Questões de Inglês - Grammar - Degrees of comparison - as ... as / not as ... as
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The fantastic appeal of fantasy
The fantasy genre starts where science ends
Few things can brighten up a dark morning in a Scottish seaside resort during an Atlantic storm. Yet while sheltering in a bookshop from the rain, I had a moment of sunny revelation. Stacked almost as high as my 11-year-old self were copies of The Lord of the Rings, with a cover illustration that promised mystery and magic. That chance discovery started a lifelong love of the fantasy genre1, both as reader and writer.
The fantasy genre has had more and more success, but today we’re in the middle of an unprecedented fantasy boom. Sales continue to rise and it is now the biggest genre in publishing. The more rational the world gets, with super-science all around us, the more we demand the irrational in our fiction.
Fantasy is not simply a case of swords2 and sorcery3. Yes, there is that by the shelf. But the genre is as broad as the imagination. The genre starts where science ends.
“In these modern times, where most of us sit at computers, fantasy books offer a chance to break out of mundane moments,” says Mark Newton, an editor with the genre. “People like to explore themes that go beyond the limited palette that literary fiction claims to offer.”
A search for the origins of fantasy will usually have academics muttering about Beowulf or Homer’s The Iliad, but they come from a time when all stories were fantasy: gods and monsters and supernatural artefacts with humanity caught in the middle. The first modern fantasy writer is usually considered to be William Morris, in the late 19th Century. But it was the early 20th Century where fantasy really started to gain status.
Fantasy fiction has always been about visionary ideas. You can get artful words in plenty of literary fiction, but being able to see beyond the boundaries4 of the world around us — now that’s a special skill.
I don’t write fantasy fiction simply to provide a trapdoor5 from the real world. For me, the genre is about the reality. But instead of coming up against it, fantasy maps the unconscious aspirations of our modern society through allegory in story- -forms as old as humanity. It’s about turning off the mobile phone and the computer and remembering who we are in the deepest parts of ourselves.
(Mark Chadbourn. www.telegraph.co.uk, 12.04.2008. Adaptado.)
1genre: gênero. Categoria distintiva de composição literária, como romance, poesia etc.
2sword: espada.
3sorcery: feitiçaria.
4boundary: fronteira.
5trapdoor: alçapão.
O trecho sublinhado em “the genre is as broad as the imagination” (3° parágrafo) expressa uma
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Xennials, the microgeneration between
Gen X and Millennials
We’re all tired of hearing about millennials, but there’s a new group who we’re about to be talking about a lot more. Defined as the generation born between 1982 and 2004, millennials are aged between 13 and 35. The generation before, Gen X, spanned another 20 years, beginning in 1961 and ending in 1981.
Enter Xennials, the new term being used to describe people born between 1977 and 1983. Like the pessimistic Gen Xers before them, this microgeneration is not as tech savvy as the millennials who are considered digital natives. “The idea is there’s this micro or in-between generation between the Gen X group – who we think of as the depressed flanneletteshirt-wearing, grunge-listening children that came after the Baby Boomers and the millennials – who get described as optimistic, tech savvy and maybe a little bit too sure of themselves and too confident,” says Dan Woodman, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Melbourne.
Woodman went on to explain that while millennials have always grown up with technology, Xennials had to make an adjustment to embrace it. “It was a particularly unique experience. You have a childhood, youth and adolescence free of having to worry about social media posts and mobile phones... We learned to consume media and came of age before there was Facebook and Twitter and Snapchat and all these things where you still watch the evening news or read the newspaper,” he noted.
(Joy D’Souza. www.huffingtonpost.ca, 03.07.2017. Adaptado.)
No trecho do segundo parágrafo “this microgeneration is not as tech savvy as the millennials”, os termos em destaque indicam uma ideia de
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Heatwaves have a huge impact on our physical and mental health. Doctors usually fear them, as emergency rooms quickly fill up with patients suffering from dehydration, delirium and fainting. Recent studies suggest at least a 10% rise in hospital emergency room visits on days when temperatures reach or exceed the top 5% of the normal temperature range for a given location.
Soaring temperatures can also make symptoms worse in those with mental health conditions. Heatwaves — as well as other weather events such as floods and fires — have been linked to a rise in depressive symptoms in people with depression, and a rise in anxiety symptoms in those with generalised anxiety disorder — a disorder that makes people feel anxious most of the time.
A Boston University study found that those in rooms without air conditioning during a heatwave performed 13% worse than their peers in cognitive tests and had 13% slower reaction time. When people are not thinking clearly due to heat, it is more likely they will become frustrated, and this, in turn, can lead to aggression. There is strong evidence linking extreme heat with a rise in violent crime. Even just a one or two degrees Celsius increase in ambient temperatures can lead to a 3-5% spike in assaults.
(Laurence Wainwright e Eileen Neumann. https://theconversation.com, 12.07.2022. Adaptado.)
In the excerpt from the second paragraph “as well as other weather events such as floods and fires”, the underlined expression conveys the idea of
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Not smart but clever? The return of 'dumbphones'
Seventeen-year-old Robin West is an anomaly among her peers – she doesn't have a smartphone. Instead of scrolling through apps like TikTok and Instagram all day, she uses a so-called "dumbphone". These are basic handsets, or feature phones, with very limited functionality compared to say an iPhone. You can typically only make and receive calls and SMS text messages. And, if you are lucky – listen to radio and take very basic photos, but definitely not connect to the internet or apps. These devices are similar to some of the first handsets that people bought back in the late 1990s.
Her decision to ditch her former smartphone two years ago was a spur of the moment thing. While looking for a replacement handset in a second-hand shop she was lured by the low price of a "brick phone". Her current handset, from a French firm, cost her just £8. And as it has no smartphone functionality, she doesn't have an expensive monthly data bill to worry about. "I didn't notice until I bought a brick phone how much a smartphone was taking over my life," she says. "I had a lot of social media apps on it, and I didn't get as much work done as I always on my phone." The Londoner adds that she doesn't think she'll ever buy another smartphone. "I'm happy with my brick – I don't think it limits me. I'm definitely more proactive."
Dumbphones are continuing to enjoy a revival. Google searches for them jumped by 89% between 2018 and 2021, according to a report by software firm SEMrush. Meanwhile, a 2021 study by accountancy group Deloitte said that one in 10 mobile phone users in the UK had a dumbphone. "It appears fashion, nostalgia, and them appearing in TikTok videos, have a part to play in the dumbphone revival," says Ernest Doku, mobiles expert at price comparison site Uswitch.com. He says it was the 2017 relaunch of Nokia's 3310 handset – first released in 2000, and one of the biggest-selling mobiles of all time – that really sparked the revival. "Nokia pushed the 3310 as an affordable alternative in a world full of highspec mobiles." He adds that while it's true that dumbphones can't compete with the latest premium Apple and Samsung models when it comes to performance or functionality, "they can outshine them in equally important areas such as battery life and durability".
Tech expert, Prof Sandra Wachter, a researcher in artificial intelligence at Oxford University, says it is understandable that some of us are looking for simpler mobile phones. "One can reasonably say that nowadays a smart phone's ability to connect calls and send short messages is almost a side feature," she explains. "Your smart phone is your entertainment centre, your news generator, your navigation system, your diary, your dictionary, and your wallet." She adds that smartphones always "want to grab your attention" with notifications, updates, and breaking news constantly disrupting your day. "This can keep you on edge, might even be agitating. It can be overwhelming." Prof Wachter adds: "Some of us are now looking for simpler technologies and think that dumbphones might offer a return to simpler times. It might leave more time to fully concentrate on a single task and engage with it more purposefully. It might even calm people down. Studies have shown that too much choice can create unhappiness and agitation."
Adapted from: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60763168. Available on March 25th, 2022.
What does the word as in “And as it has no smartphone functionality” indicate?
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Water and Urbanization
A view of passengers aboard trains connecting the suburbs of Kolkata, India. The Asia-Pacific region is urbanizing rapidly with 1.77 billion people, 43% of the region’s population, living in urban areas
Urban areas are expected to absorb all of the world’s population growth over the next four decades, as well as accommodating significant rural-to-urban migration. The vast majority of these people will be living in overcrowded slums with inadequate, often non-existent, water and sanitation services.
Safe drinking water systems and adequate sanitation that effectively disposes of human waste will be essential to ensure cities and towns grow sustainably. Extending these services to the millions of urbanites currently unserved will play a key role in underpinning the health and security of cities, protecting economies and ecosystems and minimising the risk of pandemics.
For the first time in history, more than half of the global population live in towns and cities. By 2050, that proportion is expected to rise to two-thirds. Population growth is happening fastest in urban areas of less developed regions, with the urban population estimated to grow from 3.9 billion people today to 6.3 billion in 2050.
Even though water and sanitation access rates are generally higher in urban areas than rural, planning and infrastructure have been unable to keep pace in many regions. Today, 700 million urbanites live without improved sanitation, contributing to poor health conditions and heavy pollution loads in wastewater, and 156 million live without improved water sources.
However, cities provide significant opportunities for more integrated and sustainable water use and waste management. The positive impacts of these services, particularly for public health, spread rapidly and cost-effectively among densely populated unplanned settlements. Furthermore, more efficient use of water within cities and the safe reuse of more waste will put less strain on the surrounding ecosystems.
(www.unwater.org. Adaptado.)
No trecho do primeiro parágrafo “as well as accommodating significant rural-to-urban migration”, a expressão sublinhada indica
A questão refere-se ao texto destacado a seguir.
I is the standing reproach of a democratic society that it is the purgatory of genius and the paradise of mediocrity. With ourselves it has become notorious that when a man is so unfortunate as to exhibit uncommon abilities, he usually renders himself ineligible for political honors or distinctions. It would seem that the community is possessed with that groveling quality of a sordid mind which hates superiority, and would ostracize genius, as the Athenians did Aristides. One might believe it would not be unpleasing to the popular taste if some enterprising person could invent a machine for stunting intellectual development, after the fashion of idiotic barbarians who flatten the heads of their children. The masses of the community certainly appear to believe that political equality implies not only social, but should also imply intellectual equality, under pain of being severely frowned down by an outraged public opinion.
The prevalent sentiment manifests itself in many different ways. It finds expression in public conveyances and resorts and is not altogether unknown even to the pulpit. It is found to perfection in the speeches of demagogues, who feel certain they are never so successful as when their audience is satisfied that the intellect of the speaker is of no higher an order than that of the lowest intelligence among them. Worse than all, it is demonstrated in the election of public officers of nearly all grades up to the highest: of which latter it has now become quite the custom to assume that it is impossible for a man of first-rate powers to be made President of the United States.
The causes which lend to so singular a state of affairs are of an intricate and complex character. At the outset, it is difficult to realize the possibility of a system, the logical deduction from which appears to be that, if a man would rise in life, he must assiduously belittle his understanding. Perhaps it would be fairer to modify the proposition so far as to concede that ability is as useful here as elsewhere, provided the owner has the tact not to affront the sensibilities of the people by showing too much of it. No doubt a vague apprehension exists in the popular mind that shining talents are dangerous when intrusted with executive power in a republic: yet, it were a poor commentary on our institutions to intimate that, under them, for a man to be clever he must also be vicious. Experience rather teaches the contrary. If the diffusion of education, having the general tendency to elevate the understanding, is to produce more bad men than good, we had better abandon than foster our Common School system. Manifestly, we must look further for the solution of our enigmal[:] that minds of moderate calibre ordinarily condemn everything which is beyond their range.
THE NEW YORK TIMES. The worship of mediocrity. 17/08/1862. Disponível em: https://www.nytimes.com/1862/08/17/archives/the- worship-of-mediocrity.html. Acesso 20/08/2020.
No trecho destacado, extraído do segundo parágrafo, “Tt is found to perfection in the speeches of demagogues, who feel certain they are never so successful as when their audience is satisfied that the intellect of the speaker is of no higher an order than that of the lowest intelligence among them.”, a ideia principal é a de que:
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