Questões de Inglês

Underground river ‘Rio Hamza’ discovered 4km beneath the Amazon Scientists estimate the subterranean river may be 6,000km long and hundreds of times wider than the Amazon Alok Jha, science correspondent guardian.co.uk Friday, 26 August 2011 Covering more than 7 million square kilometres in South America, the Amazon basin is one of the biggest and most impressive river systems in the world. But it turns out we have only known half the story until now. Brazilian scientists have found a new river in the Amazon basin – around 4km underneath the Amazon river. The Hamza river, named after the head of the team of researchers who found the groundwater flow, appears to be as long as the Amazon river but up to hundreds of times wider. Both the Amazon and Hamza flow from west to east and are around the same length, at 6,000km. But whereas the Amazon ranges from 1 km to 100km in width, the Hamza ranges from 200km to 400km. The underground river starts in the Acre region under the Andes and flows through the Solimões, Amazonas and Marajó basins before opening out directly into the depths of the Atlantic Ocean. The Amazon flows much faster than the Hamza, however, draining a greater volume of water. Around 133,000m3 of water flow through the Amazon per second at speeds of up to 5 metres per second. The underground river's flow rate has been estimated at around 3,900m3 per second and it barely inches along at less than a millimetre per hour. The Hamza was located using data collected inside a series of 241 abandoned deep wells that were drilled in the Amazon region by the petrochemical company Petrobras in the 1970s and 1980s. Elizabeth Tavares Pimentel and Valiya Hamza of the Department of Geophysics at Brazil's National Observatory led the work and presented their results last week at the International Congress of the Brazilian Geophysics Society in Rio de Janeiro. According to the researchers, the presence of the Hamza river might account for the relatively low salinity of the waters around the mouth of the Amazon. Professor Hamza said Pimentel's measurements represented preliminary work on the discovery of the new river, but Hamza said he expected to confirm the existence of the flow with additional measurements within the next few years. www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/aug/26/underground-riveramazon/print. Adaptado.

 

An aerial view of the Amazon river. Phorqgroph: Frans Lanting/Corbis

Segundo o texto,

The pronoun who in “80% of those who are blind don’t have to be” can be replaced by

According to the ad,

Dude Is a Rock Star

Gustavo Dudamel is the Elvis of the orchestra world, and he has the sold-out concerts to prove it. Meet the L.A. Philharmonic conductor who’s bridging the generation gap – and saving classical music.

By Chris Lee

 

 Meet the maestro called the savior of classical music. “The Dude,” as he’s come to be known, is widely hailed as “the rock-star conductor,” the classical world’s answer to Elvis Presley or Michael Jackson. The __( I )__ conductor is a __( II )__ figure in symphonic music, whose cultural influence belies his relatively young 31 years. With his __( III )__ mane of corkscrew curls, ecstatic podium presence, and unabashedly __( IV )__ interpretations of __( V )__ orchestral works, Dudamel has  unleashed a flood of new interest in classical music, bridging the generation gap between pension-age high-culture appreciators and younger listeners.

   And the show is just beginning. “The Mahler Project is immense,” says Deborah Borda, president and chief executive of the L.A. Phil. “When we planned it, I don’t think the two of us completely took in how big it would turn out to be.” It is the kind of bar-raising command performance that audiences have come to expect from the Venezuelan wunderkind – a musician who, whether taking on a Sibelius violin concerto or a Strauss symphony, makes a policy of raising the roof whenever he performs.

  The grueling project also underscores Dudamel’s commitment to El Sistema – “The System” – Venezuela’s tough-love musical-outreach program for youth that made the conductor what he is and still counts him as its most forward face. “An orchestra is a model for an ideal global society – a symbol,” he says in his heavily accented English. “You have to create harmony. Everyone has to listen to each other, this large, complex group of people with different personalities that has to communicate. You have to have discipline. This is where The System works! The point is not to build better musicians. It’s to build better citizens, to see children building their lives from music.”

Newsweek

 

The adjectives that properly fill in blanks I, II, III, IV and V, in the text, are:

  www.linguee.com is a website where you can search for the translation of words and expressions from Portuguese into English or English into Portuguese. However, it is not a translation machine – every entry in its database bas been translated by people and all the translations are lifted from bilingual written texts available in the web. _____( I )_____. Since all the words and expressions are viewed in context (short paragraphs) you can check if the translation fits your  personal context. It does not translate sentences; you might therefore have to simplify your search and key in words instead.

  It is a very interesting tool to help both students and teachers expand their own range of the expression searched while enabling the simultaneous visualization of how the same expression translates differently in the varied contexts available.

Braz-Tesol

 

The sentence that properly fills in blank I in the text is:

The truth about videogames, please!

By Cheryl K. Olson

 

On June 27 the Supreme Court invalidated California’s law prohibiting the sale or rental of violent videogames to people under 18. On a practical level, it was never clear which games might be classified under the law, or who would decide.

  But more important, the state’s case was built on assumptions – that violent games cause children psychological or neurological harm and make them more aggressive and likely to harm other people – that are not supported by evidence. In the end, the case serves only to highlight __________ ( I ) __________ .

  Many people assume that video game violence is awful, but these people haven’t played many video games. The state based its examples of depravity almost exclusively on a little-known game called Postal 2, which is rarely played by children or young teens. The game is outrageous as you can kill animals. A trailer for Postal 3 encourages players to “shoot moms in the face!”

  This may sound disturbing, but it’s also ridiculous. And young people know it: as one 13-year-old said during a study I conducted at Harvard, “With video games, you know it’s fake.”

  In my research on middle school students, the most popular game series among boys was Grand Theft Auto, which allows players to commit cartoon violence with chain saws as well as do perfectly benign things like deliver pizza on a scooter.

  Teenage boys may be more interested in violence, but there’s no evidence that this leads to violent behavior in real life. F.B.I. data shows that youth violence continues to decline; it is now at its lowest rate in years, while bullying appears to be stable or decreasing.

  This certainly does not prove that video games are harmless. The violent games most often played by young teens, like most of the Grand Theft Auto series, are rated M, for a reason and need parental supervision.

  But violence in video games may be less harmful than violence inmovies or on the evening news. It seems reasonable but virtually acting out a murder is worse than watching one. But there is no research supporting this, and one could say that interactivity makes games less harmful: the player controls the action, and can stop playing if she or he feels overwhelmed or upset. And there is much better evidence to support psychological harm from exposure to violence on TV news. In fact, such games (in moderation) may actually have some positive effects on developing minds.

Speak Up

 

The best way to complete the blank I in the text is