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Questões de Inglês - Grammar
Questão 22 262884
UNCISAL 2° Dia 2017There were lots of stuff in Friends that people had missed the first time, only for it to be rediscovered 12 years after the series finale. If you spend a lot of your time on the Internet then you'll probably be aware of that. Fans have noticed famous scenes where Matthew Perry almost cracked-up, and people have even spotted pies going missing from tables when Brad Pitt appeared on the show. And there’s the moment an extra chewed her coffee. […]
Disponível em: . Acesso em: 16 nov. 2016 (adaptado).
Os verbos em destaque estão empregados, respectivamente, nos seguintes tempos verbais:
Questão 95 234323
UECE 2° Fase 1° Dia 2012/2T E X T
SPEAKING two languages rather than just one has obvious practical benefits in an increasingly globalized world. But in recent years, scientists have begun to show that the advantages of bilingualism are even more fundamental than being able to converse with a wider range of people. Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter. It can have a profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language and even shielding against dementia in old age.
This view of bilingualism is remarkably different from the understanding of bilingualism through much of the 20th century. Researchers, educators and policy makers long considered a second language to be an interference, cognitively speaking, that hindered a child’s academic and intellectual development.
They were not wrong about the interference: there is ample evidence that in a bilingual’s brain both language systems are active even when he is using only one language, thus creating situations in which one system obstructs the other. But this interference, researchers are finding out, isn’t so much a handicap as a blessing in disguise. It forces the brain to resolve internal conflict, giving the mind a workout that strengthens its cognitive muscles.
Bilinguals, for instance, seem to be more adept than monolinguals at solving certain kinds of mental puzzles. In a 2004 study by the psychologists Ellen Bialystok and Michelle MartinRhee, bilingual and monolingual preschoolers were asked to sort blue circles and red squares presented on a computer screen into two digital bins — one marked with a blue square and the other marked with a red circle.
In the first task, the children had to sort the shapes by color, placing blue circles in the bin marked with the blue square and red squares in the bin marked with the red circle. Both groups did this with comparable ease. Next, the children were asked to sort by shape, which was more challenging because it required placing the images in a bin marked with a conflicting color. The bilinguals were quicker at performing this task.
The collective evidence from a number of such studies suggests that the bilingual experience improves the brain’s so-called executive function — a command system that directs the attention processes that we use for planning, solving problems and performing various other mentally demanding tasks. These processes include ignoring distractions to stay focused, switching attention willfully from one thing to another and holding information in mind — like remembering a sequence of directions while driving.
Why does the tussle between two simultaneously active language systems improve these aspects of cognition? Until recently, researchers thought the bilingual advantage stemmed primarily from an ability for inhibition that was honed by the exercise of suppressing one language system: this suppression, it was thought, would help train the bilingual mind to ignore distractions in other contexts. But that explanation increasingly appears to be inadequate, since studies have shown that bilinguals perform better than monolinguals even at tasks that do not require inhibition, like threading a line through an ascending series of numbers scattered randomly on a page.
The key difference between bilinguals and monolinguals may be more basic: a heightened ability to monitor the environment. “Bilinguals have to switch languages quite often — you may talk to your father in one language and to your mother in another language,” says Albert Costa, a researcher at the University of PompeuFabra in Spain. “It requires keeping track of changes around you in the same way that we monitor our surroundings when driving.” In a study comparing German-Italian bilinguals with Italian monolinguals on monitoring tasks, Mr. Costa and his colleagues found that the bilingual subjects not only performed better, but they also did so with less activity in parts of the brain involved in monitoring, indicating that they were more efficient at it.
The bilingual experience appears to influence the brain from infancy to old age (and there is reason to believe that it may also apply to those who learn a second language later in life).
In a 2009 study led by Agnes Kovacs of the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, Italy, 7-month-old babies exposed to two languages from birth were compared with peers raised with one language. In an initial set of trials, the infants were presented with an audio cue and then shown a puppet on one side of a screen. Both infant groups learned to look at that side of the screen in anticipation of the puppet. But in a later set of trials, when the puppet began appearing on the opposite side of the screen, the babies exposed to a bilingual environment quickly learned to switch their anticipatory gaze in the new direction while the other babies did not.
Bilingualism’s effects also extend into the twilight years. In a recent study of 44 elderly Spanish-English bilinguals, scientists led by the neuropsychologist Tamar Gollan of the University of California, San Diego, found that individuals with a higher degree of bilingualism — measured through a comparative evaluation of proficiency in each language — were more resistant than others to the onset of dementia and other symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease: the higher the degree of bilingualism, the later the age of onset.
Nobody ever doubted the power of language. But who would have imagined that the words we hear and the sentences we speak might be leaving such a deep imprint?
Source: www.nytimes.com
The verbs of the sentences “In the first task, the children sorted the shapes by color.”, “…since studies have shown that bilinguals…” and “Why does the tussle between two simultaneously active language systems improve these aspects of cognition?” are respectively in the
Questão 13 1360041
AFA 2011Read the fragment about traditional religions in Africa and answer question
Religion ________ central to people's lives in Africa. Although the majority of Africans are now Muslim or Christian, traditional religions have endured and still play a big role. Religion runs like a thread through daily life, marked by prayers of gratitude in times of plenty and prayers of supplication in times of need. Religion confirms identity on the individual and the group.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/africa/features/storyofafrica
GLOSSARY:
Endure – to continue to exist for a long time
Thread – one part connecting with another
Mark the alternative that completes the gap from the text correctly.
Questão 99 1359406
UECE 2° Fase 1° Dia 2019/2T E X T
English in the World Today
The English language has changed
considerably over the last thousand or so
years. It has changed in terms of its lexis
(vocabulary), its orthography (spelling)
[5] and its semantics (meaning). And it has
also changed in terms of its syntax (word
order).
One of the reasons for the change
that has happened to English over the
[10] centuries is that, since its very
beginnings, English has always been in
contact with other languages. The
influence from this contact can be seen
most clearly in the way that English is full
[15] of what are known as loanwords. The
term loanword, or borrowing, is used to
refer to an item of vocabulary from one
language which has been adopted into
the vocabulary of another. The process is
[20] often the result of language contact,
where two or more languages exist in
close geographical or social proximity.
The dominant language often absorbs
new items of vocabulary, either to cover
[25] concepts for which it has no specific word
of its own, or to generate a slightly
different function or nuance for concepts
for which it does have existing words.
Some loanwords retain their
[30] 'foreign’ appearance when they are
adopted, and people will often then use
them specifically for the sense of
exoticism that they impart. One can talk
of a certain je ne sais quoi, for example,
[35] or of a joie de vivre when speaking
English – in both cases invoking images
of French culture to enhance the meaning
of what is being communicated. Other
loanwords, however, have become
[40] completely naturalized, until speakers of
the language no longer notice their
‘foreignness’ at all.
English has, over its lifetime,
absorbed influences from countless
[45] sources – and so just as English is now a
presence in diverse contexts all across
the globe, so diverse contexts from
across the globe also have a presence in
the language itself.
[50] The history of English can
therefore be seen as a record of the
changes that have occurred in the
populations of those who speak the
language. When two languages come into
[55] contact, what actually happens is that
two communities who speak different
languages engage with each other, and
the nature of that engagement will
determine how the languages influence
[60] one another. In other words, it is
important when we study English not to
forget that what we are actually studying
is the language as it is and was used by
real people.
[65] There is a problem in talking about
statistics such as those which say that
English is spoken by almost two billion
people the world over because they make
large generalizations about the nature of
[70] the English involved, and the relationship
that people have to the language. Such
statistics can never fully represent the
diversity of experiences that speakers of
the language have, either about whether
[75] they feel they are ‘authentic’ English
speakers or about what they themselves
understand English to be.
The attitudes people have towards
the language are a part of their own
[80] personal history. But this personal history
is always a part of the wider history of
the community in which they live. It is
often the case that not only is the
language of importance to the individual’s
[85] sense of identity, but that it also plays a
part in the cultural identity of a group or
nation. It is within this context that the
history of English – and especially the
reasons behind its global spread – can be
[90] of great significance for the attitudes
people have towards the language.
Decisions about the language
made by institutions such as national
governments and education systems
[95] have an impact on the form of the
language and on the way it is perceived
and used. In contexts such as these,
English cannot simply be considered a
neutral medium of communication;
[100] instead it is a politically charged social
practice embedded in the histories of the
people who use it.
The English language is and
always has been a diverse entity. It has
[105] changed dramatically over the centuries
since it first arrived on the shores of
Britain from the north of Europe, and
these changes mean that the language
that was spoken at that time is almost
[110] incomprehensible to us now. As the
language has spread beyond Britain it
has continued to change, and to change
in different ways in different contexts. It
has diversified to such an extent that
[115] some scholars suggest that it is no longer
accurate to talk of a single ‘English’; that
instead there are many different English
languages around the world today.
At the same time, however,
[120] English exists in the world today as a
means of international communication –
as a way for people from different social
groups to communicate with each other –
and to fulfil this function it would seem
[125] that variation in the language needs to
be curtailed to a certain extent. That is to
say, if the language becomes too diverse
it will not remain mutually
comprehensible across different social
[130] groups. So we have two impulses at work
that are seemingly incompatible, or
perhaps even in conflict, and the question
we are faced with is how to render them
as consistent, as both being part of the
[135] existence of a single entity we call
‘English’. This is one of the central issues
in English language studies today – and it
is a very modern issue because it has
come about as a direct result of the
[140] unprecedented position that English now
occupies in the world: as a language with
global scope which is implicated in the
history and present-day existence of
societies all around the world.
Adapted from: https://www.open.edu/
In terms of tense, the verbs in the sentence “The attitudes people have towards the language are a part of their own personal history.” (lines 78-80) are respectively in the
Questão 40 1446252
ESA 2019Complete the sentence below using the appropriate words:
Mr. Harris_________ trains: He is afraid of airplane and________like buses, but ________trains.
Questão 19 5509295
FACISA 2019/1Read the text below and answer the question that follow.
TEXT
The Rise of Fake news
By James Carson
"Fake news" was not a term many people used two years ago, but it is now seen as one of the greatest threats to democracy, free debate and the Western order. […]
Governments and powerful individuals have used information as a weapon for millennia, to boost their support and quash dissidence. […] However, before the internet, it was much more expensive to distribute information, building up trust took years, and there were much simpler definitions of what constituted news and media, making regulation easier.
But the rise of social media has broken down many of the boundaries that prevented fake news from spreading in democracies, as it has allowed anyone to create and disseminate information […].
Hoaxes and falsehoods have been associated with the internet since its early days, but it is only in the last two years that organised, systematic misinformation campaigns, often linked to governments, have emerged, and their effect on democracy and society scrutinised. The 2016 US election has been seen as providing a fertile breeding ground for fake news. Some credit Donald Trump's anti-establishment rhetoric and distrust of the mainstream media. Others blame widening partisanship, which meant readers were more prone to believe and share stories that fit their beliefs.
The rise of social media itself has also been seen as central. Sites like Facebook are accused of creating "filter bubbles", the phenomenon of showing people things that they like or tend to agree with, and hiding those that they don't.
Critics of Facebook and Twitter say the sites are purpose built for spreading misinformation, with the reach of a story dependent on its ability to go viral – something that often depends on sensationalism and emotional reactions more than truth itself. […]
An aggravating effect may have been that the sheer quantity of fake news stories may have reduced trust in mainstream media – if scepticism about what people read online increases, they may not know what to think. In these situations, people tend to stick to their prejudices.
(Source: Adapted from The Telegraph, UK - 30 October 2018)
The use of the present perfect tense in TEXT indicates that the spreading of fake news
