Questões de Inglês

Facebook Tops 500 Million Users

By JENNA WORTHAM

 

  Facebook, the social network created in the dormitories of Harvard six years ago, said on Wednesday that it now had 500 million members.

  The company has doubled in size from a year ago, pushing international competitors aside.

  “This is an important milestone for all of you who have helped spread Facebook around the world,” Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s 26-year-old chief executive, said in a company blog post.

  Facebook’s dizzying rise has not been without stumbles. Most recently, the company was the focus of intense scrutiny over changes to its site that encouraged members to make more information about themselves accessible to anyone on the Internet.

  A recent survey by the American Customer Satisfaction Index showed that user satisfaction with Facebook stood at 64 on a 100-point scale, which placed it in the bottom 5 percent of the companies covered in the index.

  Facebook’s popularity has also spurred competition from the likes of Google, which views the billions of links and hours spent on the site each month as a threat to its business.

  But if anything, the site’s steady growth in spite of its setbacks only validates the company’s approach, said Ray Valdes, an analyst at the research firm Gartner.

  Facebook has been aggressive in pushing users “to the edge of their comfort zone,” Mr. Valdes said. “But Facebook has proven that it can weather those challenges and still grow.”

  Mr. Valdes, who estimates that Facebook is adding 50 million new members each month, attributed the company’s rapid ascension to its continuous effort to change and improve the service.

“That keeps it bubbling away,” he said.

 

(The New York Times, July 21, 2010)

According to the information in the text, it is correct to state that Facebook

  CHEAP labor has built China’s economic miracle. Its manufacturing workers toil for a small fraction of the cost of their American or German competitors. At the bottom of the heap, a “floating population” of about 130m migrants work in China’s boomtowns, taking home 1,348 yuan a month on average last year. That is a mere $197, little more than one-twentieth of the average monthly wage in America. But it is 17% more than the year before. As China’s economy has bounced back, wages have followed suit. On the coasts, where its exporting factories are clustered, bosses are short of workers, and workers short of patience. A lot of strikes has thrown a spanner into1 the workshop of the world.

  The hands of China’s workers have been strengthened by a new labor law, introduced in 2008, and by the more fundamental laws of demand and supply. Workers are becoming harder to find and to keep. The country’s villages still contain perhaps 70m potential migrants. Other rural folk might be willing to work closer to home in the growing number of factories moving inland. But the supply of strong backs and nimble fingers is not infinite, even in China. The number of 15- to 29-year-olds will fall sharply from next year. And although their wages are increasing, their aspirations are rising even faster. They seem less willing to “eat bitterness”, as the Chinese put it, without complaint.

(www.economist.com - 29/07/2010)

¹ TO THROW A SPANNER IN THE WORKS = to frustrate or ruin (a plan, system etc.)

 

According to the main idea expressed by the text, it is correct to state that:

Read the Text 2 and answer the question.

 

TEXT 2

Pros and Cons of Nuclear Power

 

[1] Sergei Supinsky: This storage facility near the site of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant

currently houses nuclear waste.

What's nuclear power's biggest advantage? It doesn't depend on fossil fuels and isn't

affected by fluctuating oil and gas prices. Coal and natural gas power plants emit carbon

[5] dioxide into the atmosphere, which contributes to climate change. With nuclear power plants,

CO₂ emissions are minimal.

According to the Nuclear Energy Institute, the power produced by the world's nuclear plants

would normally produce 2 billion metric tons of CO₂ per year if they depended on fossil fuels.

In fact, a properly functioning nuclear power plant actually releases less radioactivity into the

[10] atmosphere than a coal-fired power plant. Plus, all this comes with a far lighter fuel

requirement. Nuclear fission produces roughly a million times more energy per unit weight

than fossil fuel alternatives.

And then there are the negatives. Historically, mining and purifying uranium hasn't been a

very clean process. Even transporting nuclear fuel to and from plants poses a contamination

[15] risk. And once the fuel is spent, you can't just throw it in the city dump. It's still radioactive

and potentially deadly.

On average, a nuclear power plant annually generates 20 metric tons of used nuclear fuel,

classified as high-level radioactive waste. When you take into account every nuclear plant on

Earth, the combined total climbs to roughly 2,000 metric tons a year. All of this waste emits

[20] radiation and heat, meaning that it will eventually corrode any container that holds it. It can

also prove lethal to nearby life forms. As if this weren't bad enough, nuclear power plants

produce a great deal of low-level radioactive waste in the form of radiated parts and

equipment.

Over time, spent nuclear fuel decays to safe radioactive levels, but this process takes tens of

[25] thousands of years. Even low-level radioactive waste requires centuries to reach acceptable

levels. Currently, the nuclear industry lets waste cool for years before mixing it with glass

and storing it in massive cooled, concrete structures. This waste has to be maintained,

monitored and guarded to prevent the materials from falling into the wrong hands. All of

these services and added materials cost money -- on top of the high costs required to build a

[30] plant.

Disponível em:  Acesso em: abr. 2011.

Mark T (true) or F (false) according to text.


( ) Nuclear power seldom produces toxic waste.
( ) Fossil fuels are far better than nuclear power concerning to prices.
( ) Nuclear power has little emission of CO₂ into the atmosphere.
( ) Nuclear waste is mixed with glass before storing.
( ) A coal fired power plant produces less pollution than nuclear power. 

The correct sequence from top to bottom is: 

Read the Text 2 and answer the question.

 

TEXT 2

Pros and Cons of Nuclear Power

 

[1] Sergei Supinsky: This storage facility near the site of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant

currently houses nuclear waste.

What's nuclear power's biggest advantage? It doesn't depend on fossil fuels and isn't

affected by fluctuating oil and gas prices. Coal and natural gas power plants emit carbon

[5] dioxide into the atmosphere, which contributes to climate change. With nuclear power plants,

CO₂ emissions are minimal.

According to the Nuclear Energy Institute, the power produced by the world's nuclear plants

would normally produce 2 billion metric tons of CO₂ per year if they depended on fossil fuels.

In fact, a properly functioning nuclear power plant actually releases less radioactivity into the

[10] atmosphere than a coal-fired power plant. Plus, all this comes with a far lighter fuel

requirement. Nuclear fission produces roughly a million times more energy per unit weight

than fossil fuel alternatives.

And then there are the negatives. Historically, mining and purifying uranium hasn't been a

very clean process. Even transporting nuclear fuel to and from plants poses a contamination

[15] risk. And once the fuel is spent, you can't just throw it in the city dump. It's still radioactive

and potentially deadly.

On average, a nuclear power plant annually generates 20 metric tons of used nuclear fuel,

classified as high-level radioactive waste. When you take into account every nuclear plant on

Earth, the combined total climbs to roughly 2,000 metric tons a year. All of this waste emits

[20] radiation and heat, meaning that it will eventually corrode any container that holds it. It can

also prove lethal to nearby life forms. As if this weren't bad enough, nuclear power plants

produce a great deal of low-level radioactive waste in the form of radiated parts and

equipment.

Over time, spent nuclear fuel decays to safe radioactive levels, but this process takes tens of

[25] thousands of years. Even low-level radioactive waste requires centuries to reach acceptable

levels. Currently, the nuclear industry lets waste cool for years before mixing it with glass

and storing it in massive cooled, concrete structures. This waste has to be maintained,

monitored and guarded to prevent the materials from falling into the wrong hands. All of

these services and added materials cost money -- on top of the high costs required to build a

[30] plant.

Disponível em:  Acesso em: abr. 2011.

The vocabularies “houses” (line 2), “fission” (line 11), “dump” (line 15) and “decays” (line 24) are used in the text as:

Read the Text 1 and answer the question.

 

TEXT 1

Recycle – Reduce – Reuse

 

[1] Easier – Recycle means to process old, used items in order that the material can be used to

make new products. Examples of things that are often recycled are glass, plastic,

newspapers, aluminum cans, used motor oil, and batteries. Here, reduce refers to lessening

the amount of items or resources that are consumed, using only the amount that is needed,

[5] and looking for alternatives that will lessen our use. And reuse means extending the 'life' or

repurposing an item rather than discarding or throwing it away.

Harder – Recycling is the processes of collecting, processing, remanufacturing, and reusing

materials instead of discarding them. This helps conserve raw materials and energy that

manufacturers would otherwise use in producing new products. Recycling also reduces the

[10] amount of material going into landfills. Recycling helps lessen the pollution that may result

from waste disposal. Reducing our consumption of materials and reducing the waste of

materials also adds to the conservation of our resources.

Disponível em:  Acesso em: abr. 2011.

Mark the incorrect alternative.

Read the Text 1 and answer the question.

 

TEXT 1

Recycle – Reduce – Reuse

 

[1] Easier – Recycle means to process old, used items in order that the material can be used to

make new products. Examples of things that are often recycled are glass, plastic,

newspapers, aluminum cans, used motor oil, and batteries. Here, reduce refers to lessening

the amount of items or resources that are consumed, using only the amount that is needed,

[5] and looking for alternatives that will lessen our use. And reuse means extending the 'life' or

repurposing an item rather than discarding or throwing it away.

Harder – Recycling is the processes of collecting, processing, remanufacturing, and reusing

materials instead of discarding them. This helps conserve raw materials and energy that

manufacturers would otherwise use in producing new products. Recycling also reduces the

[10] amount of material going into landfills. Recycling helps lessen the pollution that may result

from waste disposal. Reducing our consumption of materials and reducing the waste of

materials also adds to the conservation of our resources.

Disponível em:  Acesso em: abr. 2011.

Some of the prepositions we find in the text are: