Questões de Concursos Inglês

Instruction: answer questions 31 to 40 based on the following text. The highlights throughout the text are cited in the questions.

Carnival

1. ______ Carnival is ____ festival celebrated in _____countries of Catholic tradition, often
2. with public parades of playful, imaginative wagons typically called "floats, masking, jokes and
3. feasts”.
4. Etymology
5. The word carnival comes from the Latin "carnem levare" (=eliminate meat) and
6. originally indicated the banquet that was held on the last day of Carnival (Mardi Gras),
7. immediately before Lent, the period of fasting and abstinence when Christians would abstain
8. _____ meat. The first evidence of the use of the word "carnevale" (or "carnevalo") are the texts
9. of minstrel Matazone da Caligano of the late 13th century and writer Giovanni Sercambi around
10. 1400.
11. Carnival period
12. In Catholic countries, traditionally Carnival begins on the Septuagesima Sunday (70
13. days to Easter, it was the first of the nine Sundays before the Holy Week in the Gregorian
14. calendar), and in the Roman rite ends on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, which marks the
15. beginning of Lent. The climax is usually from Thursday until Tuesday, the last day of Carnival.
16. Being connected with Easter which is a moveable feast, the final dates of Carnival vary each
17. year, though in some places it may begin already on 17^th January. Since Catholic Easter is on
18. the Sunday after the 17first full moon of spring, therefore from 22 March to 25 April, and since
19. there are 46 days between Ash Wednesday and Easter, then in non-leap years the last day of
20. Carnival, Mardi Gras, can fall any time within February 3 to March 9.
21. In the Ambrosian rite, which is followed in the Archdiocese of Milan and in some
22. neighboring dioceses, Lent begins with the first Sunday of Lent, therefore the last day of
23. Carnival is on Saturday, four days later than the Mardi Gras in other areas of Italy.
24. Carnival in antiquity
25. Although present in the Catholic tradition, Carnival has its origins in much older
26. celebrations, such as the Greek Dionysian festivals ("Anthesteria") or the Roman "Saturnalia".
27. During these ancient rites a temporary dissolution of the social obligations and hierarchies took
28. place in favor of chaos, jokes and even debauchery. From a historical and religious point of
29. view Carnival represented, therefore, a period of renewal, when chaos replaced the established
30. order, but once festive period was over, a new or the old order re-emerged for another cycle
31. until the next carnival.
32. In Babylon, shortly after the vernal equinox the process of the foundation of the cosmos
33. was re-enacted, described with the myth of the struggle of Marduk, the savior-god with Tiamat
34. the dragon, which ended with the victory of the former. During these ceremonies a procession
35. was held in which the forces of chaos were allegorically represented fighting the recreation of
36. the universe, that is the myth of the death and resurrection of Marduk, the savior. In the parade
37. there was a ship on wheels where the deities Moon and Sun were carried along a large avenue
38. - a symbol of the Zodiac - to the sanctuary of Babylon, symbol of the earth. This period was
39. accompanied by an unbridled freedom and a reversal of social order and morality.
40. In the Roman world the feast in honor of the Egyptian goddess Isis involved the presence
41. of masked groups, as told by Lucius Apuleius in the Metamorphoses (Book XI). Among the
42. Romans the end of the old year was represented by a man covered with goat skins, carried in
43. procession, hit with sticks and called Mamurius Veturius.
44. Carnival is therefore a moment in a mythic cycle, it is the movement of spirits between
45. heaven, earth and the underworld. In the spring, when the earth begins to show its power,
46. Carnival opens a passage between the earth and the underworld, whose souls must be honored
47. and for a short period the living lend them their bodies wearing masks. Masks therefore have
48. often an apotropaic meaning, as the wearer takes on the features of the spirit represented.
49. In the 15th and 16th centuries, the Medici in Florence organized large masked carts
50. called "Trionfi" accompanied by carnival songs and dances one, the "Trionfo di Bacco e Arianna"
51. also written by Lorenzo the Magnificent. In Rome under the Popes horse races took place and
52. a called the "race of moccoletti" where runners bearing lit candles tried to blow out each other's
53. candles.

(Available at: http://www.italyheritage.com/traditions/carnival/2023/04/14/ – text especially adapted for this test).

Businesses are starting to introduce new options for tipping at self-checkout machines, putting even more pressure on customers amid rising inflation costs. Despite having zero interaction with employees during transactions, self-checkout machines at places such as coffee shops, bakeries, airports, and sports stadiums are giving customers the option to leave the typical 20% tip, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.

Business owners believe that the prompt for a tip can boost staff pay and increase gratuities — but customers are questioning where and to whom the extra cash is going, considering self-checkout is done by the customers themselves. “They’re cutting labor costs by doing self-checkout. So what’s the point of asking for a tip? And where is it going?” are some of the questions customers ask. But tipping researchers claim this is a way for companies to put the responsibility of paying employees on the customer rather than increasing employee salaries themselves. Self-tipping is viewed by many customers as a way to guilt-trip the person into tipping on something when they typically wouldn’t.

Many companies told the Journal that these tipping prompts are optional, and the extra gratuity is split between all employees. However, experts say that tips at a self-checkout machine might never even get to an actual employee since protections for tipped workers in the federal Fair Labor Standards Act don’t extend to machines.

Internet: <https://nypost.com> (adapted).

Tell Us What to Call the Generation After Millennials {Please)

Millennials are getting older. Not that much older, of course. We're a roughly defined generational cohort, but arguably the oldest members of our demographic set are just beginning to reach the age of 40.

Meanwhile, the American generation behind millennials has started to move intothe workplace. And while some have proposed names for this group born in 1995 and after — Generation Z, PostMillennials, The Homeland Generation, iGeneration — all of these names are bad. The first two don't even strive for originality! Come on. Then again, it's hard to know what makes a generational name stick.

"Millennial" was coined in the late 1980s by the consultants Neil Howe and William Strauss, both baby boomers, before the term Generation X was even popularized. (They wanted to call them "13th Gen," but that didn't stick, and neither did "slackers."

But their term "millennial" did not become the dominant name for the huge generation after those two until much later. "In retrospect, it's easy to see that names that people gravitate to say something," Mr. Howe said in a recent interview. "Either the name itself or the way in which it was adapted."

But Malcolm Harris, the millennial author of "Kids These Days: Human Capital and the Making of Millennials," argues that those most interested in naming generations are those trying to sell things to that cohort.

"Generations are really only understood in retrospect," Mr. Harris said. "Some people have a financial interest in naming them as soon as possible, people trying to sell stuff. That's the first perspective we get on any cohort, and I don't think it's necessarily a very good one."

One stumbling block is a lack of agreement about the birth years for each generation. People on the fringes can feel as if they've got almost nothing in common with the rest of the group. A few years' difference can determine if you could have been drafted for Vietnam, watched the first MTV videos, or were born into a world of instant messaging.

In 2015, the Census Bureau said that there were 83.1 million American millennials (born between 1982 and 2000), exceeding the 75.4 million baby boomers (between 1946 and 1964), and the 65 million that Pew Research said belong in Generation X (between 1965 and 1980). But the generation after millennials is still so ill-defined (probably because of the whole name issue) that an accurate count has not yet been established.

And a good name? Nope.

Fonte: New York Times. Publicado em 23/01/2018. Disponível em: https://www.nytimes. com/2018/01/23/style/generation-names.html

Read text III to answer the following question.

TEXT III

Realities of Race, by Mike Peed

What’s the difference between an African-American and an American-African? From such a distinction springs a deep-seated discussion of race in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s third novel, “Americanah.” Adichie, born in Nigeria but now living both in her homeland and in the United States, is an extraordinarily self-aware thinker and writer, possessing the abil ity to lambaste society without sneering or patronizing or polemicizing. For her, it seems no great feat to balance high literary intentions with broad social critique. “Americanah” examines blackness in America, Nigeria and Britain, but it’s also a steady-handed dissection of the universal human experience — a platitude made fresh by the accuracy of Adichie’s obser vations. […]

“Americanah” tells the story of a smart, strong-willed Nigerian woman named Ifemelu who, after she leaves Africa for America, endures several harrowing years of near destitution before graduating from college, starting a blog entitled “Raceteenth or Various Observations About American Blacks (Those Formerly Known as Negroes) by a Non-American Black” and winning a fellowship at Princeton (as Adichie once did; she has acknowledged that many of Ifemelu’s experiences are her own). Ever hovering in Ifemelu’s thoughts is her high school boyfriend, Obinze, an equally intelligent if gentler, more self-effacing Nigerian, who outstays his visa and takes illegal jobs in London. (When Obinze trips and falls to the ground, a co-worker shouts, “His knee is bad because he’s a knee-grow!”)

Ifemelu and Obinze represent a new kind of immigrant, “raised well fed and watered but mired in dissatisfaction.” They aren’t fleeing war or starvation but “the oppressive lethargy of choicelessness.” Where Obinze fails — soon enough, he is deported — Ifemelu thrives, in part because she seeks authenticity. […]

Early on, a horrific event leaves Ifemelu reeling, and years later, when she returns to Nigeria, she’s still haunted by it. Meantime, back in Lagos, Obinze has found wealth as a property developer. Though the book threatens to morph into a simple story of their reunion, it stretches into a scalding assessment of Nigeria, a country too proud to have patience for “Americanahs” — big shots who return from abroad to belittle their countrymen — and yet one that, sometimes unwitting ly, endorses foreign values. (Of the winter scenery in a school’s Christmas pageant, a parent asks, “Are they teaching chil dren that a Christmas is not a real Christmas unless snow falls like it does abroad?”)

“Americanah” is witheringly trenchant and hugely empathetic, both worldly and geographically precise, a novel that holds the discomfiting realities of our times fearlessly before us. It never feels false.

(Adapted from: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/09/books/review/americanah-by-chimamanda-ngozi-adichie.html)

How World Leaders Reacted to Trump at the U.N.

By SOMINI SENGUPTA and MEGAN SPECIA SEPT. 23, 2017

He was called a “giant gold Goliath” and a “rogue newcomer.” But in a few corners the remarks made by President Trump at the United Nations were described as “courageous” and “gratifying.”

Throughout the week, Mr. Trump’s first address to the General Assembly drew many direct and indirect swipes, from allies and rivals alike, and sparse support.

While the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, attacked Mr. Trump from afar — calling him a “dotard” in a statement on North Korean national television — others used their platforms at the United Nations to respond.

Some leaders were more subtle than others.

Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s 93-year-old president, took aim at Mr. Trump during his own speech on Thursday. Mr. Mugabe mocked Mr. Trump as a “giant gold Goliath” and said other nations were “embarrassed if not frightened” by his statements about North Korea.

“Are we having a return of Goliath to our midst, who threatens the extinction of other countries?” Mr. Mugabe asked. Some responded with applause to his reference to the biblical character who threatened the Israelites before being slain by the young shepherd David, who would become king.

Mr. Mugabe then went on to address Mr. Trump directly, telling him to “blow your trumpet in a musical way towards the values of unity, peace, cooperation, togetherness and dialogue which we have always stood for.”

During his speech, Mr. Trump notably omitted any talk of climate change, seen as one of the most pressing issues for many world leaders.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada received the longest applause during his General Assembly speech on Thursday after an implicit dig at Mr. Trump.

“There is no country on the planet that can walk away from the challenge and reality of climate change,” Mr. Trudeau said, referring to Mr. Trump’s plans to pull out of the Paris climate accord.

(Adapted from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/23/world/americas/world-leaders-trump-un.html?mcubz=0)