Questões de Concursos Inglês

O texto a seguir é referência para as questões de 21 a 23.

We are accustomed to thinking of military success as determined by quality of weaponry, rather than by food supply. But a clear example of how improvements in food supply may decisively increase military success comes from the history of Maori New ?ealand. The Maori are the Polynesian people who were the first to settle New ?ealand. Traditionally, they fought frequent fierce wars against each other, but only against closely neighboring tribes. Those wars were limited by the modest productivity of their agriculture, whose staple crop was sweet potatoes. It was not possible to grow enough sweet potatoes to feed an army in the field for a long time or on distant marches. When Europeans arrived in New ?ealand, they brought potatoes, which beginning around 1815 considerably increased Maori crop yields. Maori could now grow enough food to supply armies in the field for many weeks. The result was a 15­year period in Maori history, from 1818 until 1833, when Maori tribes that had acquired potatoes and guns from the English sent armies out on raids to attack tribes hundreds of miles away that had not yet acquired potatoes and guns. Thus, the potato?s productivity relieved previous limitations on Maori warfare, similar to the limitations that low­productivity corn agriculture imposed on Maya warfare. (Diamond, J. (2006). Collapse. London: Penguin.)

    Recent corporate s, such as EBS International and Société Générale, have brought about renewed scrutiny into corporate governance mechanisms. Given the pervasiveness of Information Technology (IT) in many organizations, the examination of corporate governance mechanisms also includes IT governance mechanisms. IT governance is defined as “a structure of relationships and processes to direct and control the enterprise in order to achieve the enterprise’s goals by adding value while balancing risk versus return over IT and its processes”.
    In light of increased public awareness, professional bodies such as the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA) have undertaken a number of steps to provide guidance in the implementation of effective IT governance. The approach taken by ISACA appears to be largely based upon two concepts. The first concept relates to increasing the awareness of issues and concepts relating to IT governance in the public domain. The second concept involves the provision of guidelines and the identification of best-practice IT governance mechanisms. Interestingly, the effectiveness of these best-practice mechanisms in improving IT governance is largely based upon conceptual arguments. As such, it becomes important to ascertain if these best-practice mechanisms do impact upon the level of IT governance.
    As IT escalates in terms of importance and pervasiveness in the operations of firms, it is inexorably tied to specific mechanisms that are prescribed for good corporate governance, most notably, a sound system of internal controls. Accordingly, effective IT governance is a critical underpinning for a system of good corporate governance that minimizes agency losses for a firm.
Internet: < http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com > (adapted).

Based on the text above, judge the following item.

O texto a seguir é referência para as questões 73 a 76.

Lucy?s Big Brother Reveals New Facets of her Species

First came Lucy. Then came Lucy?s baby, an infant of her species. Now comes Lucy?s "big brother": the partial skeleton of a large male of Australopithecus afarensis, unveiled this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The roughly 40% complete skeleton has been nicknamed Kadanuumuu, which means "big man" in the Afar language of the Afar Depression of Ethiopia, where it was found. "It was huge – a big man, with long legs", says lead author Yohannes Haile?Selassie, a palaeoanthropologist at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History in Ohio.
Dated to 3.6 million years ago, the new skeleton is almost half a million years older than Lucy and the second oldest skeleton found of a possible human ancestor. It had long legs and a torso and a pelvis more like those of a modern human than an African ape, showing that fully upright walking was in place at this early date, Haile?Selassie says. Although headless, the skeleton also preserves parts not found before in Lucy?s species. "It is important because it provides the ribs and scapula", says palaeoanthropologist Carol Ward of the University of Missouri, Columbia.
In 2005, a sharp?eyed member of Haile?Selassie?s team, Alemayehu Asfaw, spotted a fragment of lower arm bone on the ground at Woranso?Mille, about 48 kilometers north of Lucy?s grave at Hadar. Over the next 4 years, the team unearthed the shoulder blade, collarbone, ribs, and neck vertebra, the first time those bones were found together in an A. afarensis adult. The team also found a pelvis, an arm, and leg bones. Although they never found the skull or teeth, which are typically used to assign species, the skeleton?s age and similarity to Lucy suggest that it belongs to her species, says co?author Owen Lovejoy of Kent State University in Ohio.
The robust male stood between 1.5 and 1.7 meters tall, about 30% larger than Lucy. Isolated bones of other individuals suggest that some males were even larger, so the new skeleton doesn?t settle a long?standing debate over just how much sexual dimorphism there was in A. afarensis, Lovejoy says. The shoulder blade looks more like that of a gorilla and a modern human than that of a chimpanzee. The curvature of the second rib suggests a wide rib cage at the top and a barrel shape overall, similar to that of modern humans and distinct from the more funnel?shaped rib cage of a chimpanzee, the authors say.

(Science Magazine, 25 June 2010.)