Questões de Concursos

READ TEXT I AND ANSWER THE FIVE QUESTION THAT FOLLOW IT

TEXT I

National Assessment Reform: Core Considerations for Brazil

Education has been an integral part of Brazil’s success story. With expanded access to basic education and improvements in literacy rates, young Brazilians are entering today’s workforce with higher levels of education than previous generations. This educational progress has contributed to and benefited from the economic growth that helped improve living standards and, during the first decade of the millennium, lifted more than 29 million people out of poverty. Trend data from the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) reveal that Brazil’s increasing school participation rates have been realised alongside progress in education quality. This is a remarkable achievement considering that many of the new students progressing through the education system come from disadvantaged backgrounds and often lack the socio-economic support that helps enable learning. Nevertheless, PISA also reveals that the overall performance of Brazil’s education system is well below the OECD average and other emerging economies, such as parts of China and the Russian Federation. One reason for this is Brazil’s high share of students who do not achieve baseline proficiency, or Level 2 in PISA. Results from PISA 2018 show that 50% of Brazilian students failed to reach Level 2 in reading, meaning they can only complete basic tasks. Brazil’s share of low-performers was even higher in Mathematics and Science (68% and 55%, respectively). At the other end of the spectrum, few students in Brazil were able to answer more difficult PISA questions, like inferring neutrality or bias in a text, which require skills that are increasingly important in today’s world. The new approach to education, set out in the BNCC, aims not only to ensure that all students achieve basic cognitive skills but also develop the higher-order skills needed to solve complex problems of everyday life.

Adapted from: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/333a6e20- en.pdf?expires=1728831657&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=CD292865CAA9F4B A019D2FE4378B5D2D

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Valdivia Figurines and the appeal of 'the oldest'

(1º§) The logo for the Ecuadorian Ministry of Culture website is about my favourite thing of the afternoon which is saying a lot since I spent much of the day reading about giant Olmec heads. Three Valdivia Figurines in the colours of the Ecuadorian flag? I am sold! Golly, I love Valdivia figurines for all the right and all the wrong reasons.

(2º§) There are two things that can easily be said about Valdivia figurines: they are VERY Ecuadorian and they are VERY looted. The first explains why they appear prominently on the Ministry of Culture website (and on stencilled graffiti around Quito circa 2007). Ancient Ecuador has played second fiddle to Ancient Peru since the early days of archaeology. The Valdivia culture, however, represents something that Peru doesn't have, 'the oldest'. Everyone loves 'the oldest', national pride, etc. etc.

(3º§) Who else loves 'the oldest'? Collectors and Museums. If the Valdivia pottery sequence is the oldest in the new world, collectors want a slice of that pie. Heck, even better than some junky pottery, the Valdivia made interesting figurines: lovely ladies that look good on stark black backgrounds in auction catalogues. They are part of 'the oldest' yet they also look good.

(4º§) Valdivia sites are famously looted and Valdivia figurines are famously faked. A few years back I started doing some initial work into looting in Ecuador (which led to fieldwork in Quito and the cloud forest that didn't really go anywhere as of yet) and I, like anyone else going down that road, came across Bruhns and Hammond's 1983 Journal of Field Archaeology piece 'A Visit to Valdivia'. Knowing nothing at all about Ecuador at the time, I had never heard of Valdivia, a wonder since the only Ecuadorian archaeology books that Cambridge owns are a few by the late Betty Meggars and Emilio Estrada from the 1950s and 1960s which link uber-ancient Ecuador to Jomon Period Japan (yeah...I know). As Bruhns and Hammond relate, Meggars detected faking at Valdivia immediately after the start of her excavations: practical jokers who discovered a market for their copies. As the market for the pieces grew, the presumed fakes get more and more elaborate and fanciful...and Valdivia sites were just looted to pieces.

(5º§) So really with Valdivia we are left with a situation where we don't know what is real. It is directly comparable to the Cycladic Figurine problem: the corpus is mostly looted, it contains tons of forms not found in the limited archaeological excavations that have been conducted, and we intellectual consumers of artefacts don't know what to believe. To me Valdivia figurines are the perfect looting Catch 22: they warrant study so that the interested public can learn about 'the oldest', but they can't be studied because collectors wanted 'the oldest' so sites were looted and buckets of fakes were produced.

(6º§) In 2007 I bought a fake Valdivia figurine in Otavalo which now stands in a Spondylus shell on my counter and watches me cook. The fella selling it to me told me it was real. I knew it wasn't but made to put it back saying something along the lines that law breaking makes me sick. He quickly agreed that it wasn't real and cut his asking price by a ton. Que Sera. Three cheers, Ecuadorian Ministry of Culture, your logo is the best.

https://www.anonymousswisscollector.com/2012/09/valdivia-figurines-a

nd-appeal-of-oldest.html

Read the following text to answer the question.

Written by Virginia Woolf, the following letter expresses her fear of another mental breakdown and her decision to take her own life.

“Dearest, I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can't concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don't think two people could have been happier 'til this terrible disease came. I can't fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can't even write this properly. I can't read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that – everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer. I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been. V.”

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Pontus

Pontus is a non-playable faction in Rome: Total War. Pontus was a Hellenistic Kingdom on the southern coast of the Black Sea.

Pontus are an eastern faction, based in Asia Minor (Modern-day Turkey), having their origins with an ambitious Persian noble who siezed the area when Alexander's empire broke up. They were best known for their support for the pirates of Cilicia and their subsequent defeat by Pompey.

A refreshingly different faction, Pontus are similar in some ways to the Seleucids, but mainly they are unique. With a large amount of missile cavalry, chariots chariot archers, Cappadocian Lancers and Pikemen, they have a different balance to most factions, while not severely lacking in any department except heavy infantry.

Pontus is a small faction in Asia Minor. While their army is relatively weak at the low initial development levels of Asia Minor, Asia Minor itself is a relatively easy part of the map to take and hold. Trade and growth are relatively good around the area and Rhodes, Crete and the Seleucids are soon ripe for the picking. Tactically, Pontus are an eastern faction. Expect to field a mobile army of mainly missile units. There are Macedonian-influenced Pikemen though, allowing a solid infantry line to be made when dealing with the western armies and to provide more strategic options.

Pontus have mostly the basic eastern units, but with skirmisher cavalry instead of mounted archers. Scythed Chariots and Chariot Archers are also available, allowing further flexibility. The infantry is a little ticklish at times though; The early infantry suffers from poor morale and a lack of stopping power, although Eastern Infantry are very good at stopping enemy chariots. Pikemen and Cappadocian Lancers are available later on though, allowing more Seleucid-influenced tactics to be used to good effect.

It was founded by Mithridates I in 291 BC and lasted until its conquest by the Roman Empire in 63 BC. Despite being ruled by a dynasty which was a descendant of the Persian Achaemenid Empire it became hellenized due to the influence of the Greeks on the black sea and the smaller Hellenistic kingdoms in the Middle East. Pontus grew to its largest extent under Mithridates VI the great, who conquered Colchis, Cappadocia, Bithynia, Lesser Armenia, the Greek colonies of the Tauric Chersonesosand for a brief time the Roman province of Asia.

Pontus starts in north and east Asia Minor, north of the Seleucid Empire, and west of Armenia. Their cities are:

Sinope - Pontic Capital; Region - Pontus

Mazaka - Pontic Large Town; Region - Cappadocia

Pontus infantry units include the feared Bronze Shield Pikemen, the elite of the army of Pontus, among the heirs of the world-conquering phalanxes of Alexander the Great. Pontus has effective cavalry including Cappadocian Cavalry, which are are excellent horsemen, best suited to charging into and breaking through enemy formations with their lances. Pontic heavy cavalry are javelin-armed horsemen who can also fight hand-to-hand - a potent combination in one force.

After a long struggle with Rome in the Mithridatic wars, Pontus was defeated, part of it was incorporated into the Roman Empire as the province Bithynia et Pontus and the eastern half survived as a client Kingdom. The Bosporan Kingdom also remained independent under Pharnaces II as an ally and friend of Rome. Colchis was also made into a client Kingdom. Pharnaces II later made an attempt at reconquering Pontus. During the civil war of Caesar and Pompey, he invaded Asia Minor, taking Colchis, lesser Armenia, Pontus and Cappadocia and defeating a Roman army at Nicopolis. Caesar responded swiftly and defeated him at Zela, where he uttered the famous phrase 'Veni, Vidi, Vici' (i came, i saw, i conquered). Pontic kings continued to rule the client Kingdom of Pontus, Colchis and Cilicia until Polemon II was finally forced to abdicate the Pontic throne by the Romans in 62 AD.

https://totalwar.fandom.com/wiki/Pontus

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Cancer therapies are getting a makeover

By Vanessa Chalmers, Health Features Editor

Cancer is no longer a death sentence when diagnosed, thanks to the ongoing emergence of treatments that can extend lives as well as better detection methods to find the disease earlier.Scientists have learned a lot about the immune response to cancer and are now harnessing it.When we hear the word vaccine, we typically think of it as preventing disease.But in this case, vaccines are being used as a treatment. Once injected they train the immune system to recognise and fight cancer cells. The body itself is recruited to kill the cancer, rather than relying on medicines.The process leaves healthy cells untouched, unlike chemotherapy, which kills healthy tissue and causes debilitating symptoms. NHS England's national cancer director, Dame Cally Palmer, said cancer vaccines being trialled could mark a huge step in treating the disease.There are also personalised vaccines which are designed specifically for an individuals cancer, based on their genetics.The challenges with personalised vaccines and other hugely advanced cancer therapies is they are very expensive to develop - and the question is whether the NHS will be able to afford such therapies when they come to fruition.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/health/30417145/cancer-vaccine-stops-tumou rs-growing-advanced-disease/

O texto seguinte servirá de base para responder à questão.

Cancer therapies are getting a makeover

By Vanessa Chalmers, Health Features Editor

Cancer is no longer a death sentence when diagnosed, thanks to the ongoing emergence of treatments that can extend lives as well as better detection methods to find the disease earlier.Scientists have learned a lot about the immune response to cancer and are now harnessing it.When we hear the word vaccine, we typically think of it as preventing disease.But in this case, vaccines are being used as a treatment. Once injected they train the immune system to recognise and fight cancer cells. The body itself is recruited to kill the cancer, rather than relying on medicines.The process leaves healthy cells untouched, unlike chemotherapy, which kills healthy tissue and causes debilitating symptoms. NHS England's national cancer director, Dame Cally Palmer, said cancer vaccines being trialled could mark a huge step in treating the disease.There are also personalised vaccines which are designed specifically for an individuals cancer, based on their genetics.The challenges with personalised vaccines and other hugely advanced cancer therapies is they are very expensive to develop - and the question is whether the NHS will be able to afford such therapies when they come to fruition.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/health/30417145/cancer-vaccine-stops-tumou rs-growing-advanced-disease/