The idiom in “the tide had definitively turned” (5th paragraph)
implies that the course of events had:

Question

Text I
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 idiom in “the tide had definitively turned” (5th paragraph)
implies that the course of events had: Alternativa A: shifted. Ou Alternativa B: stopped. Ou Alternativa C: hastened. Ou Alternativa D: increased. Ou Alternativa E: persevered.

Qconcursos · Accepted Answer

Alternativa [A] shifted. Alternativa correta: A — shifted.

Tema central: interpretação de idiomas (idioms) em inglês. A expressão “the tide had definitively turned” é uma metáfora que indica uma mudança clara de rumo nos acontecimentos.

Resumo teórico: Em inglês, turn the tide ou the tide turns significa que a situação muda de direção, geralmente invertendo quem estava em vantagem. A imagem vem da maré que muda de fluxo. Sinônimos usuais: shift, reverse, change course. Fontes: Cambridge Dictionary (“turn the tide”), Merriam‑Webster (“turn the tide”).

Justificativa da correta (A — shifted): No trecho, indica-se que, por volta dos anos 1930, a vantagem passou contra os elétricos e a gasolina “ganhou a dianteira”. Logo, a maré “virou”, isto é, o curso dos fatos se deslocou/mudou. “Shifted” traduz precisamente essa ideia de mudança de direção.

Por que as demais estão erradas?
B — stopped (parou): “Turned” não comunica interrupção, mas mudança. A narrativa continua, apenas em outro rumo.
C — hastened (acelerou): Fala de velocidade, não de direção. O texto trata de reversão, não de aceleração.
D — increased (aumentou): Sugere aumento de quantidade/intensidade. O idiom indica inversão de vantagem, não crescimento.
E — persevered (perseverou): Significa continuar apesar de dificuldades. Ocorreu o oposto: a maré virou contra os elétricos.

Estratégias de interpretação:
• Reconheça o idiom: “the tide turns” raramente é literal; leia como “muda de direção”.
• Use pistas de contexto: expressões como “against electric” e “gained the upper hand” sinalizam reversão.
• Teste sinônimos no lugar: Substitua por “shifted/turned around/reversed”; veja qual opção se aproxima mais.
• Evite distrações de categoria: termos de velocidade (hastened) ou quantidade (increased) não respondem a um idiom de direção.

Fontes úteis: Cambridge Dictionary – “turn the tide”; Merriam‑Webster – “turn the tide”.

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