The last sentence indicates that some hurdles remain to be:

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Shock of the old: Believe it or not, battery-powered vehicles
have been around since Victorian times.

   The history of the electric car is surprisingly enraging. If you imagine early electric vehicles at all (full disclosure: I didn’t until recently), it will probably be as the quixotic and possibly dangerous dream of a few eccentrics, maybe in the 1920s or 1930s, when domestic electrification became widespread. It’s easy to imagine some stiff-collared proto-Musk getting bored of hunting and affairs, eyeing his newly installed electric lights speculatively, then wreaking untold havoc and mass electrocutions. The reality is entirely different.

   By 1900, a third of all cars on the road in the US were electric; we’re looking at the history of a cruelly missed opportunity, and it started astonishingly early. The Scottish engineer Robert Anderson had a go at an electric car of sorts way back in the 1830s, though his invention was somewhat stymied by the fact rechargeable batteries were not invented until 1859, making his crude carriage something of a one-trick pony (and far less useful than an actual pony).

   It’s debatable whether or not Scotland was ready for this brave new world anyway: in 1842, Robert Davidson (another Scot, who had, a few years earlier, also tried his hand at an electric vehicle) saw his electric locomotive Galvani “broken by some malicious hands almost beyond repair” in Perth. The contemporary consensus was that it was attacked by railway workers fearful for their jobs.

   Despite this unpromising start, electric vehicles had entered widespread commercial circulation by the start of the 20th century, particularly in the US. Electric cabs crisscrossed Manhattan, 1897’s bestselling US car was electric and, when he was shot in 1901, President McKinley was taken to hospital in an electric ambulance. London had Walter Bersey’s electric taxis, and Berlin’s fire engines went electric in 1908; the future looked bright, clean and silent.

   By the 1930s, however, the tide had definitively turned against electric, cursed by range limitations and impractical charging times while petrol gained the upper hand thanks partly – and ironically – to the electric starter motor. The Horseless Age magazine, which vehemently backed the petrol non-horse, would have been delighted. There was a brief resurgence of interest in the late 1960s, when the US Congress passed a bill promoting electrical vehicle development, but nothing much actually happened until the Nissan Leaf sparked interest in 2009. Electric still isn’t quite there yet, battling infrastructure and battery problems that might have been familiar to Anderson and friends.


Adapted from The Guardian, Tuesday 24 October 2023, p. 6 https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/series/shock-of-the-old/2023/oct/24/all
The last sentence indicates that some hurdles remain to be:
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Alternativa correta: B – handled.

Tema central: Interpretação de texto com foco em vocabulário em contexto. A questão pede identificar, pela ideia do último período, qual verbo melhor expressa o que ainda precisa ser feito em relação a “obstáculos/problemas”.

Resumo teórico: Em inglês, a estrutura “remain to be + particípio” indica algo que ainda precisa ser feito (ex.: “remain to be solved/seen/handled”). No trecho-base, aparecem pistas semânticas como “isn’t quite there yet” e “battling … problems”, sinalizando que persistem problemas a serem tratados, não criados ou ignorados.

Justificativa da alternativa B: Handled significa “lidar com; tratar; administrar” problemas, equivalente a “deal with/manage/address”. Isso se alinha ao sentido de que os veículos elétricos ainda enfrentam obstáculos de infraestrutura e baterias que precisam ser tratados. Handled transmite precisamente a ideia de “obstáculos que permanecem a ser tratados/solucionados”.

Análise das incorretas:

  • A – raised: “levantar/elevar/causar”. Indica criar problemas, não “tratar” problemas existentes. Incompatível com “battling problems”.
  • C – loosened: “afrouxar/relaxar”. Não se “afrouxa” obstáculos; o sentido esperado é tratar/solucionar.
  • D – contrived: “artificialmente criado/forjado”. Sugere que os obstáculos seriam inventados, o que contraria o texto, que os reconhece como reais e em enfrentamento.
  • E – overlooked: “ignorado/preterido”. O texto diz que os problemas estão sendo “batalhados”, portanto não estão sendo ignorados, e sim demandam ação.

Estratégias de interpretação:

  • Procure pistas de contexto: “isn’t quite there yet” + “battling problems” = ainda há trabalho a fazer.
  • Observe coligações usuais: “remain to be + solved/handled/done” é um padrão comum para “resta a ser feito”.
  • Elimine por incompatibilidade semântica: opções que indicam “criar” (raised), “ignorar” (overlooked) ou “artificialidade” (contrived) destoam do enfrentamento descrito.

Fontes de apoio (vocabulário): Cambridge Dictionary – “handle: to deal with, have responsibility for”; Merriam-Webster – “handle: to manage, deal with”.

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