Read the text to answer the question.

Five Things to Know About Brazil’s New President, Michel Temer

(Ian Bremmer. Sept 1, 2016.)

    Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s first female president, was thrown out of office by the country’s senate on Wednesday following after an impeachment trial that ended the leftist Workers’ Party 13 years in power. She has been replaced by her former vice president and coalition partner Michel Temer of the centrist Democratic Movement party (PMDB). Temer has been running Brazil since Rousseff’s suspension in May, and is set to continue as president until the next election in 2018. Here are five things we know about the 75-year-old:

    1. He is “nearly the opposite” of Rousseff

    Temer, who has been elected to Congress four times, is “nearly the opposite” of Rousseff in terms of his political views and experience, according to The Economist. The magazine described him as a multitalented politician; a charming, elegant and conciliatory man who believes in a “blend of economic and social liberalism that is unusual in Brazil”. An example of this is his belief that abortion should be legal, which is at odds with the view of most of Brazil, which has some of the toughest abortion laws in the world.

    2. But like Rousseff, he has been accused of corruption

  Temer is not free from scandal; he’s currently being investigated for receiving an illicit $400,000 campaign donation in 2012 from the state oil company Petrobras. This has implicated him in the country’s biggest ever corruption scandal, known as “Operation Car Wash”, which has led to the jailing of dozens of executives and politicians and contributed to Brazil’s worst recession in decades.

    3. He is pretty unpopular in Brazil

    A poll in April by Brazil’s Folha de S. Paulo newspaper found that 60% of respondents supported Rousseff’s ouster, and 58% wanted to get rid of Temer too, USA Today reports. His unpopularity is partly to do with his implication in Operation Car Wash, but it hasn’t been helped by his controversial decision to create a cabinet made up solely of white men in a country where 53% of citizens are mixed race and 52% are female.

    4. His wife is a 33-year-old former beauty queen

   Temer’s wife of 13 years, Marcela Temer, is former Miss São Paulo and more than 40 years his junior. She has been criticized by media outlets for her ‘Marie Antoinette’ spending during times of Brazil’s economic uncertainty, with MailOnline reporting that she has a nanny, a cook and two maids, as well as her mother and sister, to help her look after her only son, Michelzinho, who is seven. She recently appeared on the cover of the conservative magazine Veja where she was described as “Beautiful, demure and homely”.

    5. He is a keen poet, to the amusement of some Brazilians

   Temer is the author of a book of poems, titled Anonymous Intimacy, as well as a textbook on constitutional law. According to the New York Times, the president began writing poetry when he found himself jotting his thoughts on cocktail napkins in airport lounges when working as a lawmaker a few years ago. He has mused on the themes of letter-writing in the text-messaging era, lust and radicalism – the latter being a one line poem that simply read “No. Never again!” Temer’s poetry has not been particularly well received in Brazil and there is even a Twitter account with over 33,000 followers that frequently mocks the president’s creative expressions.

(Available: http://time.com/tag/brazil/page2.)

Cow Threat

Cows are walking machines. They transform materials (grass, hay, water, and feed) into finished products (milk, beef, leather, and so on).

As any factory, cows produce waste. Solid waste is eliminated through the rear end of these ‘complex machines’, and it is used as fertilizer.

The fermentation process in their four stomachs produces gas. These walking machines have two chimneys: one in the front end, and other in the rear end. Gaseous emissions through the front end chimney are called burps. Cows burp a lot. Every minute and half these burps release methane gas. Methane is dangerous to the planet because it contributes to the greenhouse effect.

The world population is growing very fast. That means there are more people eating beef. Consequently, there is more cattle – more walking machines – producing more methane gas.

This is the problem, but very few people want to change their eating habits. What about you? 

Text 3

The Assistants, by Camille Perri

Chapter 1

In less than a second I was at his desk, notepad in hand. Behind me a wall of flat-screens flashed the news being broadcast by Titan and its so-called competitors. Robert had the uncanny ability to devote a small portion of his gaze to each screen simultaneously. In all he owned nine satellite television networks, one hundred seventy-five newspapers, one hundred cable channels, forty book imprints, forty television stations, and one movie studio. His total audience reached around 4.7 billion people, which came out to around three-fourths of the population of the entire globe. But the news was his baby. He was never not watching it, analyzing it, shaping it. That’s why he situated his office at Titan News headquarters, where he could keep close watch not only on his wall of flat-screens but also on his journalists. A man as powerful as Robert could have hidden himself anywhere, pulling at the strings of the world from a lounge chair in the Seychelles, unseen by his employees—but he needed to be here at the center of it all, at the hub.

Our office didn’t look like a newsroom that you’d imagine from movies or TV drama series. The floors below ours were more like that—the broadcast, print media, and digital newsrooms, each of which could have easily passed for something out of The Matrix. And there was an entire floor of flashy studios used for our non-stop news coverage and thrill-a-minute opinion shows. But our office on the fortieth floor was far less exciting, just row after row of desks and cubicles. Still, we were the brain of the whole operation, the source from which all orders trickled down. Titan’s chief editors and all of Robert’s most trusted deputies had desks on our floor so Robert could pull them into impromptus with the business leaders and celebrities he met with— and so he could foster relationships between them and the political-party representatives (yes, from both parties) who came to lobby him. I guess what I’m trying to say is, what the fortieth floor lacked in flash it made up for in influence.

(Taken from http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/317172/the-assistants-by-perri-camille/9780399172540/)

TEXT 1

What is administrative excellence?

Administrative Professionals perform some of the toughest functions in an office. Not only are you required to keep pace with ever-changing technology, you need to work with and through many people to meet deadlines, resolve conflicts, gather information, and coordinate schedules and logistics. Additionally, you are often the first point-of-contact for customers – your competence and professionalism in meeting their demands might be one of the most important factors in how your organization is perceived in the marketplace. To satisfy the needs of so many, your technical skills and your interpersonal skills must be well-balanced to generate efficient and effective results.

Administrative excellence pertains to the quality of work and the caliber of service that you provide in carrying out your responsibilities. Excellence by definition exceeds the routine expectations of managers, coworkers, and other customers, but it is a standard first set by you. It is something that many aspire to and work hard to deliver. I once read that excellence means "you are better today than you were yesterday, but not as good as you will be tomorrow." With that understanding, you can see there is no finish line. Excellence is a commitment to continually do and give your best.

Although we each have personal standards and differing values in terms of excellence, there are a few things that help to streamline administrative efforts in reaching high levels of job performance. Here are what I considered to be the "5Ps" of administrative excellence:

1. Perception – Self-awareness of behaviors and skills that maximize strengths and minimize weaknesses.

Know yourself and what you like and what you dislike about your job. Pay attention to those activities that excite and engage you. Typically, these are things that come naturally or easily for you – your strengths. Find opportunities to do more of what you love to do – you’ll be happier and more satisfied with your work. Take control and find solutions for those parts of your job that are less fulfilling so that your emotions and attitude don’t work against you.

2. Purpose – Understanding the importance of job responsibilities and identifying with the overall objectives of the team, department, and organization.

It’s one thing to know how to do your job, but it’s more important to know why you do what you do. Understanding your role in the bigger picture of organizational success helps to ignite feelings of inclusion and professional pride.

3. Progress – Ability to think progressively for continuous personal and professional improvement.

Challenge yourself to try new things and new ways of doing routine things. Don’t let yourself stagnate or become too comfortable – seize opportunities to showcase your skills or push self-imposed limitations. People rarely gain a professional edge when others can’t see or don’t know what they are capable of achieving.

4. Partnership – Willingness and ability to foster good relationships and teamwork with coworkers, managers, and customers.

Good relationships are the foundation for resourcefulness in your job. Treat others with respect. Do what you say you will do, offer to help others, exhibit a sense of urgency in responding to requests, and extend common courtesy – when others reciprocate, a trusting partnership is formed.

5. Professionalism – High standards of appearance, personal conduct, work product, and expertise.

Don’t leave doubts in the minds of others. Match image with skills and knowledge to help shape the thoughts and experiences of others. Continue to learn and produce accurate, timely work and your reputation and credibility will "speak for itself."

There are many other measurements of excellence. Find things that are unique about you and make your pathway to excellence your own. No one else will do it or achieve it in exactly the same manner. It’s often the small things that make a person stand out in a big way. Several years ago, a manager described his admin’s stellar performance in this way, "I don’t know how else to explain it…everything she does for me comes back just a little bit better than I expected it to." That’s a strong endorsement for administrative excellence – a little effort, a lot of admiration.

©Administrative Excellence – 2010 (Adapted from: https://adminexcellence.wordpress.com/2010/03/16/what-is-administrative-excellence/, in 12/01/2017)