Questões de Concursos: Interpretação de Textos em Inglês

Lockdown Named 2020’s Word of the Year by Collins Dictionary

Lockdown, the noun that has come to define so many lives across the world in 2020, has been named word of the year by Collins Dictionary. Lockdown is defined by Collins as “the imposition of stringent restrictions on travel, social interaction, and access to public spaces”. The 4.5-billion-word Collins Corpus, which contains written material from websites, books and newspapers, as well as spoken material from radio, television and conversations, registered a 6,000% increase in ______(1) usage. In 2019, there were 4,000 recorded instances of lockdown being used. In 2020, this had risen to more than a quarter of a million.

“Language is a reflection of the world around us and 2020 has been dominated by the global pandemic,” says Collins language content consultant Helen Newstead. “We have chosen lockdown as _______(2) word of the year because it encapsulates the shared experience of billions of people who have had to restrict _______(3) daily lives in order to contain the virus. Lockdown has affected the way we work, study, shop, and socialise. It is not a word of the year to celebrate, but it is, perhaps, one that sums up the year for most of the world.”

Other pandemic-related words such as coronavirus, social distancing and key worker were on the dictionary’s list of the top 10 words. However, the coronavirus crisis didn’t completely dominate this year’s vocabulary: words like “Megxit,” a term to describe Prince Harry and Meghan Markle stepping back as senior members of the royal family, also made the shortlist along with “TikToker” (a person who regularly shares or appears in videos on TikTok), and “BLM.” The abbreviation BLM, for Black Lives Matter is defined by Collins as “a movement that campaigns against racially motivated violence and oppression”, it registered a 581% increase in usage.

Adapted from https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/nov/10/lockdown-named-word-of-the-year-by-collins-dictionary

Chinese Woman Opens Plane’s Emergency Exit for Some Fresh Air

A flight was delayed for an hour and a woman detained by police after she opened the emergency exit for “a breath of fresh air” before the flight took off in central China’s Hubei province, mainland media reported. The incident happened on Xiamen Air Flight MF8215 from Wuhan to Lanzhou, which was scheduled to take off at 3.45 p.m. on September 23.

Cabin crew had briefed the woman, who was in her 50s, about the rules when sitting next to the emergency exit and reminded her not to touch the button that opened the emergency exit. However, the woman said she needed some fresh air and touched the button to open the exit when the stewardess turned around to help others, the report said. The woman was taken away and the flight was delayed for an hour. Opening the emergency exit can be considered to be disturbing public order in an aircraft, which is punishable by police detention and a fine.

In July last year, a woman who was flying for the first time mistook the emergency door for a lavatory door before her plane took off in Nanjing. The emergency slide was released and the flight was delayed for two hours. The woman was detained for 10 days. Some passengers have paid a heavy price for releasing the emergency slide, which may take days and considerable expense to repair and reinstall. In January 2015, a man who opened an emergency door after a plane landed in Chongqing had to pay 35,000 yuan (150,000 baht) in compensation to the airline.

In June, a man from Hubei who was returning to China from Bangkok on a Thai Lion Air Flight opened an emergency exit before take-off. After apologising repeatedly, according to witnesses, he was held by Thai authorities for one day and given a fine of 500 baht before being deported.

Adapted from https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/1762629/chinese-woman-opens-planes-emergency-exit-for-somefresh-air

Chinese Woman Opens Plane’s Emergency Exit for Some Fresh Air

A flight was delayed for an hour and a woman detained by police after she opened the emergency exit for “a breath of fresh air” before the flight took off in central China’s Hubei province, mainland media reported. The incident happened on Xiamen Air Flight MF8215 from Wuhan to Lanzhou, which was scheduled to take off at 3.45 p.m. on September 23.

Cabin crew had briefed the woman, who was in her 50s, about the rules when sitting next to the emergency exit and reminded her not to touch the button that opened the emergency exit. However, the woman said she needed some fresh air and touched the button to open the exit when the stewardess turned around to help others, the report said. The woman was taken away and the flight was delayed for an hour. Opening the emergency exit can be considered to be disturbing public order in an aircraft, which is punishable by police detention and a fine.

In July last year, a woman who was flying for the first time mistook the emergency door for a lavatory door before her plane took off in Nanjing. The emergency slide was released and the flight was delayed for two hours. The woman was detained for 10 days. Some passengers have paid a heavy price for releasing the emergency slide, which may take days and considerable expense to repair and reinstall. In January 2015, a man who opened an emergency door after a plane landed in Chongqing had to pay 35,000 yuan (150,000 baht) in compensation to the airline.

In June, a man from Hubei who was returning to China from Bangkok on a Thai Lion Air Flight opened an emergency exit before take-off. After apologising repeatedly, according to witnesses, he was held by Thai authorities for one day and given a fine of 500 baht before being deported.

Adapted from https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/1762629/chinese-woman-opens-planes-emergency-exit-for-somefresh-air

Texas High School Opens Grocery Store That Accepts Good Deeds as Payment

How many high schools can say they have a grocery store inside their walls? The student-run grocery store at Linda Tutt High School in rural Sanger, Texas, provides food and other necessities to students and their families while teaching essential job skills. And the store doesn’t accept cash, just good deeds. Instead of money, students shop using a point system.

The store, which aims to address food insecurities for students and others in the community, is open Monday through Wednesday for students and staff within the school district. “A lot of our students come from low socioeconomic families,” principal Anthony Love told KTVT. “It’s a way for students to earn the ability to shop for their families. Through hard work you can earn points. You can earn points for doing chores around the building or helping to clean.”

The pioneering project is run in partnership with First Refuge Ministries, Texas Health Resources, and Albertsons (a grocery store chain). But nearly all the responsibility falls on the students. They stock the shelves, keep track of inventory, address sales, and monitor registers when items are purchased. “I think the most exciting part of it is just teaching our kids job skills that they can carry with them as they graduate high school and move on into the world,” Love said to WAGA-TV. “Students are really the key piece to it.”

Adapted from https://www.southernliving.com/culture/school/linda-tutt-high-school-grocery-store

Lockdown Named 2020’s Word of the Year by Collins Dictionary

Lockdown, the noun that has come to define so many lives across the world in 2020, has been named word of the year by Collins Dictionary. Lockdown is defined by Collins as “the imposition of stringent restrictions on travel, social interaction, and access to public spaces”. The 4.5-billion-word Collins Corpus, which contains written material from websites, books and newspapers, as well as spoken material from radio, television and conversations, registered a 6,000% increase in ______(1) usage. In 2019, there were 4,000 recorded instances of lockdown being used. In 2020, this had risen to more than a quarter of a million.

“Language is a reflection of the world around us and 2020 has been dominated by the global pandemic,” says Collins language content consultant Helen Newstead. “We have chosen lockdown as _______(2) word of the year because it encapsulates the shared experience of billions of people who have had to restrict _______(3) daily lives in order to contain the virus. Lockdown has affected the way we work, study, shop, and socialise. It is not a word of the year to celebrate, but it is, perhaps, one that sums up the year for most of the world.”

Other pandemic-related words such as coronavirus, social distancing and key worker were on the dictionary’s list of the top 10 words. However, the coronavirus crisis didn’t completely dominate this year’s vocabulary: words like “Megxit,” a term to describe Prince Harry and Meghan Markle stepping back as senior members of the royal family, also made the shortlist along with “TikToker” (a person who regularly shares or appears in videos on TikTok), and “BLM.” The abbreviation BLM, for Black Lives Matter is defined by Collins as “a movement that campaigns against racially motivated violence and oppression”, it registered a 581% increase in usage.

Adapted from https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/nov/10/lockdown-named-word-of-the-year-by-collins-dictionary

Texas High School Opens Grocery Store That Accepts Good Deeds as Payment

How many high schools can say they have a grocery store inside their walls? The student-run grocery store at Linda Tutt High School in rural Sanger, Texas, provides food and other necessities to students and their families while teaching essential job skills. And the store doesn’t accept cash, just good deeds. Instead of money, students shop using a point system.

The store, which aims to address food insecurities for students and others in the community, is open Monday through Wednesday for students and staff within the school district. “A lot of our students come from low socioeconomic families,” principal Anthony Love told KTVT. “It’s a way for students to earn the ability to shop for their families. Through hard work you can earn points. You can earn points for doing chores around the building or helping to clean.”

The pioneering project is run in partnership with First Refuge Ministries, Texas Health Resources, and Albertsons (a grocery store chain). But nearly all the responsibility falls on the students. They stock the shelves, keep track of inventory, address sales, and monitor registers when items are purchased. “I think the most exciting part of it is just teaching our kids job skills that they can carry with them as they graduate high school and move on into the world,” Love said to WAGA-TV. “Students are really the key piece to it.”

Adapted from https://www.southernliving.com/culture/school/linda-tutt-high-school-grocery-store

Lockdown Named 2020’s Word of the Year by Collins Dictionary

Lockdown, the noun that has come to define so many lives across the world in 2020, has been named word of the year by Collins Dictionary. Lockdown is defined by Collins as “the imposition of stringent restrictions on travel, social interaction, and access to public spaces”. The 4.5-billion-word Collins Corpus, which contains written material from websites, books and newspapers, as well as spoken material from radio, television and conversations, registered a 6,000% increase in ______(1) usage. In 2019, there were 4,000 recorded instances of lockdown being used. In 2020, this had risen to more than a quarter of a million.

“Language is a reflection of the world around us and 2020 has been dominated by the global pandemic,” says Collins language content consultant Helen Newstead. “We have chosen lockdown as _______(2) word of the year because it encapsulates the shared experience of billions of people who have had to restrict _______(3) daily lives in order to contain the virus. Lockdown has affected the way we work, study, shop, and socialise. It is not a word of the year to celebrate, but it is, perhaps, one that sums up the year for most of the world.”

Other pandemic-related words such as coronavirus, social distancing and key worker were on the dictionary’s list of the top 10 words. However, the coronavirus crisis didn’t completely dominate this year’s vocabulary: words like “Megxit,” a term to describe Prince Harry and Meghan Markle stepping back as senior members of the royal family, also made the shortlist along with “TikToker” (a person who regularly shares or appears in videos on TikTok), and “BLM.” The abbreviation BLM, for Black Lives Matter is defined by Collins as “a movement that campaigns against racially motivated violence and oppression”, it registered a 581% increase in usage.

Adapted from https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/nov/10/lockdown-named-word-of-the-year-by-collins-dictionary

Computer says no: Irish vet fails oral English test needed to stay in Australia

Louise Kennedy is an Irish veterinarian with degrees in history and politics – both obtained in English.She is married to an Australian and has been working in Australia as an equine vet on a skilled worker visa for the past two years. As a native English speaker, she has excellent grammar and a broad vocabulary, but has been unable to convince a machine she can speak English well enough to stay in Australia.

But she is now scrambling for other visa options after a computer-based English test – scored by a machine – essentially handed her a fail in terms of convincing immigration officers she can fluently speak her own language.

Earlier this year, Kennedy decided she would seek permanent residency in Australia. She knew she would have to sit a mandatory English proficiency test but was shocked when she got the results. While she passed all other components of the test including writing and reading, (...). She got 74 when the government requires 79. “There’s obviously a flaw in their computer software, when a person with perfect oral fluency cannot get enough points,” she said.

The test providers have categorically denied there is anything wrong with its computer-based test or the scoring engine trained to analyse candidates’ responses. “We do not offer a pass or a fail, simply a score and the immigration department set the bar very high for people seeking permanent residency”, they say.

Kennedy, who is due to have a baby in October, says she will now have to pursue a bridging visa, while she seeks a more expensive spouse visa so she can remain with her Australian husband.

Adapted from https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/aug/08/computer-says-no-irish-vet-fails-oral-english-test-needed-to-stay-in-australia

Chinese Woman Opens Plane’s Emergency Exit for Some Fresh Air

A flight was delayed for an hour and a woman detained by police after she opened the emergency exit for “a breath of fresh air” before the flight took off in central China’s Hubei province, mainland media reported. The incident happened on Xiamen Air Flight MF8215 from Wuhan to Lanzhou, which was scheduled to take off at 3.45 p.m. on September 23.

Cabin crew had briefed the woman, who was in her 50s, about the rules when sitting next to the emergency exit and reminded her not to touch the button that opened the emergency exit. However, the woman said she needed some fresh air and touched the button to open the exit when the stewardess turned around to help others, the report said. The woman was taken away and the flight was delayed for an hour. Opening the emergency exit can be considered to be disturbing public order in an aircraft, which is punishable by police detention and a fine.

In July last year, a woman who was flying for the first time mistook the emergency door for a lavatory door before her plane took off in Nanjing. The emergency slide was released and the flight was delayed for two hours. The woman was detained for 10 days. Some passengers have paid a heavy price for releasing the emergency slide, which may take days and considerable expense to repair and reinstall. In January 2015, a man who opened an emergency door after a plane landed in Chongqing had to pay 35,000 yuan (150,000 baht) in compensation to the airline.

In June, a man from Hubei who was returning to China from Bangkok on a Thai Lion Air Flight opened an emergency exit before take-off. After apologising repeatedly, according to witnesses, he was held by Thai authorities for one day and given a fine of 500 baht before being deported.

Adapted from https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/1762629/chinese-woman-opens-planes-emergency-exit-for-somefresh-air

Are any foods safe to eat anymore? The fears and the facts

Food was once seen as a source of sustenance and pleasure. Today, the dinner table can instead begin to feel like a minefield. Is bacon really a risk factor of cancer? Will coffee or eggs give you a heart attack? Does wheat contribute to Alzheimer’s disease? Will dairy products clog up your arteries? Worse still, the advice changes continually. As TV-cook Nigella Lawson recently put it: “You can guarantee that what people think will be good for you this year, they won’t next year.”

This may be somewhat inevitable: evidence-based health advice should be constantly updated as new studies explore the nuances of what we eat and the effects the meals have on our bodies. But when the media (and ill-informed health gurus) exaggerate the results of a study without providing the context, it can lead to unnecessary fears that may, ironically, push you towards less healthy choices.

The good news is that “next year” you may be pleased to learn that many of your favourite foods are not the ticking time bomb you have been led to believe...

Adapted from http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20151029-are-any-foods-safe-to-eat-anymore-heres-the-truth