Questões de Inglês - Grammar - Pronouns
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Why libraries may never stop being people places?
As the first winter of the pandemic drew to a close, someone in my Twitter feed enthused about an app called Libby that made it especially easy to borrow and read library books. I downloaded (1) it, input my New York Public Library card number and proceeded to binge. I devoured everything by and about Isaac Babel, who wrote stories based on (2) his life in early-20th-century Odessa, and all of Mick Herron’s Slough House books, about a group of sad, incompetent British spies.
Libby was created by OverDrive, a Cleveland-based company that digitizes books and other publications and distributes (3) them to 90 percent of North American libraries. The app debuted in 2017 but, no surprise, had (4) its biggest bump in growth in 2020, a 33 percent increase in circulation compared with 2019. What distinguishes Libby from other library apps, like the New York Public Library’s SimplyE, is that it allows you to read on a Kindle (instead of, say, your phone). And it has a definite style, minimalist and sweet. Libby suggests, intentionally or not, that public libraries, the actual buildings, are no longer necessary, that libraries have become — like everything and everyone else — place-less purveyors of content. But if during the past couple of years you replaced in-person library visits with an app, you may be missing out.
What many public libraries have done, despite Covid and because of it, is consciously enhance their physical presence on the street and in the neighborhood. Or, as Mrs. Houben, who argues that every library needs a garden, suggested, “A library should be so nice that you bring your own book, right?”
(Fonte: texto adaptado. By Karrie Jacobs. Published on April 21st, 2022. Disponível em: https://www.nytimes. com/2022/04/21/style/libraries-outdoor-public-space.html Acesso em: 1 nov. 2022)
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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 it in “I don't think it limits me” refer to?
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The asteroid impact that killed off the dinosaurs gave birth to our planet’s tropical rainforests, a study suggests. Researchers used fossil pollen and leaves from Colombia to investigate how the impact changed South American tropical forests. After the 12 km-wide space rock struck Earth 66 million years ago, the type of vegetation that made up these forests changed drastically.
The team has outlined its findings in the prestigious journal Science. Co-author Dr Mónica Carvalho, from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institution in Panama, said: “Our team examined over 50,000 fossil pollen records and more than 6,000 leaf fossils from before and after the impact.” They found that cone-bearing plants called conifers and ferns were common before the huge asteroid struck what is now the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico.
But after the devastating impact, plant diversity declined by roughly 45% and extinctions were widespread, particularly among seed-bearing plants. While the forests recovered over the next six million years, angiosperms, or flowering plants, came to dominate them.
(www.bbc.com. Adaptado.)
No trecho do terceiro parágrafo “While the forests recovered over the next six million years, angiosperms, or flowering plants, came to dominate them”, o termo sublinhado refere-se às
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When given the choice between a free meal and performing a task for a meal, cats would prefer the meal that doesn’t require much effort. While that might not come as a surprise to some cat lovers, it does to cat behaviorists. Most animals prefer to work for their food — a behavior called contrafreeloading.
A new study from researchers at the University of California, Davis, School of Veterinary Medicine showed most domestic cats choose not to contrafreeload. The study found that cats would rather eat from a tray of easily available food rather than work out a simple puzzle to get their food.
“There is an entire body of research that shows that most species including birds, rodents, wolves, primates — even giraffes — prefer to work for their food,” said lead author Mikel Delgado, a cat behaviorist and research affiliate at UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine.
In the study, Delgado, along with co-authors Melissa Bain and Brandon Han, provided 17 cats a food puzzle and a tray of food. The puzzle allowed the cats to easily see the food but required some manipulation to extract it. Some of the cats even had food puzzle experience.
“It wasn’t that cats never used the food puzzle, but cats ate more food from the tray, spent more time at the tray and made more first choices to approach and eat from the tray rather than the puzzle,” said Delgado.
(www.neurosciencenews.com, 14.08.2021. Adaptado.)
In the excerpt from the fourth paragraph “The puzzle allowed the cats to easily see the food but required some manipulation to extract it”, the underlined word refers to the
TEXTO:
Working From home
The fastest-growing job force
today in America are people who
work out of their homes.
Robin Gagliardi, 30, is an administrative assistant
for the Westchester County, New York, clerk’s office.
After her daughter, Kristina, was born four years ago,
Gagliardi asked her supervisor if she could work
[5] part time. The supervisor suggested she remain full
time, working a few days a week from home — an
arrangement that had never been tried before by the
organization. It paid off: the number of information
that she processed rose from 60 a day to 100. Since
[10] the arrangement was so successful, Gagliardi began
working full time from home.
John Williams was forced to take early retirement
at the corporation where he had worked for 31 years.
He thought that looking for a new job would be too
[15] difficult for a 58-year-old. Instead, he decided to follow
his entrepreneurial instincts.
Williams was an expert at home repairs, and over
the years he’d received many calls from divorced or
widowed women asking for help with leaky faucets or
[20] defective doors. So Williams founded Rent a Husband
Handyman Service in his Rockville, Md., home — and
has had a continuous series of work ever since.
Robin Gagliardi and John Williams are members
of a fast-growing job force: people who work out of
[25] their homes.
Today, many businesses permit employees to
work at home, including giants such as AT&T
(with 36,000 telecommuters), IBM and Motorola.
Even the federal government is hoping to follow this
[30] trend. Faith Wohl, former director of the Office of
Workplace Initiatives for the U.S. General Services
Administration, says Uncle Sam has a target of 60,000
telecommuters by the year 2005.
SPEAK UP. Ano 12, n. 154, p. 6-7, s.d. (Adaptado)
The word “that” (l. 7) can be replaced by
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