Questões de Inglês

Texto I

RIO DE JANEIRO IS IN FIGHT OVER BRAZIL’S OIL RICHES

[5] The lower house of Congress voted last

week to share the portion of the country’s

royalties from oil revenues that go to

Brazil’s states equally among the states.

[10] The vote, part of a broad overhaul of the

nation’s oil laws being undertaken in the

wake of big offshore discoveries over the

last three years, was a shocking blow to the

state government of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’s

[15] biggest oil-producing region. If the bill

becomes law, it would deny the state of Rio

and other oil-producing states billions of

dollars in expected royalties. Rio’s annual

oil revenue would fall to about $134 million

[20] from about $4.3 billion, state officials said.

But Rio’s governor, Sérgio Cabral, is

fighting back, calling the vote in Congress a

“lynching” and contending that it was

unconstitutional. He said promised public

[25] works projects for the 2014 soccer World

Cup and the 2016 Olympics in Rio could be

imperiled by a sudden drop in revenues,

although the federal government has

pledged to back Rio’s Olympic effort. Mr.

[30] Cabral, an ally of President Luiz Inácio Lula

da Silva, organized a large march through

Rio’s streets on Wednesday afternoon to

protest the move by Congress. Despite a

persistent rain, tens of thousands of people,

[35] many of them state employees who had

been given the day off, showed up, with

many arriving on buses from all over the

state. “No one has the right to take away

that which nature has put within the limits of

[40] Rio de Janeiro,” Carlos Lupi, Rio’s labor

minister, said in a speech at the march and

rally. Faced with the world’s most important

oil discovery in years, Brazil’s government

is seeking to alter the country’s oil laws to

[45] centralize control over future oil revenues in

the federal government’s hands. The new

region, lying under about 20,000 feet of

water, salt and sand, is estimated to hold

more than five billion barrels of crude oil. If

[50] recovered, it could transform Brazil into a

global oil power.

While the bulk of the oil is not expected to

flow for at least four years, Mr. da Silva and

his allies in Congress are pushing to get a

[55] series of four oil-related laws passed before

Congress goes into recess in June or July.

The bills would seek to make the Brazilian

national oil company, Petrobras, the

operator of all future oil discoveries from the

[60] new region, known as the presalt region.

They would also include a mammoth

capitalization of Petrobras, a stock issuance

expected to be valued at more than $50

billion, said Christopher Garman, an analyst

[65] with the Eurasia Group, a risk consulting

firm in New York. With what could be

hundreds of billions of dollars at stake over

decades, the proposed bills have become

extremely contentious in Congress, where

[70] opposition politicians are seeking to stall a

full vote on the bills until after the

presidential election in October. “What Lula

wants to avoid is that this huge fight over

distribution of royalty taxes gets in the way

[75] of approving the proposal for oil reform,”

Mr. Garman said. “That is the risk for the

government.” The proposals on oil reform

and the issuance of stock in Petrobras

came under a cloud last week when two

[80] members of Congress from states that do

not produce oil, Ibsen Pinheiro and

Humberto Souto, proposed the idea of

equally distributing the portion of royalties

from oil revenues that go to states and

[85] municipalities. This would include both past

and future oil developments.

Fonte:http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/18/world/americas/18brazil (acessado e adaptado em 03/04/10)

Texto III

BRAZILIAN PRISONERS USE PIGEONS TO SMUGGLE IN MOBILE PHONES

[5] Inmates have devised an innovative way to

smuggle in mobile phones into a prison

farm in Brazil – carrier pigeons. Guards at

the Danilio Pinheiro prison near the south

[10] eastern city of Sorocaba noticed a pigeon

resting on an electric wire with a small cloth

bag tied to one of its legs last week. "The

guards nabbed the bird after luring it down

with some food and discovered

[15] components of a small cellphone inside the

bag," police investigator Celso Soramiglio

said. A day later, another pigeon was

spotted dragging a similar bag inside the

prison's exercise yard. Inside the bag was

[20] the mobile phone's charger, Soramiglio

said. The birds were apparently bred and

raised inside the prison, smuggled out,

outfitted with the mobile phone parts and

then released to fly back. "Pigeons

[25] instinctively fly back home, always," the

investigator said. Soramiglio said that police

have not discovered who raised the

pigeons nor the name of the inmate who

was going to receive the mobile phone, but

[30] that he hoped the telephone carrier would

provide the information.

Fonte: http://www.guardian.co.uk (Acessado em 14/09/09)

Texto III

BRAZILIAN PRISONERS USE PIGEONS TO SMUGGLE IN MOBILE PHONES

[5] Inmates have devised an innovative way to

smuggle in mobile phones into a prison

farm in Brazil – carrier pigeons. Guards at

the Danilio Pinheiro prison near the south

[10] eastern city of Sorocaba noticed a pigeon

resting on an electric wire with a small cloth

bag tied to one of its legs last week. "The

guards nabbed the bird after luring it down

with some food and discovered

[15] components of a small cellphone inside the

bag," police investigator Celso Soramiglio

said. A day later, another pigeon was

spotted dragging a similar bag inside the

prison's exercise yard. Inside the bag was

[20] the mobile phone's charger, Soramiglio

said. The birds were apparently bred and

raised inside the prison, smuggled out,

outfitted with the mobile phone parts and

then released to fly back. "Pigeons

[25] instinctively fly back home, always," the

investigator said. Soramiglio said that police

have not discovered who raised the

pigeons nor the name of the inmate who

was going to receive the mobile phone, but

[30] that he hoped the telephone carrier would

provide the information.

Fonte: http://www.guardian.co.uk (Acessado em 14/09/09)

Texto III

BRAZILIAN PRISONERS USE PIGEONS TO SMUGGLE IN MOBILE PHONES

[5] Inmates have devised an innovative way to

smuggle in mobile phones into a prison

farm in Brazil – carrier pigeons. Guards at

the Danilio Pinheiro prison near the south

[10] eastern city of Sorocaba noticed a pigeon

resting on an electric wire with a small cloth

bag tied to one of its legs last week. "The

guards nabbed the bird after luring it down

with some food and discovered

[15] components of a small cellphone inside the

bag," police investigator Celso Soramiglio

said. A day later, another pigeon was

spotted dragging a similar bag inside the

prison's exercise yard. Inside the bag was

[20] the mobile phone's charger, Soramiglio

said. The birds were apparently bred and

raised inside the prison, smuggled out,

outfitted with the mobile phone parts and

then released to fly back. "Pigeons

[25] instinctively fly back home, always," the

investigator said. Soramiglio said that police

have not discovered who raised the

pigeons nor the name of the inmate who

was going to receive the mobile phone, but

[30] that he hoped the telephone carrier would

provide the information.

Fonte: http://www.guardian.co.uk (Acessado em 14/09/09)

Texto I

BODY WORLDS PLANS CADAVER SHOW DEDICATED TO SEX

[5] German anatomists plan a new show

dedicated solely to dead bodies having sex

as part of the Body Worlds exhibitions.

Gunther von Hagens and his wife Angelina

[10] Whalley show corpses prepared using a

technique invented by von Hagens called

"plastination," that removes water from

specimens and preserves them with silicon

rubber or epoxy resin. "It's not my intention to

[15] show certain sexual poses. My goal is really

to show the anatomy and the function," Body

Worlds creative director Whalley told Reuters

in an interview, adding the sex exhibition may

open next year. Body Worlds exhibitions,

[20] visited by 27 million people across the world,

have been criticized for presenting entire

corpses, stripped of skin to reveal the

muscles and organs underneath, in lifelike

and often the atrical positions. Von Hagens

[25] has already triggered uproar with a new

exhibit which shows just two copulating

corpses.

A questão se refere ao texto abaixo.

Language Identity

I don’t believe that you can necessarily lose your identity because you speak two or three languages. Identity is a very big word to use and is influenced by many things. A part of your identity is your ethnic background. Your genes, religion, the culture you live in and your environment all have a big influence on your identity. It affects the way you live, your behavior and your point of view at life. I believe that you can’t really lose your identity just because you speak a second or third language fluently. You are who you are and you can’t change that. Maybe speaking a second language can have an effect on your native language because you might use it less then you did before, you might forget some words in Dutch, for example, but you do know them in English or the other way around. I don’t think it matters what language you speak, you’ll still be Dutch, Chinese or Spanish deep down inside your heart. Your roots lay there. I do think though that you should encourage your child not to forget where he or she comes from and keep telling them about their origin.

Disponível em: http://www.oppapers.com/essays/Language-Identity/177094. Acesso em: 23 abr. 2009. (Adaptado).