What is customer experience management?

(Available at: www.dynamics.microsoft.com/en-us/marketing/what-is-customer-experience-management-cxm/ – text specially adapted for this test).

Text 18A3-I 

    The roar of a waterfall suggests the power of water. Rampaging floodwaters can uproot strong trees and twist railroad tracks. When the power of water is harnessed, however, it can do useful work for humans. 

    Since ancient times, people have put the energy in the flow of water to work. They first made water work for them with the waterwheel, a wheel with paddles around its rim. Flowing water rotated the waterwheel, which in turn ran machinery that was linked to it. Today, new kinds of waterwheels — turbines — spin generators that produce electricity. Electricity from water-turned generators is known as hydroelectricity. 

    By building a dam across a river, the natural upstream water level is elevated and a difference in head is created that can be used to drive turbines and generate electricity. A large upstream reservoir may balance seasonal water flow; rain or melted snow can be stored in the reservoir during the wet season to provide electricity during dry seasons. 

    Waterpower is distributed unevenly among the continents and nations of the world. Europe and North America have developed much of their waterpower. Asia, South America, and Africa have abundant waterpower potential, but while countries such as China and Brazil have become leading hydroelectric producers, much of the waterpower resource on those continents remains undeveloped. 

Elizabeth Lachner. Hydroelectricity. Rosen Publishing Group, 2018 (adapted). 

 United Nations Environmental Programme. Dams and Development: Relevant Practices for Improved

Decision-making. Nairobi: The Secretariat of the Dams and Development Project, 2007. p. 10-1 (adapted).

Text 3

Benefits of a Bilingual Brain

¹ Language ability is typically measured in two active parts, speaking and writing, and two passive parts, listening and reading. While a balanced bilingual has near equal abilities in two languages, most bilinguals around the world know and use their languages in varying proportions. But recent advances in brain imaging technology have given neurolinguists a glimpse into how specific aspects of language learning affect the bilingual brain. 

² It's well known that the brain's left hemisphere is more dominant and analytical in logical processes, while the right hemisphere is more active in emotional and social ones, though this is a matter of degree, not an absolute split. The fact that language involves both types of functions has led to the critical period hypothesis. According to this theory, children learn languages more easily because the plasticity of their developing brains lets them use both hemispheres in language acquisition, while in most adults, language is lateralized to one hemisphere, usually the left. If this is true, learning a language in childhood may give you a more holistic grasp of its social and emotional contexts. 

³ Conversely, recent research showed that people who learned a second language in adulthood exhibit less emotional bias and a more rational approach when confronting problems in the second language than in their native one. But regardless of when you acquire additional languages, being multilingual gives your brain some remarkable advantages, such as higher density of the grey matter that contains most of your brain's neurons and synapses, and more activity in certain regions when engaging a second language. The strong workout a bilingual brain receives throughout its life can also help delay the onset of diseases, like Alzheimer's and dementia by as much as five years.

Source: Adapted from “Benefits of a bilingual brain” (Video), by Mia Nacamuli for TED-ed, 2015. Available on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMmOLN5zBLY with subtitles.

O texto IV refere-se à questão.

TEXTO IV 

From Rockets to Ball Bearings, Pentagon Struggles to Feed War Machine: The flow of arms to Ukraine has exposed a worrisome lack of production capacity in the United States that has its roots in the end of the Cold War. By Eric Lipton

March 24, 2023,

Disponível em: www.nytimes.com

WASHINGTON — The Navy admiral had a blunt message for the military contractors building precision-guided missiles for his warships, submarines and planes at a moment when the United States is dispatching arms to Ukraine and preparing for the possibility of conflict with China. 

“Look at me. I am not forgiving the fact you’re not delivering the ordnance we need. OK?” Adm. Daryl Caudle, who is in charge of delivering weapons to most of the Navy’s East Coast-based fleet, warned contractors during an industry gathering in January. “We’re talking about warfighting, national security, and going against a competitor here and a potential adversary that is like nothing we’ve ever seen. And we can’t dillydally around with these deliveries.”

His open frustration reflects a problem that has become worryingly apparent as the Pentagon dispatches its own stocks of weapons to help Ukraine hold off Russia and Washington warily watches for signs that China might provoke a new conflict by invading Taiwan: The United States lacks the capacity to produce the arms that the nation and its allies need at a time of heightened superpower tensions.

 Industry consolidation, depleted manufacturing lines and supply chain issues have combined to constrain the production of basic ammunition like artillery shells while also prompting concern about building adequate reserves of more sophisticated weapons including missiles, air defense systems and counter-artillery radar.

The Pentagon, the White House, Congress and military contractors are all taking steps to address the issues.

Procurement budgets are growing. The military is offering suppliers multiyear contracts to encourage companies to invest more in their manufacturing capacity and is dispatching teams to help solve supply bottlenecks. More generally, the Pentagon is abandoning some of the costcutting changes embraced after the end of the Cold War, including corporate-style just-in-time delivery systems and a drive to shrink the industry.