Questões de Concursos Inglês

What are the best energy sources? "Best" depends on many factors - how the energy is being used, where it is being used, what energy sources are available, which sources are most convenient and reliable, which5 are easiest to use, what each costs, and the effects on public safety, health, and the environment. Making smart energy choices means understanding resources and their relative costs and benefits. Some energy sources have advantages for specific10 uses or locations. For example, fuels from petroleum are well suited for transportation because they pack a lot of energy in a small space and are easily transported and stored. Small hydroelectric installations are a good solution for supplying power or mechanical energy close15 to where it is used. Coal is widely used for power generation in many fast-developing countries - including China, India, and many others - because domestic supplies are readily available. Efficiency is an important factor in energy costs.20 How efficiently can the energy be produced, delivered, and used? How much energy value is lost in that process, and how much ends up being transformed into useful work? Industries that produce or use energy continually look for ways to improve efficiency, since this is a key to25 making their products morecompetitive. The ideal energy source - cheap, plentiful, and pollution-free - may prove unattainable in our lifetime, but that is the ultimate goal. The energy industry is continuing to improve its technologies and practices, to30 produce and use energy more efficiently and cleanly. Energy resources are often categorized as renewable or nonrenewable. Renewable energy resources are those that can be replenished quickly - examples are solar power,35 biomass, geothermal, hydroelectric, wind power, and fast-reaction nuclear power. They supply about seven percent of energy needs in the United States; theother 93 percent comes from nonrenewables. The two largest categories of renewable energy now in use in the U.S.40 are biomass - primarily wood wastes that are used by the forest products industry to generate electricity and heat - and hydroelectricity. Nonrenewable energy resources include coal, oil, natural gas, and uranium-235, which is used to fuel45 slow-reaction nuclear power. Projections of how long a nonrenewable energy resource will last depend on many changeable factors. These include the growth rate of consumption, and estimates of how much of the remaining resources can be economically recovered. New exploration50 and production technologies often increase theability of producers to locate and recover resources. World reserves of fossil energy are projected to last for many more decades - and, in the case of coal, for centuries.In: http://www.classroom-energy.org/teachers/energy_tour/pg5.html

INSTRUCTIONS: Read the following text carefully and then choose the correct answer. 
Leonardo da Vinci

Known as the greatest artist in the history of mankind, Leonardo da Vinci was also a great philosopher and scientist. Leonardo is the most influential figure in the Italian Renaissance and he is considered to be an inventive multi-genius.
Leonardo was born in 1452 in Vinci, Italy, as the child of Piero da Vinci, a notary, and Caterina, a country girl. He stayed with his father’s family and they moved to Florence when he was just 12. At the age of 14, Leonardo started out his artist’s apprenticeship at the studio of Andrea del Verrocchio (1435-1488), an Italian sculptor, goldsmith and painter.
The art of painting made Leonardo knowledgeable about anatomy and perspective. In addition to painting, Verrocchio’s studio also offered technical and mechanical arts and sculpture. Leonardo had developed an interest in architecture so he went on to study engineering. 
After a decade of highly original work as an artist, Leonardo wrote to several wealthy men to help finance his projects. The Duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza (1452-1508), accepted his offer as Leonardo told him that he could design war weapons like guns and mines, and also structures like collapsible bridges. He lived in Milan with the Duke from 1482 to 1508, reportedly creating very innovational war machines. He also did painting and sculpture, as well as urban planning for large-scale water projects. There, he also wrote about making a telescope to view the moon.

Available at: < http://www.famousscientists.org/leonardo-da-vinci> (Edited).

UN announces program to help hunger hot spots

A UN agency rolled out a $ 214 million program Tuesday to help 16 needy places hit hard by high prices for food and oil, amid a crisis already making it hard for aid groups to provide enough food for the worlds hungry.

The World Food Program said almost 1 billion poor people around the world are struggling to survive amid the higher prices. The agency is trying to reach those in critical need of assistance in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean.

"Food prices are not abating, and the worlds most vulnerable have exhausted their coping strategies", said Josette Sheeran, the agencys executive director. "Our action plan is targeted and customized to help the most vulnerable meet their urgent needs.
"The plan will provide assistance to groups such as pregnant women, undernourished children and people living in urban areas affected most by the food crisis.

The Rome-based agency also hopes to cut transportation costs and help support farmers in countries where emergency food can be bought locally.

But the agency already faces "obstacles" in procuring food, particularly when trying to buy supplies locally, spokeswoman Brenda Barton said.
"At the markets we have been buying food it has become just too expensive", Barton told The Associated Press by telephone. And she added: "a lot of markets just dont have any food to buy."
Internet: (adapted).

Based on the text above, it can be deduced that

How to dig out from the information avalanche
Majority of workers feel overwhelmed by deluge of data, survey finds
By Eve Tahmincioglu updated 8:18 p.m. ET March 16, 2008

Don"t expect Shaun Osher, the CEO of Core Group Marketing in New York, to answer your e-mail right away. He has stopped responding to e-mails every minute and only checks his e-mail account twice a day. He also started turning off his BlackBerry during meetings. This tactic has made him so much more productive that earlier this year he held a meeting with his staff of 50 and "strongly suggested" that they stop relying so heavily on e-mail and actually start calling clients on the phone. And, he requested his employees put cell phones and PDAs on silent mode during meetings, as well as curtail the common practice of cc-ing everybody when sending out an e-mail. "There was so much redundancy, so much unnecessary work," he explains. "One person could handle an issue that should take two minutes, but when an email goes out and five people get cc-ed, then everybody responds to it and there"s a snowball effect." It"s not that Osher has anything against technology. In fact, he loves it. The problem is, last year he realized he was inundated with so many e-mails and so much information in general that he began to experience data overload. "In the beginning, e-mail and all this data was a great phenomenon, revolutionizing what we do. But the pendulum has swung way too much to the other side," he maintains. "We"re less productive." Osher isn"t the only one out there under a data avalanche. Thanks to technological innovations, you can be talking to a customer on your cell phone, answering a LinkedIn invitation on your laptop, and responding to email on your PDA all at the same time. Besides, during tough economic times, who will want to miss any information when your job could be on the line if you indulge in the luxury of being offline? Turns out, seven out of 10 office workers in the United States feel overwhelmed by information in the workplace, and more than two in five say they are headed for a data "breaking point," according to a recently released Workplace Productivity Survey. Mike Walsh, CEO of LexisNexis U.S. Legal Markets, says there are a host of reasons we"re all on the information brink: "exponential growth of the size of the information "haystack," the immensity and immediacy of digital communications, and the fact that professionals are not being provided with sufficient tools and training to help them keep pace with the growing information burden." Ellen Kossek, a professor from Michigan State, believes we are less productive in this age of 24-7 technology, and our multitasking mentality has spawned a "not-mentallypresent" society. "We"re becoming an attention-deficit disorder society switching back and forth like crazy," Kossek says. "We"re connected all the time. We"re working on planes, in coffee shops, working on the weekends. Work is very seductive, but yet we"re actually less effective." The key to getting your head above the data flood, according to workplace experts, is managing and reducing the information you"re bombarded with.

© 2008 MSNBC Interactive - (slightly adapted) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23636252/