Questões de Inglês - Comparativo e superlativo de adjetivos | Comparative and superlative para Concurso

Read the text below and answer the question that follow:

Text 1:

What makes a school good? (Part I)

Everyone is concerned about the quality of education a school offers, but how is quality measured? We often hear that schools in some countries are excellent, while schools in other countries are filled with problems. What factors should we be looking at to judge how 'good' schools are or aren't? I decided to do some research on the topic to see if I could come up with some answers.

One way of deciding if a school is good is by looking at how many students go on to university when they leave. If you look at all the schools in the world, the country which sends the highest numbers of its students to university is Finland. So, I looked at conditions in Finnish schools to see what made them so successful.

Often you will hear people say that the best schools are those that are strict. So, are the schools in Finland very strict? The answer is no, they aren't. They are usually very informal places with teachers and students sharing ideas. In fact, Finnish schools have a unique way of dealing with students and this could be the reason why they are so successful. While students in many countries spend long hours in school studying boring subjects, lucky students in Finland have short school days and ten weeks of summer holidays.Added to that, lunch is free and there are lots of lessons in sport, music and art.

Also, Finnish schools seem to have a different philosophy. They believe in equality and making school seem like a home away from home, so students feel comfortable and enjoy going there. The aim of the schools is not only to focus on 'good' students but also to provide extra help to students that need it. The result of this is that less able students do much better in Finland than they would in other countries.

Taken from: Chapman, Joanne. Laser B1 +. Teacher's book. Macmillan, 2008.

Have you ever wondered what keeps a hot air balloon flying? The same principle that keeps food frozen in the open chest freezers at the grocery store allows hot air balloons to fly. It’s a very basic principle: Hot air rises and cold air falls. So while the super-cooled air in the grocery store freezer settles down around the food, the hot air in a hot air balloon pushes up, keeping the balloon floating above the ground. In order to understand more about how this principle works in hot air balloons, it helps to know more about hot air balloons themselves.

A hot air balloon has three major parts: the basket, the burner, and the envelope. The basket is where passengers ride. The basket is usually made of wicker. This ensures that it will be comfortable and add little extra weight. The burner is positioned above the passenger’s heads and produces a huge flame to heat the air inside the envelope. The envelope is the colorful fabric balloon that holds the hot air. When the air inside the envelope is heated, the balloon rises.

The pilot can control the up-and-down movements of the hot air balloon by regulating the heat in the envelope. To ascend, the pilot heats the air in the envelope. When the pilot is ready to land, the air in the balloon is allowed to cool and the balloon becomes heavier than air. This makes the balloon descend.

Before the balloon is launched, the pilot knows which way the wind is blowing. This means that she has a general idea........................... which way the balloon will go. But, sometimes the pilot can actually control the direction that the balloon flies while.......................................... flight. This is because the air above the ground is sectioned .........................................layers in which the direction of the wind may be different. So even though the pilot can’t steer the balloon, she can fly or higher or lower into a different layer ......................................air. Some days the difference between the direction of the wind between layers is negligible. But other days the difference is so strong that it can actually push the balloon in a completely different direction!