Leia o texto para responder à questão.

    They power tiny phones and two-tonne electric cars. They form the guts of a growing number of grid-storage systems1 that smooth the flow of electricity from wind and solar power stations. Without them, the electrification needed to avoid the worst effects of global warming would be unimaginable.

    But lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries have downsides. Lithium is scarce, for one. And the best Li-ion batteries, those with layered-oxide cathodes, also require cobalt and nickel. These metals are scarce, too — and cobalt is also problematic because a lot of it is mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where working conditions leave much to be desired. A second sort of Li-ion battery, a so-called polyanionic design that uses lithium iron phosphate (LFP), does not need nickel or cobalt. However, such batteries cannot store as much energy per kilogram as layered-oxide ones.

    A group of companies, though, think they have an alternative: making batteries with sodium instead. Unlike lithium, sodium is abundant: it makes up most of the salt in the oceans. And chemists have found that layered-oxide cathodes which use sodium rather than lithium can get by without cobalt or nickel to increase their quality. The idea of making sodium-ion (Na-ion) batteries at scale is therefore gaining traction. Engineers are adjusting designs. Factories, particularly in China, are springing up. For the first time since the Li-ion revolution began, lithium’s place on the electrochemical pedestal is being challenged.

(www.economist.com, 25.10.2023. Adaptado.)

¹grid-storage system: sistema de armazenamento de energia elétrica.

Read the text to answer question.

    While financial institutions around the world have called for a full return to the office in the coming months, Synchrony Financial is moving in the opposite direction. The American firm has told its leadership team that they cannot, in fact, return to the office five days a week. Instead, they’re required to work at least one day from home.

    DJ Casto, the company’s chief human resources officer, says one of the main reasons they adopted this rule was to put home-working and office-working staff on a more equal playing field. “From a leadership perspective, we want to make sure we look like we’re supporting both groups,” he explains, noting that 85% of employees in a company-wide survey expressed a desire to work from home full time.

    To address concerns that those same workers might feel pressured to come back into the office to get more face time with their bosses (and thus more recognition), Casto says leadership needed to role-model the non-traditional plan. “The executive leadership team has a lot of influence on the behaviours of the workforce,” he explains. “So, if we set the tone at the top of the house to say, ‘it’s OK [to work from home], we’re going to do it, too,’ then it gives people a lot more trust.

    Companies moving to a hybrid-work model are grappling with how to best ensure workers physically present in the office don’t gain benefits due to their proximity to bosses and colleagues. Academics call this phenomenon ‘proximity bias’, an unconscious tendency to give preferential treatment to those in our immediate vicinity. Once a matter of location within the office, the lines of what define proximity are now evolving, leaving workers and leaders in search of new ways of tackling the issue to guarantee that those who choose to work from home remain on track for promotions.

    Proximity bias existed in the workplace long before the pandemic. “We all can reflect on occasions where the people we sit near are the people we know the best and feel the most kinship to,” says occupational psychologist Ali Shalfrooshan. This bond can create a halo effect, where we build an inflated view of those nearby while overlooking more qualified individuals further away. This halo effect can also cause leadership to excuse the poor performance of those in their proximity, while not properly valuing the skills and expertise of those with whom they have less contact. Leaders must make sure that out of sight doesn’t mean out of mind.

(Mark Johanson. www.bbc.com, 08.08.2021. Adapted.)

INSTRUÇÃO: Leia o texto que segue para responder à questão.

HIGHLAND LIFE
What is life like for people who live in the Highlands of Scotland?

    Scotland, famous for its whisky, its wool, its kilts, and many other fine things, covers about a third of the
territory of Great Britain. Britain has a population of about 64 million inhabitants — yet less than ten per cent of them
now live in Scotland, about 5.3 million people. And most of those 5.3 million people live in or near three urban centres,
Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Dundee.
[5]    In the Highlands, which cover most of Scotland, the population is very thin. In many places — if there is
actually a road — you can drive for over 30 kilometres without seeing any human habitation, except perhaps a solitary
"croft", a small farm. Yet here and there, there are small towns; most of them are beside the sea. They have their
inhabitants and their economic activities, their children and their teenagers.
    This Highlander, in traditional military uniform, is carrying bagpipes, and wearing a kilt. He also has a black
[10] leather sporran.
    What is "a Highlander"?
    If you ask someone to describe a Highlander to you, he will probably come up with the type of image you see
in whisky advertisements. A man wearing a kilt and a sporran, and standing on a misty mountain near a haunted
castle. The man plays the bagpipes, eats porridge and haggis, and drinks whisky. Now while it is true that whisky is
[15] indeed a favourite drink in the Highlands, the rest of the image is a long way from everyday reality.
    Few Highlanders wear the kilt, except on special occasions or for ceremony.
    Clans, Kilts & Tartans
    You can't talk of the Highlands without talking of clans and kilts and tartans. A "clan" is a sort of tribe — a
group of people who belong to the same extended family, or have the same historic origin. In the past, each part of
[20] the Highlands was the territory of a clan. Clans were closely linked communities, each with its own chief. Clans were
— and still are — distinguished by their tartan. A tartan is a specific design, a criss-cross of couloured threads, which
is used for ceremonial clothes, such as the kilt or the plaid.

Disponível em: https://linguapress.com/intermediate/highland-life.htm. Acesso em: 7 out. 2019. Adaptado. 

Text 

The song below was performed by a gospel choir during the mariage ceremony of Prince Harry and the North American Megan Markle, held at Windson Castel on May 19, 2018.

    Stand By Me
    Ben E. King

When the night has come
And the land is dark
And the moon is the only light we'll see
No I won't be afraid, no I won't be afraid
Just as long as you stand, stand by me

Chorus
So darling, darling
Stand by me, oh, stand by me
Oh stand, stand by me
Stand by me

If the sky that we look upon
Should tumble and fall
Or the mountains should crumble to the sea
I won't cry, I won't cry
No I won't shed a tear
Just as long as you stand, stand by me

Whenever you're in trouble, won't you stand by me
Oh stand by me
Oh won't you stand now?
Stand by me

(In: https://www.vagalume.com.br/ben-e-king/stand-by-me-traducao.html)

Leia o texto a seguir para responder à questão.

In place of submitting a traditional application for admission, prospective students may choose to apply for admission under the Test Score Application System. Under this system, the University accepts as applications the official score reports from either the American College Test (ACT) or the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). High School juniors and seniors who take the ACT or the SAT should indicate this university as a score recipient of their ACT or SAT registration form. Upon receipt of the ACT Student Profile report or the SAT report, the Admissions Office will notify students of their eligibility for admission. Under this system, itis unnecessary to submit a high school transcript until after graduation unless the student wishes to apply for a scholarship.

STANLEY, Nancy. The best TOEFL test Book. Massachusetts:

Text 

A civil rights 'emergency': justice, clean air and water in the age of Trump
by Oliver Milman in New York

The Trump administration’s dismantling of environmental regulations has intensified a growing civil rights battle over the deadly burden of pollution on minorities and low-income people. Black, Latino and disadvantaged people have long been disproportionately afflicted by toxins from industrial plants, cars, hazardous housing conditions and other sources. But political leaders, academics and activists spoke of a growing urgency around the struggle for environmental justice as the Trump administration peels away rules designed to protect clean air and water.

“What we are seeing is the institutionalization of discrimination again, the thing we’ve fought for 40 years,” said Robert Bullard, an academic widely considered the father of the environmental justice movement. “There are people in fence-line communities who are now very worried. If the federal government doesn’t monitor and regulate, and gives the states a green light to do what they want, we are going to get more pollution, more people will get sick. There will be more deaths.”

(Excerpt from the site: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/nov/20/environmental-justice-in-the-age-of-trump. Researched on November 2017.)