Questões de Inglês - Grammar - Modals - Could
Leia o texto para responder à questão.
In the summer of 2014, Markie Miller discovered she’d been drinking toxic coffee. Miller lives in Toledo, Ohio, where fertilizer runoff from farms had caused blooms of toxic cyanobacteria in Lake Erie, her water supply. The city issued an alert at 2 am, but by the time Miller saw it she’d already been sipping her morning drink.
Miller started meeting with other residents to figure out how to protect their water. But what to do? You could sue a polluter (for polluting) or a government agency (for neglecting its regulatory duties), but even if you won, the damages would be too small to be an impediment. You could assemble a class action suit of hurt residents, but that’s a ponderous and uncertain process. The real problem, of course, was that the lake itself was polluted — and individuals can’t sue over that. In the eyes of the law, they don’t have “standing.” That’s when one activist raised an idea: What if the lake itself had standing? What if the citizens of Toledo passed a law giving it legal rights?
The idea of giving personhood to nature has been slowly gaining supporters. Environmentalists have encouraged governments and courts to award rights to lakes, hills, rivers, and even individual species of plants.
As intrigued as I am by the idea of mountains suing mining companies, though, I’m not sure the rights of nature will hold up in US courts. Corporations are against it. Even some indigenous thinkers aren’t keen on the idea, arguing that these new laws could infringe their treaty rights. And there’s some hubris here too. How do we humans know what nature wants or if it cares if humans survive?
Still, I think the approach is worth trying. The climate crisis is fully main stage, with California burning and Florida drowning. If we’re going to forestall worse to come, we need innovation not just in tech — more clean energy, resilient cities, genetically modified crops that need less fertilizer — but in law, the rule sets that architect our behavior.
The deep value of the personhood movement isn’t merely legal. It’s cultural. We’ve spent generations regarding the wilderness as a bottomless box of tissues, to be used and discarded at will. So we need a better way of talking about hills and forests and oceans; we need to see them with fresh eyes. Indigenous wisdom got this right, millennia ago. If we’re going to control our abuse of nature, we need to see it as our equal.
(Clive Thompson. www.wired.com, 17.12.2019. Adaptado.)
No trecho do quarto parágrafo “Even some indigenous thinkers aren’t keen on the idea, arguing that these new laws could infringe their treaty rights”, o termo sublinhado expressa ideia de
Hearts and Hands
by O. Henry
At Denver there was an influx of passengers into the coaches on the eastbound B. & M. Express.
In one coach there sat a very pretty young woman dressed in elegant taste and surrounded by all the
luxurious comforts of an experienced traveler. Among the newcomers were two men, one of handsome
presence with a bold, frank countenance and manner; the other a ruffled, glum-faced person, heavily built
and roughly dressed. The two were handcuffed together.
As they passed down the aisle of the coach the only vacant seat was a reversed one facing the
attractive young woman. Here the linked couple seated themselves. The young woman’s glance fell upon
them with a distant, swift disinterest; then with a lovely smile brightening her countenance and a tender
pink tingeing her round cheeks, she held out a little gray-gloved hand. When she spoke her voice, full,
sweet, and deliberate, proclaimed that its owner was accustomed to speak and be heard.
“Well, Mr. Easton, if you will make me speak first, I suppose I must. Don’t you ever recognize old
friends when you meet them in the West?”
The younger man roused himself sharply at the sound of her voice, seemed to struggle with a slight
embarrassment which he threw off instantly, and then clasped her fingers with his left hand.
“It’s Miss Fairchild,” he said, with a smile. “I’ll ask you to excuse the other hand; it’s otherwise engaged
just at present.”
He slightly raised his right hand, bound at the wrist by the shining “bracelet” to the left one of his
companion. The glad look in the girl’s eyes slowly changed to a bewildered horror. The glow faded from
her cheeks. Her lips parted in a vague, relaxing distress. Easton, with a little laugh, as if amused, was
about to speak again when the other forestalled him. The glum-faced man had been watching the girl’s
countenance with veiled glances from his keen, shrewd eyes.
“You’ll excuse me for speaking, miss, but, I see you’re acquainted with the marshal here. If you’ll ask
him to speak a word for me when we get to the pen he’ll do it, and it’ll make things easier for me there.
He’s taking me to Leavenworth prison. It’s seven years for counterfeiting.”
“Oh!” said the girl, with a deep breath and returning color. “So that is what you are doing out here? A
marshal!”
“My dear Miss Fairchild,” said Easton, calmly, “I had to do something. Money has a way of taking wings
unto itself, and you know it takes money to keep step with our crowd in Washington. I saw this opening in
the West, and – well, a marshalship isn’t quite as high a position as that of ambassador, but...”
“The ambassador,” said the girl, warmly, “doesn’t call any more. He needn’t ever have done so. You
ought to know that. And so now you are one of these dashing Western heroes, and you ride and shoot and
go into all kinds of dangers. That’s different from the Washington life. You have been missed from the old
crowd.”
The girl’s eyes, fascinated, went back, widening a little, to rest upon the glittering handcuffs.
“Don’t you worry about them, miss”, said the other man. “All marshals handcuff themselves to their
prisoners to keep them from getting ________. Mr. Easton knows his business.”
“Will we see you again soon in Washington?” asked the girl.
“Not soon, I think,” said Easton. “My butterfly days are over, I fear.”
“I love the West,” said the girl irrelevantly. Her eyes were shining softly. She looked away out the car
window. She began to speak truly and simply without the gloss of style and manner: “Mamma and I spent
the summer in Denver. She went home a week ago because father was slightly ill. I could live and be
happy in the West. I think the air agrees with me. Money isn’t everything. But people always misunderstand
things and remain stupid”.
“Say, Mr. Marshal”, growled the glum-faced man.”This isn’t quite fair. I’m needing a drink, and haven’t
had a smoke all day. Haven’t you talked long enough? Take me in the smoker now, won’t you? I’m half
dead for a pipe.”
The bound travelers rose to their feet. Easton with the same slow smile on his face.
“I can’t deny a petition for tobacco,” he said, lightly, “It’s the one friend of the unfortunate. Good-bye,
Miss Fairchild. Duty calls, you know.” He held out his hand for a farewell.
“It’s too bad you are not going East,” she said, reclothing herself with manner and style. “But you must
go to Leavenworth, I suppose?”
Yes,” said Easton, “I must go on to Leavenworth”.
The two men sidled down the aisle into the smoker.
The two passengers in a seat nearby had heard most of the conversation. Said one of them:
“That marshal’s a good sort of chap. Some of these Western fellows are all right.”
“Pretty young to hold an office like that, isn’t he?” asked the other.
“Young!” exclaimed the first speaker, “why – Oh! didn’t you catch on? Say – did you ever know an
officer to handcuff a prisoner to his right hand?”
Disponível em: https://americanliterature.com/author/o-henry/short-story/hearts-and-hands. Acesso em: 12 abr. 2019. (Parcial e adaptado.)
Assinale a alternativa que melhor descreve de que forma as duas frases no segmento a seguir se relacionam.
- Oração 1: I could live and be happy in the West. (linhas 41 e 42)
- Oração 2: I think the air agrees with me. (linha 42)
Texto para a questão.
Brazil National Museum: as much as 90% of collection destroyed in fire
Building was not insured, the museum’s deputy director said, but some pieces survived including the Bendegó meteorite.
As much as 90% of the collection at Brazil’s National Museum was destroyed in a devastating fire on Sunday and – compounding the disaster – the building was not insured, according to the museum’s deputy director.
Some pieces survived, including the famous Bendegó meteorite and a library of 500,000 books – including works dating back to the days of the Portuguese empire – which was kept in a separate annex, Cristiana Serejo told reporters in front of the building’s blackened shell.
But it was still not possible to say how much of the collection had escaped the flames, Serejo said. “It could be 10%, it could be 15, it could be 20,” she said. “We had a very big loss.”
The museum’s Egyptology collection was completely destroyed, Serejo said.
Researchers who were able to enter one area of the building in Rio de Janeiro are starting to catalogue what little is left, said Serejo, who appealed to members of the public to return any items they found. Asked if the museum was insured, she screwed up her face in mock anguish, and shook her head. “I hope we learn from this,” she said. “Other public buildings are in the same situation.”
Disponível em: <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/04/brazil-national-museum-fire-collection-destroyed-notinsured> Acesso em 07 set. 2018 (Adaptado)
O verbo modal could nas construções “It could be 10%, it could be 15, it could be 20” expressa ideia de:
Utilize o texto a seguir para responder a questão.
The End of Poverty
Equality is a very big idea, connected to freedom, but an idea doesn’t come for free. In a world where distance no longer determines who your neighbor is, paying the price for equality is not just heart, it’s smart. The destinies of the “haves” are intrinsically linked to the fates of the “have-nothing-at-alls”. If we didn’t know this already, it became too clear on September 11, 2001. Africa is not the front line in the war against terror, but it soon could be.
“The war against terror is bound up in the war against poverty.” Who said that? Not me. Not some beatnik peace group. Secretary of State Colin Powell. And when a military man starts talking like that perhaps we should listen. In tense, nervous times isn’t it cheaper – and smarter – to make friends out of potential enemies than to defend yourself against them?
We could be the first generation to outlaw the kind of extreme, stupid poverty that sees a child die of hunger in a world of plenty, or of a disease preventable by a twenty-cent inoculation. We are the first generation that has enough power to do that. The first generation that is powerful enough to unknot the whole tangle of bad trade, bad debt, and bad luck. The first generation that can end a corrupt relationship between the powerful and the weaker parts of the world which has been so wrong for so long.
If the rich nations decided they could become slightly “poorer”, they would truly help the nations in need. If they agreed to write off the old debts of the poor countries, the whole world would be safer. This year millions of people gathered to persuade world leaders to invest more in fighting poverty and disease in Africa.
We cannot save energy life. But the ones we can, we must. It is – or it ought to be – unacceptable that an accident of longitude determines whether a child lives or dies. Fifteen thousand people dying needlessly every day from AIDS, TB, and malaria. Behind each of these statistics is someone’s daughter, someone’s son, a mother, a father, a sister, a brother.
This is Africa’s crisis. That it’s not on the nightly news, that we do not treat this as an emergency – that’s our crisis.
(adapted from Bono’s foreword to the End of Poverty, Jeffrey Sachs, Penguin Press, and “This is Generation’s Moon Shot”, by Bono in Time)
Assinale a alternativa correta para o verbo em destaque na frase abaixo.
Africa is not the front line in the war against terror, but it soon “could” be.
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Does a lipstick threaten the future of one of our closest living relatives?
Pizza, biscuits, and beauty treatments are some of the thousands of products that contain palm oil, which threaten iconic species through deforestation. And a new study says that planting alternative oils could pose an even bigger danger to living things.
Palm oil is the most widely used vegetable oil on the planet and is believed to be in about 50% of products found in supermarkets and shops. It is important for lipstick for example because it holds colour well, has no taste and doesn’t melt at high temperatures. It’s found in shampoos, soaps, ice cream and instant noodles amongst thousands of others.
Over the past 20 years, growing demand has seen thousands of hectares of old, tropical forests chopped down to make way for the oily palm tree plantations. But these forests are home to some of the most threatened species in the world, including the orangutan. “Orangutans are a lowland species on Bornean Sumatra and that’s where palm oil is grown. The two often clash, palm oil displaces orangutans, they are pushed into gardens where they generate conflicts with locals and that’s where you get the killings. They are incredibly versatile, but what an orangutan can’t deal with is killing. Because they are such slow breeding species, the killing has a really big impact”, the report’s lead author Erik Meijaard, told BBC News.
Palm makes up 35% of the world’s vegetable oil supply but only takes up 10% of the world’s land allocated to producing the greasy stuff. To replace it with rapeseed, soy or sunflower seed oil would take far larger amounts of land, in fact up to nine times the amount needed for palm. It’s likely that such a move would see a displacement of diversity loss, with many more species in different places under threat. “If palm oil didn’t exist you would still have the same global demand for vegetable oil,” said Erik Meijaard.
(Matt McGrath. www.bbc.com, 26.06.2018. Adaptado.)
No trecho do primeiro parágrafo “could pose an even bigger danger to living things”, o termo sublinhado indica uma
TEXTO:
While virtually all activity, from yoga to sleeping,
requires energy, studies suggest vigorous exercise is
especially effective at burning calories. Seems obvious,
right? But it’s not just during exercise, it’s for hours after
[5] it’s concluded. And that’s where things get interesting.
The so-called “afterburn effect” is more officially
known as excess post-exercise oxygen consumption or
simply, EPOC. And it isn’t new in the world of
fitness. Several studies suggest there’s a strong
[10] correlation between the number of calories burned post
exercise and the activity’s intensity. Simply put: The
more intense the exercise, the more oxygen your body
consumes afterward.
In one study conducted with participants who
[15] had metabolic syndrome, EPOC also had significant
positive effects—meaning this type of training could be
especially useful in combating certain health issues,
like obesity and diabetes.
And while one study showed that your afterburn
[20] will increase significantly with duration (i.e. the longer
and more intense your workout, the more you’ll burn),
you don’t necessarily have to work out for a long time
to stimulate the effect.That’s where short, high-intensity
workouts come into play. For example, training protocols
[25] like Tabata, where 20 seconds of all-out effort is followed
by 10 seconds of rest, are one way to trigger the
afterburn; other high-intensity interval workouts
(or HIIT routines) can also get you there. The key with
any of these programs is that you need to be working
[30] hard.
And you don’t need to stick to traditional cardio in
order to achieve an EPOC effect. Several studies have
shown that weight training with various types of
equipment can also elicit elevated EPOC—and may
[35] even be more effective than cardio training in certain
scenarios. But keep in mind: You shouldn’t engage in
this style of training more than about two to three times
per week on non-consecutive days.
TAO, David. Disponível em: https://greatist.com/fitness/afterburneffect-keep-burning-calories-after-workout. Acesso: 1 nov. 2018. Adaptado.
Considering language use in the text, it’s correct to say: