Estratégias para uma leitura eficaz no seu vestibular – Simulado de Inglês

(UFPB)

Read the following dictionary definitions.
1. The desire for and the attempt to achieve political independence for your country or
nation.
2. Any small group in society that is different from the rest with reference to their race,
religion and political beliefs.
3. The customs, beliefs, art, music, and all the other products of human thought made
by a particular group of people at a particular time.
4. The condition of being different or having differences; variety.
5. The people living in one particular area or people who are considered as a unit
because of their common interests, background or nationality.

Now match the words below to their correspondent definitions.

( ) Culture
( ) Community
( ) Minority
( ) Diversity
( ) Nationalism

The correct sequence is:

(UFLA/MG)

Read the text carefully and choose the correct alternative for each question.

WHY SHOULD PEOPLE DRINK MILK?

Humans have probably been drinking milk for as long as they have been on earth. People who study the history of the world have found pictures from long, long ago that show people milking cows and using the milk for food. Milk is the first food of babies. Animals that produce milk to feed their babies are called mammals. Their mother’s milk is usually the best food for all young mammals. The milk that people in America drink every day comes from cows, although many people prefer to drink the milk of goats. These two animals produce more milk than what their own babies need, and farmers collect the milk to sell it. In other countries, people also drink the milk of camels, horses, yaks, reindeer, sheep, and water buffaloes. Milk is sometimes called the most nearly perfect food. It contains many of the things that humans need for healthy bodies, such as calcium, phosphorous, and protein. Milk also has several necessary vitamins and is easily digested by most humans. Another reason milk is such a good food is because some of its ingredients are found nowhere else in nature. The one problem milk has is that it contains a lot of animal fat. This is good for young children, but not for adults. Foods with too much fat cause adults to have heart disease.
Sometimes the fatty part of milk, the cream, is removed. This milk is called low-fat milk or skim milk. The cream that is removed from the milk is used to make ice cream and other
foods. Milk is also used to make butter, cheese, and other dairy foods that people enjoy.
Besides being an important food, milk also provides chemicals that can be turned into other
products. These chemicals are used to make paint, glue, cloth, and plastic.

(Spectrunn Test Prep)

What is a word from the text that means “something made from other things”?

(UFLA/MG)

“The ability to concentrate and use your time well is the key to success. I work hard during the week and, except for very difficult times, keep my week-ends for my family and recreation. On Sunday nights I make a list of things to do in the coming week. I can’t believe so many people can’t control their schedules! When an executive (4) says proudly, ‘Boy (1), I worked so hard last year (2) that I didn’t take any vacation (3), I want to say, ‘You dummy! You can plan an $ 80.000,00 project (5), but you can’t plan for taking a two-week vacation!”

(Harmes and Surguine. Coast to Coast, Longman, 1991)

The phrase ‘you dummy’ in line 7 refers to

(UFLA/MG)

The term research can mean any sort of careful, systematic investigation in some field of study that is undertaken to discover or establish knowledge. One of the most common forms of research is survey research. It involves asking a large group of people questions about a particular topic or issue. This can be done in a number of ways – face-to-face with individuals, by mail, by telephone, and now on the Internet. Each method has its advantages and disadvantages, but obtaining information from a large group of people lies at the heart of survey research.
Another kind of research is experimental research, one of the most powerful methodologies researchers can use. Experimental research is the most conclusive of scientific methods because it enables researchers to go beyond the description and identification of relationships, to at least a partial determination of what causes them. An experiment usually involves two groups of subjects – an experimental group, which receives a treatment of some sort, and a control group, which receives no treatment. The control group enables the researcher to determine whether the treatment has had an effect.
But sometimes a research wants an in-depth look at a particular individual or situation. Instead of asking “What do people think about this?” as in survey research, or “What would happen if I did this?” as experimental research, the researcher asks “How do these people act?” or “How are things done?” To answer this type of question, researchers use a number of methodologies that come under the label qualitative research – the investigation of the quality of relatinships, activities or situations.

(GALLAGHER, Nancy – Delta’s key to the TOEFL test)

Match the numbers in column 1 with the information in column 2 and check the CORRECT alternative.

1. Survey
2. Experimental
3. Qualitative

( ) Quality of relationships
( ) Large number of subjects
( ) Two groups of subjects

(UFLA/MG)

DISCOVERING AMAZON RAIN FOREST’S SILVER LININGBY LARRY ROHTER

Apuri, Brazil – Many Brazilians have regarded the Amazon jungle as a barreir to progress that should be replaced as quickly as possible with ranches and farms. But in this remote corner of Brazil’s most isolated state, people increasingly see the (ref. 02) rain forest as a solution to the region’s chronic poverty.
In one sign of change, peasants are being encouraged to cultivate rubber and Brazil nut trees, the twin pillars of the economy here before major deforestation began in the 1970’s. Seeking to capitalize on (ref. 01) the growing market in Brazil and abroad for environmentally friendly products, forest dwellers have also formed cooperatives that have begun to produce high-end furniture, medicines derived from local plants and even condoms.

(CNN website – September 2002)

In (ref. 02) the phrase “rain forest” refers to

(UFLA/MG)

DISCOVERING AMAZON RAIN FOREST’S SILVER LININGBY LARRY ROHTER

Apuri, Brazil – Many Brazilians have regarded the Amazon jungle as a barreir to progress that should be replaced as quickly as possible with ranches and farms. But in this remote corner of Brazil’s most isolated state, people increasingly see the (ref. 02) rain forest as a solution to the region’s chronic poverty.
In one sign of change, peasants are being encouraged to cultivate rubber and Brazil nut trees, the twin pillars of the economy here before major deforestation began in the 1970’s. Seeking to capitalize on (ref. 01) the growing market in Brazil and abroad for environmentally friendly products, forest dwellers have also formed cooperatives that have begun to produce high-end furniture, medicines derived from local plants and even condoms.

(CNN website – September 2002)

In (ref. 01) the phrase “the twin pillars of the economy” refers to

(UFLA/MG)

LULAS’S LOOKING GOOD

As soon as Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was sworn in Jan.1, the world worried that the leftist leadership would send Brazil down the path of neighboring Argentina. Foreign investors feared he would focus on pleasing his support base and fail to execute necessary reforms. Instead, Lula seems to be taking steps to defuse what some considered Latin America’s biggest time bomb.
The Brazilian president has wowed financial markets by introducing a program of severe fiscal austerity. The largely impoverished voters who elected Lula have been placated – for the time being at least – by the apointment of large numbers of trade unionists (seven), women (four) blacks (two) and others of the dispossessed who have rarely graced Brazilian cabinets.
All along, Lula has said that the will delay fighting poverty until he could restore Brazil’s teetering finances. His program should do just that. He has proposed no large new taxes.

Brazil already collects a hefty 34 percent of all output in taxes, high by regional standards. For his voter base, Lula offered just one consolation – food stamps for Brazil’s poorest under a plan called “Zero Hunger”. It aims to provide each Brazilian enough for three meals a day. And even that iniciative is responsably financed. Lula is canceling the purchase of new fighter aircraft for the military and proposes a politically courageous reduction in the lavish pension benefits paid to unionized, upper-middle-class workers in government and state – owned enterprises.

(Newsweek – January 20, 2003)

Check the goals of “Zero Hunger” plan.

(UFLA/MG)

Digital record players and digital audio discs, or compact discs, were introduced in the United States in 1983. The initial sales were small, but as discs and players came down in price, their (1) sales increased dramatically. The compact disc, or CD, is less than five inches in diameter and has only one playable side. It can, however, hold more than 60 minutes of music. It is played on a digital record player that uses a laser beam to scan the recorded surface. In digital recording, a computer samples 44,000 bits of sound per second and assigns each (2) a numerical value. The numbers are then recorded in pits imbedded in the disc. It is these numbers that are read by the laser beam and changed back into sound.

(Gallangher, Nancy – Delta’s key to the TOEFL test)

The word each in (ref.2) refers to:

(UFLA/MG)

LAND REFORM

Brazil’s agrarian reform initiatives settled more than 42,000 families in 1995. Moreover, the National Program for Strengthening Family Farming gives assistance to the poorest rural families because it is not enough just to settle them on the land.

In a new move President Cardoso announced in November 1996 that a rural land tax is to be introduced to speed up land reform. The ITR tax is mainly aimed at landowners of unproductive properties who will have to pay an annual tax of up to 20 per cent on the value of their land. Land considered unproductive, and whose owners do not pay the new tax, can be confiscated by the state after five years and included in the agrarian reform programme. The MST has given a muted¹ welcome to the government’s proposal.

(Brazil: Advanced Studies. Paul Guinness – Hoddes & Soughton. 1998)

The word “MUTED” in (Ref.01) line 11 is closest in meaning to:

(UFLA/MG)

A variety of experiments can be performed to illustrate the nature of light, but perhaps the most well known is the classic “double slit (3) experiment” first performed by Thomas Young in 1803. In the first part of the experiment, a light is shone through a tiny vertical slit in a screen and allowed to pass on to a second detecting screen. The light spreads out after passing through the hole, and a large illuminated area that fades into darkness at the edges shows up on the detecting screen. To form this pattern, the light actually bends or diffracts when passing through the slit.

In the second part of the experiment, light is shone through two paralels slits. This time the light passes through the slits, but instead of creating a large lighted area, the detecting screen now shows alternating bands of light and darkness. The band in the center is the brightest. Around that are alternating bands of light and darkness with the light bands becoming less intense the farther away they are from the central one.

What is happening is called the “phenomenon of interference”. The waves of light from the two slits interfere with each other. Like all waves, light waves have crests, their highest points, and throughs, their lowest points. In places where the crests coming from one slit extend over the crests coming from the other slit, the result is an intensification of light, and light bands appear on the detecting screen. In places where the crests from one slit overlap the throughs from the other slit, they cancel each other out, and the result is an area of darkness on the detecting screen.

But what happens if particles of light, or photons, are shot one after the other (2)
through the slits? If only one slit is open, these photons build up the same pattern as that of the beam of light. The fascinating thing is that if two slits are open and photons are fired one at a time through either of them the pattern that builds up on the detecting screen is the same pattern obtained when a beam of light is shone through two slits. In other (1) words, a single photon appears to “know” whether one slit or two are open (4).

Gear, Jolene & Gear, Robert – Cambridge Preparation for the TOEFL Test – 2002(- Cambridge University Press – UK)

Look at the the word SLIT in the passage (ref. 3). Choose the one best alternative which is
closest in meaning to the word SLIT.