Questões de Concursos Inglês

Text 1

Companies know how we think

Companies can now find out exactly how you think through the science of neuromarketing. Advertisers are currently collaborating with scientists to test their products directly on our brains. Some experts believe that one in ten TV commercials have already been designed using neuromarketing.

The reasons are obvious. The technique allows companies to discover exactly what people like about their products. For example, when we eat a type of potato chip, it may be the color, the flavor, or the pleasant noise it makes when you crunch it in your mouth that we like most.

In order ............ tap into what’s going ............ in consumers’ brains, it all begins ............ laboratories and office buildings.

Groups of volunteers submit themselves to a simple process. Wearing a special headset called an electrode cap, they watch commercials or test products. The caps allow researchers to monitor brain activity. When something attracts the attention of the volunteers, this is highlighted on a computer. They literally use this device to read the minds of their volunteers. This may sound a little scary, but advertisers are just tap-ping into our existing thoughts and desires. And that’s what advertisers have always tried to do.

Previously, companies would give people a survey or questionnaire to complete in order to research their customers. The problem was that people didn’t always tell the truth. They may not want to be critical of a product or advertisement because they don’t want to upset the interviewer. The electrode cap overcomes this problem. It shows when someone really is interested in something.

Neuromarketing is also used to develop packaging for the world’s most famous brands. The aim is to make their products stand out in a busy marketplace. This will become standard as more companies capitalize on the technology. With millions invested in advertising, companies simply cannot afford to hope that their ads and products will be a success. If they can find out what we think first, and change their products to make them more successful, they will quickly pay off the high cost of neuromarketing and dominate their market.

How a Canadian Chain Is Reinventing Book Selling

By Alexandra Alter

About a decade ago, Heather Reisman, the chief executive of Canada’s largest bookstore chain, was having tea with the novelist Margaret Atwood when Ms. Atwood inadvertently gave her an idea for a new product. Ms. Atwood announced that she planned to go home, put on a pair of cozy socks and curl up with a book. Ms. Reisman thought about how appealing that sounded. Not long after, her company, Indigo, developed its own brand of plush “reading socks.” They quickly became one of Indigo’s signature gift items.

“Last year, all my friends got reading socks,” said Arianna Huffington, the HuffPost cofounder and a friend of Ms. Reisman’s, who also gave the socks as gifts to employees at her organization Thrive. “Most people don’t have reading socks — not like Heather’s reading socks.”

Over the last few years, Indigo has designed dozens of other products, including beach mats, scented candles, inspirational wall art, Mason jars, crystal pillars, bento lunchboxes, herb growing kits, copper cheese knife sets, stemless champagne flutes, throw pillows and scarves.

It may seem strange for a bookstore chain to be developing and selling artisanal soup bowls and organic cotton baby onesies. But Indigo’s approach seems not only novel but crucial to its success and longevity. The superstore concept, with hulking retail spaces stocking 100,000 titles, has become increasingly hard to sustain in the era of online retail, when it’s impossible to match Amazon’s vast selection.

Indigo is experimenting with a new model, positioning itself as a “cultural department store” where customers who wander in to browse through books often end up lingering as they impulsively shop for cashmere slippers and crystal facial rollers, or a knife set to go with a new Paleo cookbook. Over the past few years, Ms. Reisman has reinvented Indigo as a Goop-like, curated lifestyle brand, with sections devoted to food, health and wellness, and home décor.

Ms. Reisman is now importing Indigo’s approach to the United States. Last year, Indigo opened its first American outpost, at a luxury mall in Millburn, N.J., and she eventually plans to open a cluster of Indigos in the Northeast. Indigo’s ascendance is all the more notable given the challenges that big bookstore chains have faced in the United States. Borders, which once had more than 650 locations, filed for bankruptcy in 2011. Barnes & Noble now operates 627 stores, down from 720 in 2010, and the company put itself up for sale last year. Lately, it has been opening smaller stores, including an 8,300-square-foot outlet in Fairfax County, Va.

“Cross-merchandising is Retail 101, and it’s hard to do in a typical bookstore,” said Peter Hildick-Smith, president of the Codex Group, which analyzes the book industry. “Indigo found a way to create an extra aura around the bookbuying experience, by creating a physical extension of what you’re reading about.”

The atmosphere is unabashedly intimate, cozy and feminine — an aesthetic choice that also makes commercial sense, given that women account for some 60 percent of book buyers. A section called “The Joy of the Table” stocks Indigobrand ceramics, glassware and acacia wood serving platters with the cookbooks. The home décor section has pillows and throws, woven baskets, vases and scented candles. There’s a subsection called “In Her Words,” which features idea-driven books and memoirs by women. An area labeled “A Room of Her Own” looks like a lushdressing room, with vegan leather purses, soft gray shawls, a velvet chair, scarves and journals alongside art, design and fashion books.

Books still account for just over 50 percent of Indigo’s sales and remain the central draw; the New Jersey store stocks around 55,000 titles. But they also serve another purpose: providing a window into consumers’ interests, hobbies, desires and anxieties, which makes it easier to develop and sell related products.

Publishing executives, who have watched with growing alarm as Barnes & Noble has struggled, have responded enthusiastically to Ms. Reisman’s strategy. “Heather pioneered and perfected the art of integrating books and nonbook products,” Markus Dohle, the chief executive of Penguin Random House, said in an email.

Ms. Reisman has made herself and her own tastes and interests central to the brand. The front of the New Jersey store features a section labeled “Heather’s Picks,” with a display table covered with dozens of titles. A sign identifies her as the chain’s “founder, C.E.O., Chief Booklover and the Heather in Heather’s Picks.” She appears regularly at author signings and store events, and has interviewed prominent authors like Malcolm Gladwell, James Comey, Sally Field, Bill Clinton and Nora Ephron.

When Ms. Reisman opened the first Indigo store in Burlington, Ontario, in 1997, she had already run her own consulting firm and later served as president of a soft drink and beverage company, Cott. Still, bookselling is an idiosyncratic industry, and many questioned whether Indigo could compete with Canada’s biggest bookseller, Chapters. Skepticism dissolved a few years later when Indigo merged with Chapters, inheriting its fleet of national stores. The company now has more than 200 outlets across Canada, including 89 “superstores.” Indigo opened its first revamped concept store in 2016.

The new approach has proved lucrative: In its 2017 fiscal year, the company’s revenue exceeded $1 billion Canadian for the first time. In its 2018 fiscal year, Indigo reported a revenue increase of nearly $60 million Canadian over the previous year, making it the most profitable year in the chain’s history.

The company’s dominance in Canada doesn’t guarantee it will thrive in the United States, where it has to compete not only with Amazon and Barnes & Noble, but with a resurgent wave of independent booksellers. After years of decline, independent stores have rebounded, with some 2,470 locations, up from 1,651 a decade ago, according to the American Booksellers Association. And Amazon has expanded into the physical retail market, with around 20 bookstores across the United States.

Ms. Reisman acknowledges that the company faces challenges as it expands southward. Still, she’s optimistic, and is already scouting locations for a second store near New York.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/01

O texto seguinte servirá de base para responder à questão.

India's luxury airline Vistara flies into the sunset

Indian full-service carrier Vistara will operate its last flight on Monday, after nine years in existence.

A joint venture between Singapore Airlines and the Tata Sons, Vistara will merge with Tata-owned Air India to form a single entity with an expanded network and broader fleet.

This means that all Vistara operations will be transferred to and managed by Air India, including helpdesk kiosks and ticketing offices. The process of migrating passengers with existing Vistara bookings and loyalty programmes to Air India has been under way over thepast few months.

"As part of the merger process, meals, service ware and other soft elements have been upgraded and incorporates aspects of both Vistara and Air India," an Air India spokesperson said in an email response.

Amid concerns that the merger could impact service standards, the Tatas have assured that Vistara's in-flight experience will remain unchanged.

Known for its high ratings in food, service, and cabin quality, Vistara has built a loyal customer base and the decision to retire the Vistara brand has been criticised by fans, branding experts, and aviation analysts.

The consolidation was effectively done to clean up Vistara's books and wipe out its losses, said Mark Martin, an aviation analyst.

Air India has essentially been "suckered into taking a loss-making airline" in a desperate move, he added.

"Mergers are meant to make airlines powerful. Never to wipe out losses or cover them."

To be sure, both Air India and Vistara's annual losses have reduced by more than half over the past year, and other operating metrics have improved too. But the merger process so far has been turbulent.

The exercise has been riddled with problems − from pilot shortages that have led to massive flight cancellations, to Vistara crew going on mass sick leave over plans to align their salary structures with Air India.

There have also been repeated complaints about poor service standards on Air India, including viral videos of broken seats and non-functioning inflight entertainment systems.

The Tatas have announced a $400m (£308m) programme to upgrade and retrofit the interiors of its older aircraft and also a brand-new livery. They've also placed orders for hundreds of new Airbus and Boeing planes worth billions of dollars to augment their offering.

But this "turnaround" is still incomplete and riddled with problems, according to Mr Martin. A merger only complicates matters.

Experts say that the merger strikes a dissonant chord from a branding perspective too.

Harish Bijoor, a brand strategy specialist, told the BBC he was feeling "emotional" that a superior product offering like Vistara which had developed a "gold standard for Indian aviation" was ceasing operations.

"It is a big loss for the industry," said Mr Bijoor, adding it will be a monumental task for the mother brand Air India to simply "copy, paste and exceed" the high standards set by Vistara, given that it's a much smaller airline that's being gobbled up by a much larger one.

Mr Bijoor suggests a better strategy would have been to operate Air India separately for five years, focusing on improving service standards, while maintaining Vistara as a distinct brand with Air India prefixed to it.

"This would have given Air India the time and chance to rectify the mother brand and bring it up to the Vistara level, while maintaining its uniqueness," he adds.

Beyond branding, the merged entity will face a slew of operational challenges.

"Communication will be a major challenge in the early days, with customers arriving at the airport expecting Vistara flights, only to find Air India branding," says Ajay Awtaney, editor of Live From A Lounge, an aviation portal. "Air India will need to maintain clear communication for weeks."

Another key challenge, he notes, is cultural: Vistara's agile employees may struggle to adjust to Air India's complex bureaucracy and systems.

But the biggest task for the merged carrier would be offering customers a uniform flying experience.

These are "two airlines with very different service formats are being integrated into one airline. It is going to be a hotchpotch of service formats, cabin formats, branding, and customer experience. It will involve learning and unlearning, and such a process has rarely worked with airlines and is seldom effective," said Mr Martin.

Still, many believe Vistara had to go − now or some years later.

A legacy brand like Air India, with strong global recognition and 'India' imprinted in its identity, wouldn't have allowed a smaller, more premium subsidiary to overshadow its revival process.

Financially too, it makes little sense for the Tatas to have two loss-making entities compete with one another.

The combined strength of Vistara and Air India could also place the Tatas in a much better position to compete with market leader Indigo.

The unified Air India group (including Air India Express, which completed its merger with the former Air Asia India in October) "will be bigger and better with a fleet size of nearly 300 aircraft, an expanded network and a stronger workforce", an Air India spokesperson said.

"Getting done with the merger means that Air India grows overnight, and the two teams start cooperating instead of competing. There will never be one right day to merge. Somewhere, a line had to be drawn," said Mr Awtaney.

But for many Vistara loyalists, its demise leaves a void in India's skies for a premium, full-service carrier - marking the third such gap after the collapse of Kingfisher Airlines and Jet Airways.

It's still too early to say if Air India, which often ranks at the bottom of airline surveys, can successfully fill that void.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5ygp1w5eq7o

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).

Read text I to answer the question.

TEXT I

Teachers in the Movement: Pedagogy, Activism, and Freedom

In this year's Presidential Address, historian Derrick P. Alridge __________ his current research project, Teachers in the Movement: Pedagogy, Activism, and Freedom. The project builds on recent literature about teachers as activists be tween 1950 and 1980 and explores how and what secondary and postsecondary teachers taught. Focusing on teachers in Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, the project investigates teachers' roles as agents of social change through teaching the ideals of freedom during the most significant social movement in the United States in the twentieth century. Drawing on oral history and archival research, the project plans to produce five hundred videotaped interviews that will generate extensive firsthand knowledge and fresh perspectives about teachers in the civil rights move ment. By examining teachers' pedagogical activism during this period of rapid social change, Alridge hopes to inspire and inform educators teaching in the midst of today's freedom and social justice movements.

(Disponível em: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1255911)

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AMERICAN AND BRITISH

VERSIONS OF HARRY POTTER SERIES

Philosopher’s vs. Sorcerer

When Scholastic was publishing Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in America, they decided to rename the book Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. They claimed that the American and British uses of the word philosopher were a bit different, so therefore sorcerer was a more appropriate word. Any true HarryPotter fan, American or British, Australian or Hungarian, I’m sure will agree with MuggleMix when we say that decision should not have been made the reasons are:

1) J.K. Rowling said so therefore it must be true. She says that if she was in a better position, she would have disagreed at the time.

2) It belittles Americans, making it seem as if they do not understand what the word “philosopher” means. Americans are smarter than that.

3) Sorcerer is unspecific. The stone could have belonged to anybody with magical powers in the book. But the British name defines who the stone belongs to and gives the name an entirely different meaning. Sorcerer is a very different word to philosopher.

4) The stone is referred to as the “Philosopher’s Stone” throughout J.K. Rowling’s original version, never the “Sorcerer’s Stone”, so why should the most central object of the book be labeled something completely different in the book title, even if its just being published in a different place?

5) How is the word “philosopher” in Britain different from the word “sorcerer” in America?

6) Philosopher’s Stone is actually a historical object that people used to search for, while the Sorcerer’s Stone has no factual background in real life.

Ah well…

Other terminology

There are some other minor changes that occurred in case Americans got confused. Some ones, such as turning “mum” into “mom” and “trainers” into “sneakers”, J.K. Rowling refused to let happen. However, she allowed some changes to be made that, if they were not made, would befuddle the readers:

UK: Skip – US: Dumpster

UK: Minister for Magic – US: Minister of Magic

[…]

UK: Car park – US: Parking lot

[…]

Disponível em http://w w w .fanpop.com/clubs/harry-potter/articles/4309/title/difference-between-american-british-versions-harry-potter-series. Acesso em nov. 2015.