Questões de Inglês - Grammar

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    One of the main points of the advancement of science is being guided by the human curiosity, uncompromised with concrete results and free from any kind of tutelage or guidance. Scientific production driven simply by this curiosity has been able to open new frontiers of knowledge, to make us wiser and, in the long run, to generate value and more quality of life for human beings.

    By its methods and instruments, science allows us to analyze the world around us and see beyond what the eyes can see. The scientific and technological enterprise of the human being throughout its history is, undoubtedly, the main responsible for everything that humanity had just built up. His achievements are present since the domain of fire to the immense potential derived from modern science of information, passing by the animals’ domestication, the rise of modern agriculture and industry and, of course, by the spectacular improvement in the quality of life of all humanity in the last century.

    In addition to human curiosity, another very important way of scientific advancement is the solution of problems that afflict humanity. Living longer and healthier, working less and having more available time for leisure, reducing the distances that separate us from other human beings - whether through more communication channels or better means of transport - are some of the challenges and human aspirations to which, for centuries, the science and technology have contributed.

    A person born in the late 18^th Century, he/she would most likely die before reaching the age of 40. Someone born today in a developed country is expected to live more than 80 years and, although inequality is high, even in the poorest countries anywhere in sub-Saharan Africa, life expectancy today is more than 50 years. Science and technology are the key factors in explaining the reduction in mortality from various diseases, such as infectious diseases, for example, and the consequent increase in human longevity.

Texto Adaptado. Disponível em: https://www.ipea.gov.br/cts/pt/central-deconteudo/artigos/artigos/116-a-ciencia-e-a-tecnologiacomo-estrategia-de-desenvolvimento. Acesso em: 15 dez. 2020.

Instrução: A questão está relacionada ao texto abaixo.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
Sciences has announced a new category in
time for next February’s awards ceremony:
“achievement in popular film”. The idea is
[5] that, alongside the time-honoured “Best
Picture” category, there will be another for
films which have a broader appeal:
blockbusters, in other words. Ironically, the
announcement has been anything but
[10] popular. On social media, responses to this
idea have ranged from hostile to very hostile
indeed. Many feel that the once-prestigious
Oscars are dumbing down to the level of the
MTV Awards. What’s next—Best kiss? Loudest
[15] shoot-out? Most skyscrapers flattened by
aliens in a single action sequence?
The concept of the “Hit Oscar” or the
“Popcorn Oscar”, as it has been nicknamed,
raises other questions, too. To start with, who
[20] decides whether or not a film is popular?
What are the criteria or thresholds? And isn’t
it an insult to nominees, the implicit
suggestion being that hit films can’t be artistic
(and vice versa)?
[25] The timing, too, is off. “Black Panther”,
Marvel’s Afrofuturist superhero blockbuster,
could well have been nominated for best
picture in 2019. Indeed, it could well have
won, ……… acknowledging the superhero
[30] boom as well as emphasising just how
successful films with black casts and creative
teams can be. But it is now likely that “Black
Panther” will be shoved into the “popular”
ghetto, and that the best-picture prize will go
[35] to an indie drama. If so, the introduction of a
new category will have helped maintain the
status quo, rather than upending it.
It is understandable that the Oscars’
organisers should want to shake up the
[40] ceremony’s format, bearing in mind how low
its television ratings have fallen. One reason
for this decline, the theory goes, is that best-

picture winners are no longer the films that
the great American public is queuing up to
[45] see.
But if hugely profitable, crowd-pleasing films
aren’t winning best picture these days, it is
not because the Academy’s voters are
becoming more snobbish or sophisticated in
[50] their tastes. It is because Hollywood has
stopped making middlebrow historical epics
that used to be a shoo-in. What the
introduction of the popular category
acknowledges is that there are now hardly
[55] any studio films in the chasm between shiny
comic-book movies and quirky indie
experiments. The industry is producing
nothing for grown-up viewers who want more
scale and spectacle than they can get from a
[60] low-key drama, but who don’t fancy seeing
people in colourful costumes firing laser
beams at each other.
The new division between best picture and
popular picture may be ill-judged, but it
[65] reflects a pre-existing dichotomy between
arthouse and multiplex fare. So have pity on
the poor Academy. If Hollywood studios
weren’t quite so obsessed with superhero
franchises, the Oscars might not be in this
[70] mess in the first place.

Adaptado de: https://www.economist.com/prospero/2018/08 /11/the-academy-announces-a-misguided-newcategory. Acesso em: 08 ago. 2018.

A questão se refere ao texto a seguir:

  Artificial Intelligence (AI) is going to play an enormous role in our lives and in the global economy. It is the key to
self-driving cars, the Amazon Alexa in your home, autonomous trading desks on Wall Street, innovation in medicine,
and cyberwar defenses.
   Technology is rarely good nor evil — it’s all in how humans use it. AI could do an enormous amount of good and
[5] solve some of the world’s hardest problems, but that same power could be turned against us. AI could be set up to inflict
bias based on race or beliefs, invade our privacy, learn about and exploit our personal weaknesses — and do a lot of
nefarious things we can’t yet foresee.
  Which means that our policymakers must understand and help guide AI so it benefits society. […] We don’t
want overreaching regulation that goes beyond keeping us safe and ends up stifling innovation. Regulators helped make
[10] it so difficult to develop atomic energy, today the U.S. gets only 20% of its electricity from nuclear power. So, while we
need a Federal Artificial Intelligence Agency, or FAIA, I would prefer to see it created as a public-private partnership.
Washington should bring in AI experts from the tech industry to a federal agency designed to understand and direct AI
and to inform lawmakers. Perhaps the AI experts would rotate through Washington on a kind of public service tour of 

duty.
[15]  Importantly, we’re at the beginning of a new era in government — one where governance is software-defined.
The nature of AI and algorithms means we need to develop a new kind of agency — one that includes both humans and
software. The software will help monitor algorithms. Existing, old-school regulations that rely on manual enforcement are
 too cumbersome to keep up with technology and too “dumb” to monitor algorithms in a timely way.
  Software-defined regulation can monitor software-driven industries better than regulations enforced by squads of
[20] regulators. Algorithms can continuously watch emerging utilities such as Facebook, looking for details and patterns that
humans might never catch, but nonetheless signal abuses. If Congress wants to make sure Facebook doesn’t exploit
political biases, it could direct the FAIA to write an algorithm to look for the behavior.
  It’s just as important to have algorithms that keep an eye on the role of humans inside these companies. We
 want technology that can tell if Airbnb hosts are illegally turning down minorities or if Facebook’s human editors
[25] are squashing conservative news headlines.
The watchdog algorithms can be like open-source software — open to examination by anyone, while the
companies keep private proprietary algorithms and data. If the algorithms are public, anyone can run various datasets
against them and analyze for “off the rails” behaviors and unexpected results.
  Clearly, AI needs some governance. As Facebook is proving, we can’t rely on companies to monitor and regulate
[30] themselves. Public companies, especially, are incentivized to make the biggest profits possible, and their algorithms will
optimize for financial goals, not societal goals. But as a tech investor, I don’t want to see an ill-informed Congress set up
regulatory schemes for social networks, search and other key services that then make our dynamic tech companies as
dull and bureaucratic as electric companies. […] Technology companies and policymakers need to come together soon
and share ideas about AI governance and the establishment of a software-driven AI agency. [...]
[35]  Let’s do this before bad regulations get enacted — and before AI gets away from us and does more damage. We
have a chance right now to tee up AI so it does tremendous good. To unleash it in a positive direction, we need to get
the checks and balances in place right now

Adaptado de

Mobile milestones: how your phone

 became an essential part of your life

    Has any device changed our lives as much, and as quickly, as the mobile phone? There are people today for whom the world of address books, street atlases and phone boxes seems very far away, lost in the mists of time. Following, there are just some of the big milestones from the past 30 years that have made almost everything we do easier, more public and very, very fast.

• The first phones arrive – and become status symbols

    Few people got the chance to use the very early mobile phones. The first call was made in New York in 1973, but handsets with a network to use were not available until 1983 in the US, and 1985 in the UK. That first British mobile phone was essentially a heavy briefcase with a receiver attached by a wire. It cost £2,000 (£5,000 in today’s prices), and gave you half an hour’s chat on an overnight charge. Making a call was not something you could do subtly, but that wasn’t the point; the first handsets were there to be seen. They sent a message that you were bold and confident with new technology, that you were busy and important enough to need a mobile phone, and were rich enough to buy one.

• Text messages spawn a whole new language

    The first mobiles worked with analogue signals and could only make phone calls, but the digital ones that followed in the early 1990s could send SMS messages as well. After the first message was sent on 3 December 1992, texting took off like a rocket, even though it was still a pretty cumbersome procedure. Handsets with predictive text would make things easier, but in the 1990s you could save a lot of time by removing all excess letters from a message, often the vowels, and so txtspk ws brn. Today the average mobile phone sends more than 100 texts per month.

• Phones turn us all into photographers...

    There seemed to be no good reason for the first camera phones, which began to appear in 2002, with resolutions of about 0.3 megapixels. They took grainy, blurry pictures on postage stamp-sized screens, and even these filled the phone’s memory in no time. Gradually, though, as the quality improved, the uses followed. As well as the usual photos of friends and family, they were handy for “saving” pieces of paper, and in pubs you could take a picture of the specials board and take it back to your table. Modern camera phones have changed beyond recognition in the past 20 years. The new mobile phones boast the highest resolution dual camera on a smartphone: a 16-megapixel camera and a 20-megapixel camera side-by-side. The dual camera allows users to focus on their subjects, while blurring out the background, producing professional-looking portraits.

• …and we turn ourselves into celebrities

    Twenty years ago people would have thought you a little strange if you took flattering photos of yourself and your lifestyle and then distributed them to your friends – let alone to members of the public. If you used printed photographs rather than a smartphone app, they would still think so today. Yet sharing our lives on social media is now the norm, not the exception – and it was the camera phone that made it all possible. Now, some phones come with an enormous 64GB of memory, so you can capture, share and store an almost countless number of videos and pictures – well, certainly enough to keep up with the Kardashians.

(www.theguardian.com, 07.07.2017. Adaptado.)