it to be taller. I'll have more opportunities in life and a better chance of finding a good job and husband."

    Her parents, who financed the operation and are now at her bedside, agree. "It's an investment in our daughter's future. Because she was short, she used to lack confidence, but this should change that."

    Kong Jing-wen is one of a growing number of perfectly healthy Chinese young men and women who are willing to have their legs broken in order to rise up the ladder in height-conscious China.

    In part, the popularity of such surgery can be explained by the surge of interest in fashion and beauty in a country where things like fashion magazines and beauty contests used to be banned. The once closed society is now more open to western influences and the relatively prosperous middle classes have the money to explore cosmetic possibilities. Shops and magazines in the cities show endless images of long-legged western models, inevitably putting pressure on young women.

    There are also domestic pressures. Height is listed among the criteria required on job advertisements. To get a post in the foreign ministry, for instance, male applicants need not bother applying unless they are at least 5ft 7in, while women must be at least 5ft 3in. Chinese diplomats are expected to be tall to match the height of their foreign counterparts.

    For more glamorous positions the conditions are even tougher: air stewardesses have to be over 5ft 5in. But height discrimination is evident even at ground level: in some places, people under 5ft 3in are not even eligible to take a driving test. To get into many law schools, women students need to be over 5ft 1in and men over 5ft 5in. Height requirements are also frequently mentioned in the personal ads of newspapers and magazines.

    Even successful operations can bring pain several months after the initial operation. "During the final weeks of the stretching, I was in so much discomfort that I couldn't sleep at night," says one young woman from Beijing who gave her name as Susan. The 27-year-old is in hospital recovering from an operation to remove the steel rods that have been inside her legs for the past 18 months. Each leg now bears eight circular scars, each half an inch in diameter.

    Now that she is 8cm taller than before, Susan says she would not hesitate to recommend the procedure to her friends. "It hurt at first and had a big impact on my life for a long time because I couldn't walk freely. But it has worked, and I feel very good about that. Before, nobody paid any attention to me because I was short, but now they'll look at me."

Fonte: https://www.fullspate.digitalcounterrevolution.co.uk/english-articlesadvanced/. Acessado no dia 29 de julho de 2021

Some European doctors think Chinese medicine should come with a health warning

    One of the basic principles of Traditional Chinese Medicine, as it is usually defined, is that vital energy, or
qi, circulates through channels in the body which connect to various organs and functions. TCM therapies,
such as cupping, acupuncture or herbal treatments, seek to activate these channels, or balance someone's
qi.
[5]   Though the methods have been in use for hundreds of years, critics argue that there is no verifiable
scientific evidence that qi actually exists.
    While the TCM industry is worth an estimated $130 billion in China alone – and the country's leaders have
thrown themselves behind promoting the practice – it has until recently largely struggled to gain widespread
acceptance outside of east Asia.
[10]    The sheer range of claimed benefits of some forms of TCM can be staggering. In a review of acupuncture
alone, the Society for Science-Based Medicine, a US-based pressure group, found practitioners offering
treatments for everything from cancer, stroke, Parkinson's, and heart disease, to asthma and autism.
    In 2009, researchers at the University of Maryland surveyed 70 systematic reviews of traditional medicines,
including acupuncture, herbal treatments and moxibustion, the burning of herbs near the skin. They found that
[15] no studies demonstrated a solid conclusion in favor of TCM due to the sparsity of evidence or the poor
methodology of the research.
    This lack of scientific rigor has created space for often outlandish claims about TCM's capabilities in
treating certain disorders – something boosted by the handful of TCM-related treatments which have been
scientifically proven to be beneficial. In 2015, Chinese scientist Tu Youyou won the Nobel Prize in medicine
[20] for her work on malaria which drew on traditional practices and folklore.
    Other products derived from herbs used in TCM have also shown benefits in scientifically-controlled
experiments, vindicating TCM in the eyes of many practitioners, and there have been calls for renewed
research in this area, as well as on other ancient remedies that might hold clues to future medical advances.
    What concerns many scientists and doctors, however, is that instead of these experiments and findings
[25] boosting the reputation of an individual medicine, they are often held up as proof of the validity of the entire
field of TCM, much of which has no basis in science and can be potentially dangerous.
    "Treatments included within the wide TCM category are very different from one another," the European
doctors said. "They can only be considered to form a group of therapies from the perspective of
history/ethnology ('traditional') and geography (Chinese)."

(Adaptado de: GRIFFITHS, James. Some European doctors think Chinese medicine should come with a health warning. CNN Health. Data de publicação: 17 nov. 2019. Disponível em: https://edition.cnn.com/2019/11/16/health/traditional-chinese-medicine-facebook-intl-hnkwellness/index.html. Acesso em: 22 out. 2020).