Questões de Vestibular
Sobre interpretação de texto | reading comprehension em inglês
Foram encontradas 5.299 questões
1With the increasing popularity of wireless devices like smartphones — devices that can move lots of data very quickly — users have access to their social networks 24 hours a day. Most social networking sites have developed applications for your mobile phone, so logging on is always convenient. Social networks also tap into our human desire to stay connected with others. Besides, the rush of nostalgia as you connect with your former grade-school classmate on Facebook can be quite heady and exciting.
2But what's the main reason we find these sites so addictive? Plain old narcissism. We broadcast our personalities online whenever we publish a thought, photo, YouTube video or answer one of those “25 Things About Me" memes. We put that information out there so people will respond and connect to us. And being part of a social network is sort of like having your own entourage that follows you everywhere, commenting on and applauding everything you do. It's very seductive.
3In 2008, researchers at the University of Georgia studied the correlation between narcissism and Facebook users. Unsurprisingly, they found that the more “friends" and wall posts a user had, the more narcissistic he or she was. They noted that narcissistic people use Facebook in a selfpromoting way, rather than in a connective way. It may be an obvious theory, but it also suggests that social networks bring out the narcissist in all of us.
4Social networks are also a voyeuristic experience for many users. Following exchanges on Twitter or posts on Facebook and MySpace are akin to eavesdropping on someone else's conversation. It's entertaining and allows you to feel like a “fly on the wall" in someone else's life.
5Social networking sites also publicly list your “friends" or “followers" — giving you instant status. How many people do you know online who spend all their time trying to get more friends, more followers, more testimonials? We work hard in real life to elevate our statuses, make friends and search out boosters for our self-esteem. Online social networking provides this to us, and we don't even have to change out of our sweatshirts to get it.
(adapted from http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet/socialnetworking/information/social-networking-sites-addictive2.htm)
Glossary
addictive: viciante; tap into: explorar/tirar proveito; broadcast: anunciar; entourage: comitiva/séquito; akin to eavesdropping: parecido com bisbilhotar; booster: aquilo que impulsiona; sweatshirts: camisetas
1With the increasing popularity of wireless devices like smartphones — devices that can move lots of data very quickly — users have access to their social networks 24 hours a day. Most social networking sites have developed applications for your mobile phone, so logging on is always convenient. Social networks also tap into our human desire to stay connected with others. Besides, the rush of nostalgia as you connect with your former grade-school classmate on Facebook can be quite heady and exciting.
2But what's the main reason we find these sites so addictive? Plain old narcissism. We broadcast our personalities online whenever we publish a thought, photo, YouTube video or answer one of those “25 Things About Me" memes. We put that information out there so people will respond and connect to us. And being part of a social network is sort of like having your own entourage that follows you everywhere, commenting on and applauding everything you do. It's very seductive.
3In 2008, researchers at the University of Georgia studied the correlation between narcissism and Facebook users. Unsurprisingly, they found that the more “friends" and wall posts a user had, the more narcissistic he or she was. They noted that narcissistic people use Facebook in a selfpromoting way, rather than in a connective way. It may be an obvious theory, but it also suggests that social networks bring out the narcissist in all of us.
4Social networks are also a voyeuristic experience for many users. Following exchanges on Twitter or posts on Facebook and MySpace are akin to eavesdropping on someone else's conversation. It's entertaining and allows you to feel like a “fly on the wall" in someone else's life.
5Social networking sites also publicly list your “friends" or “followers" — giving you instant status. How many people do you know online who spend all their time trying to get more friends, more followers, more testimonials? We work hard in real life to elevate our statuses, make friends and search out boosters for our self-esteem. Online social networking provides this to us, and we don't even have to change out of our sweatshirts to get it.
(adapted from http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet/socialnetworking/information/social-networking-sites-addictive2.htm)
Glossary
addictive: viciante; tap into: explorar/tirar proveito; broadcast: anunciar; entourage: comitiva/séquito; akin to eavesdropping: parecido com bisbilhotar; booster: aquilo que impulsiona; sweatshirts: camisetas
1With the increasing popularity of wireless devices like smartphones — devices that can move lots of data very quickly — users have access to their social networks 24 hours a day. Most social networking sites have developed applications for your mobile phone, so logging on is always convenient. Social networks also tap into our human desire to stay connected with others. Besides, the rush of nostalgia as you connect with your former grade-school classmate on Facebook can be quite heady and exciting.
2But what's the main reason we find these sites so addictive? Plain old narcissism. We broadcast our personalities online whenever we publish a thought, photo, YouTube video or answer one of those “25 Things About Me" memes. We put that information out there so people will respond and connect to us. And being part of a social network is sort of like having your own entourage that follows you everywhere, commenting on and applauding everything you do. It's very seductive.
3In 2008, researchers at the University of Georgia studied the correlation between narcissism and Facebook users. Unsurprisingly, they found that the more “friends" and wall posts a user had, the more narcissistic he or she was. They noted that narcissistic people use Facebook in a selfpromoting way, rather than in a connective way. It may be an obvious theory, but it also suggests that social networks bring out the narcissist in all of us.
4Social networks are also a voyeuristic experience for many users. Following exchanges on Twitter or posts on Facebook and MySpace are akin to eavesdropping on someone else's conversation. It's entertaining and allows you to feel like a “fly on the wall" in someone else's life.
5Social networking sites also publicly list your “friends" or “followers" — giving you instant status. How many people do you know online who spend all their time trying to get more friends, more followers, more testimonials? We work hard in real life to elevate our statuses, make friends and search out boosters for our self-esteem. Online social networking provides this to us, and we don't even have to change out of our sweatshirts to get it.
(adapted from http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet/socialnetworking/information/social-networking-sites-addictive2.htm)
Glossary
addictive: viciante; tap into: explorar/tirar proveito; broadcast: anunciar; entourage: comitiva/séquito; akin to eavesdropping: parecido com bisbilhotar; booster: aquilo que impulsiona; sweatshirts: camisetas
Alice Munro’s road to Nobel literature prize was not easy
Nobel literature prize winner Alice Munro.
Alice Munro has been awarded the 2013 Nobel Prize in literature, thus becoming its 13th female recipient. It’s a thrilling honour for a major writer: Munro has long been recognised in North America and the UK, but the Nobel will draw international attention, not only to women’s writing and Canadian writing, but to the short story, Munro’s chosen literary genre and one often neglected.
The road to the Nobel wasn’t an easy one for Munro. She found herself referred to as “some housewife”, and was told that her subject matter, being too “domestic”, was boring. A male writer told her she wrote good stories, but he wouldn’t want to sleep with her. “Nobody invited him,” said Munro. Maybe as a consequence of this initial reaction towards her, when writers occur in Munro stories, they are pretentious, or exploitative of others; or they’re being asked by their relatives why they aren’t famous, or – worse, if female – why they aren’t better-looking.
The chances that a literary star would emerge from her time and place would once have been zero. Munro was born in 1931, and thus experienced the Depression as a child and the Second World War as a teenager. This was in south-western Ontario, Canada, a region that also produced equally talented writers and poets such as Robertson Davies, Graeme Gibson, James Reaney, and Marian Engel. It’s this small-town setting that features most often in her stories – the snobberies, the eccentrics, and the jeering at ambitions, especially artistic ones.
Shame is a common driving force for Munro’s characters just as perfectionism in the writing and courage in her profession have been driving forces for her.
As in much else, Munro is essentially Canadian. Faced with the Nobel, she will be modest, she won’t get a swelled head. The rest of us, on this magnificent occasion, will just have to do that for her.
Besides Alice Munro's talent and courage, what other quality of this Nobel Prize winner is emphasized in the article?
Alice Munro’s road to Nobel literature prize was not easy
Nobel literature prize winner Alice Munro.
Alice Munro has been awarded the 2013 Nobel Prize in literature, thus becoming its 13th female recipient. It’s a thrilling honour for a major writer: Munro has long been recognised in North America and the UK, but the Nobel will draw international attention, not only to women’s writing and Canadian writing, but to the short story, Munro’s chosen literary genre and one often neglected.
The road to the Nobel wasn’t an easy one for Munro. She found herself referred to as “some housewife”, and was told that her subject matter, being too “domestic”, was boring. A male writer told her she wrote good stories, but he wouldn’t want to sleep with her. “Nobody invited him,” said Munro. Maybe as a consequence of this initial reaction towards her, when writers occur in Munro stories, they are pretentious, or exploitative of others; or they’re being asked by their relatives why they aren’t famous, or – worse, if female – why they aren’t better-looking.
The chances that a literary star would emerge from her time and place would once have been zero. Munro was born in 1931, and thus experienced the Depression as a child and the Second World War as a teenager. This was in south-western Ontario, Canada, a region that also produced equally talented writers and poets such as Robertson Davies, Graeme Gibson, James Reaney, and Marian Engel. It’s this small-town setting that features most often in her stories – the snobberies, the eccentrics, and the jeering at ambitions, especially artistic ones.
Shame is a common driving force for Munro’s characters just as perfectionism in the writing and courage in her profession have been driving forces for her.
As in much else, Munro is essentially Canadian. Faced with the Nobel, she will be modest, she won’t get a swelled head. The rest of us, on this magnificent occasion, will just have to do that for her.
In the third paragraph, in the sentence “This was in south-western Ontario", the pronoun “this" refers to
Alice Munro’s road to Nobel literature prize was not easy
Nobel literature prize winner Alice Munro.
Alice Munro has been awarded the 2013 Nobel Prize in literature, thus becoming its 13th female recipient. It’s a thrilling honour for a major writer: Munro has long been recognised in North America and the UK, but the Nobel will draw international attention, not only to women’s writing and Canadian writing, but to the short story, Munro’s chosen literary genre and one often neglected.
The road to the Nobel wasn’t an easy one for Munro. She found herself referred to as “some housewife”, and was told that her subject matter, being too “domestic”, was boring. A male writer told her she wrote good stories, but he wouldn’t want to sleep with her. “Nobody invited him,” said Munro. Maybe as a consequence of this initial reaction towards her, when writers occur in Munro stories, they are pretentious, or exploitative of others; or they’re being asked by their relatives why they aren’t famous, or – worse, if female – why they aren’t better-looking.
The chances that a literary star would emerge from her time and place would once have been zero. Munro was born in 1931, and thus experienced the Depression as a child and the Second World War as a teenager. This was in south-western Ontario, Canada, a region that also produced equally talented writers and poets such as Robertson Davies, Graeme Gibson, James Reaney, and Marian Engel. It’s this small-town setting that features most often in her stories – the snobberies, the eccentrics, and the jeering at ambitions, especially artistic ones.
Shame is a common driving force for Munro’s characters just as perfectionism in the writing and courage in her profession have been driving forces for her.
As in much else, Munro is essentially Canadian. Faced with the Nobel, she will be modest, she won’t get a swelled head. The rest of us, on this magnificent occasion, will just have to do that for her.
Alice Munro’s road to Nobel literature prize was not easy
Nobel literature prize winner Alice Munro.
Alice Munro has been awarded the 2013 Nobel Prize in literature, thus becoming its 13th female recipient. It’s a thrilling honour for a major writer: Munro has long been recognised in North America and the UK, but the Nobel will draw international attention, not only to women’s writing and Canadian writing, but to the short story, Munro’s chosen literary genre and one often neglected.
The road to the Nobel wasn’t an easy one for Munro. She found herself referred to as “some housewife”, and was told that her subject matter, being too “domestic”, was boring. A male writer told her she wrote good stories, but he wouldn’t want to sleep with her. “Nobody invited him,” said Munro. Maybe as a consequence of this initial reaction towards her, when writers occur in Munro stories, they are pretentious, or exploitative of others; or they’re being asked by their relatives why they aren’t famous, or – worse, if female – why they aren’t better-looking.
The chances that a literary star would emerge from her time and place would once have been zero. Munro was born in 1931, and thus experienced the Depression as a child and the Second World War as a teenager. This was in south-western Ontario, Canada, a region that also produced equally talented writers and poets such as Robertson Davies, Graeme Gibson, James Reaney, and Marian Engel. It’s this small-town setting that features most often in her stories – the snobberies, the eccentrics, and the jeering at ambitions, especially artistic ones.
Shame is a common driving force for Munro’s characters just as perfectionism in the writing and courage in her profession have been driving forces for her.
As in much else, Munro is essentially Canadian. Faced with the Nobel, she will be modest, she won’t get a swelled head. The rest of us, on this magnificent occasion, will just have to do that for her.
Alice Munro’s road to Nobel literature prize was not easy
Nobel literature prize winner Alice Munro.
Alice Munro has been awarded the 2013 Nobel Prize in literature, thus becoming its 13th female recipient. It’s a thrilling honour for a major writer: Munro has long been recognised in North America and the UK, but the Nobel will draw international attention, not only to women’s writing and Canadian writing, but to the short story, Munro’s chosen literary genre and one often neglected.
The road to the Nobel wasn’t an easy one for Munro. She found herself referred to as “some housewife”, and was told that her subject matter, being too “domestic”, was boring. A male writer told her she wrote good stories, but he wouldn’t want to sleep with her. “Nobody invited him,” said Munro. Maybe as a consequence of this initial reaction towards her, when writers occur in Munro stories, they are pretentious, or exploitative of others; or they’re being asked by their relatives why they aren’t famous, or – worse, if female – why they aren’t better-looking.
The chances that a literary star would emerge from her time and place would once have been zero. Munro was born in 1931, and thus experienced the Depression as a child and the Second World War as a teenager. This was in south-western Ontario, Canada, a region that also produced equally talented writers and poets such as Robertson Davies, Graeme Gibson, James Reaney, and Marian Engel. It’s this small-town setting that features most often in her stories – the snobberies, the eccentrics, and the jeering at ambitions, especially artistic ones.
Shame is a common driving force for Munro’s characters just as perfectionism in the writing and courage in her profession have been driving forces for her.
As in much else, Munro is essentially Canadian. Faced with the Nobel, she will be modest, she won’t get a swelled head. The rest of us, on this magnificent occasion, will just have to do that for her.
Before the difference between autofiction and autobiography is presented, an important concept for the understanding of such distinction is introduced in the text.
This concept is the one of:
In the second paragraph, the author of the text cites E. Stuart Bates, who defines the term autobiography. Another writer, Philippe Lejeune, criticizes this definition and proposes a new one.
The characteristic present in Lejeune’s definition that justifies his criticism is:
One of the main reasons for the protests is the lack of confidence in:
This characterization is based on the criteria of:
The author establishes links among them by means of the following textual strategy:
The purpose of this article can be described as:
Cristina Fernández argues that her country's latest default is different. She is missing the point.
Aug 2nd 2014
ARGENTINA'S first bond, issued in 1824, was supposed to have had a lifespan of 46 years. Less than four years later, the government defaulted. Resolving the ensuing stand-off with creditors took 29 years. Since then seven more defaults have followed, the most recent this week, when Argentina failed to make a payment on bonds issued as partial compensation to victims of the previous default, in 2001.
Most investors think they can see a pattern in all this, but Argentina’s president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, insists the latest default is not like the others. Her government, she points out, had transferred the full $539m it owed to the banks that administer the bonds. It is America’s courts (the bonds were issued under American law) that blocked the payment, at the behest of the tiny minority of owners of bonds from 2001 who did not accept the restructuring Argentina offered them in 2005 and again in 2010. These “hold-outs”, balking at the 65% haircut the restructuring entailed, not only persuaded a judge that they should be paid in full but also got him to freeze payments on the restructured bonds until Argentina coughs up.
Argentina claims that paying the hold-outs was impossible. It is not just that they are “vultures" as Argentine officials often put it, who bought the bonds for cents on the dollar after the previous default and are now holding those who accepted the restructuring (accounting for 93% of the debt) to ransom. The main problem is that a clause in the restructured bonds prohibits Argentina from offering the hold-outs better terms without paying everyone else the same. Since it cannot afford to do that, it says it had no choice but to default.
Yet it is not certain that the clause requiring equal treatment of all bondholders would have applied, given that Argentina would not have been paying the hold-outs voluntarily, but on the courts' orders. Moreover, some owners of the restructured bonds had agreed to waive their rights; had Argentina made a concerted effort to persuade the remainder to do the same, it might have succeeded. Lawyers and bankers have suggested various ways around the clause in question, which expires at the end of the year. But Argentina's government was slow to consider these options or negotiate with the hold-outs, hiding instead behind indignant nationalism.
Ms Fernández is right that the consequences of America's court rulings have been perverse, unleashing a big financial dispute in an attempt to solve a relatively small one. But hers is not the first government to be hit with an awkward verdict. Instead of railing against it, she should have tried to minimise the harm it did. Defaulting has helped no one: none of the bondholders will now be paid, Argentina looks like a pariah again, and its economy will remain starved of loans and investment.
Happily, much of the damage can still be undone. It is not too late to strike a deal with the hold-outs or back an ostensibly private effort to buy out their claims. A quick fix would make it easier for Argentina to borrow again internationally. That, in turn, would speed development of big oil and gas deposits, the income from which could help ease its money troubles.
More important, it would help to change perceptions of Argentina as a financial rogue state. Over the past year or so Ms Fernández seems to have been trying to rehabilitate Argentina's image and resuscitate its faltering economy. She settled financial disputes with government creditors and with Repsol, a Spanish oil firm whose Argentine assets she had expropriated in 2012. This week's events have overshadowed all that. For its own sake, and everyone else's, Argentina should hold its nose and do a deal with the hold-outs.
(http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21610263. Adapted)
Cristina Fernández argues that her country's latest default is different. She is missing the point.
Aug 2nd 2014
ARGENTINA'S first bond, issued in 1824, was supposed to have had a lifespan of 46 years. Less than four years later, the government defaulted. Resolving the ensuing stand-off with creditors took 29 years. Since then seven more defaults have followed, the most recent this week, when Argentina failed to make a payment on bonds issued as partial compensation to victims of the previous default, in 2001.
Most investors think they can see a pattern in all this, but Argentina’s president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, insists the latest default is not like the others. Her government, she points out, had transferred the full $539m it owed to the banks that administer the bonds. It is America’s courts (the bonds were issued under American law) that blocked the payment, at the behest of the tiny minority of owners of bonds from 2001 who did not accept the restructuring Argentina offered them in 2005 and again in 2010. These “hold-outs”, balking at the 65% haircut the restructuring entailed, not only persuaded a judge that they should be paid in full but also got him to freeze payments on the restructured bonds until Argentina coughs up.
Argentina claims that paying the hold-outs was impossible. It is not just that they are “vultures" as Argentine officials often put it, who bought the bonds for cents on the dollar after the previous default and are now holding those who accepted the restructuring (accounting for 93% of the debt) to ransom. The main problem is that a clause in the restructured bonds prohibits Argentina from offering the hold-outs better terms without paying everyone else the same. Since it cannot afford to do that, it says it had no choice but to default.
Yet it is not certain that the clause requiring equal treatment of all bondholders would have applied, given that Argentina would not have been paying the hold-outs voluntarily, but on the courts' orders. Moreover, some owners of the restructured bonds had agreed to waive their rights; had Argentina made a concerted effort to persuade the remainder to do the same, it might have succeeded. Lawyers and bankers have suggested various ways around the clause in question, which expires at the end of the year. But Argentina's government was slow to consider these options or negotiate with the hold-outs, hiding instead behind indignant nationalism.
Ms Fernández is right that the consequences of America's court rulings have been perverse, unleashing a big financial dispute in an attempt to solve a relatively small one. But hers is not the first government to be hit with an awkward verdict. Instead of railing against it, she should have tried to minimise the harm it did. Defaulting has helped no one: none of the bondholders will now be paid, Argentina looks like a pariah again, and its economy will remain starved of loans and investment.
Happily, much of the damage can still be undone. It is not too late to strike a deal with the hold-outs or back an ostensibly private effort to buy out their claims. A quick fix would make it easier for Argentina to borrow again internationally. That, in turn, would speed development of big oil and gas deposits, the income from which could help ease its money troubles.
More important, it would help to change perceptions of Argentina as a financial rogue state. Over the past year or so Ms Fernández seems to have been trying to rehabilitate Argentina's image and resuscitate its faltering economy. She settled financial disputes with government creditors and with Repsol, a Spanish oil firm whose Argentine assets she had expropriated in 2012. This week's events have overshadowed all that. For its own sake, and everyone else's, Argentina should hold its nose and do a deal with the hold-outs.
(http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21610263. Adapted)
Cristina Fernández argues that her country's latest default is different. She is missing the point.
Aug 2nd 2014
ARGENTINA'S first bond, issued in 1824, was supposed to have had a lifespan of 46 years. Less than four years later, the government defaulted. Resolving the ensuing stand-off with creditors took 29 years. Since then seven more defaults have followed, the most recent this week, when Argentina failed to make a payment on bonds issued as partial compensation to victims of the previous default, in 2001.
Most investors think they can see a pattern in all this, but Argentina’s president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, insists the latest default is not like the others. Her government, she points out, had transferred the full $539m it owed to the banks that administer the bonds. It is America’s courts (the bonds were issued under American law) that blocked the payment, at the behest of the tiny minority of owners of bonds from 2001 who did not accept the restructuring Argentina offered them in 2005 and again in 2010. These “hold-outs”, balking at the 65% haircut the restructuring entailed, not only persuaded a judge that they should be paid in full but also got him to freeze payments on the restructured bonds until Argentina coughs up.
Argentina claims that paying the hold-outs was impossible. It is not just that they are “vultures" as Argentine officials often put it, who bought the bonds for cents on the dollar after the previous default and are now holding those who accepted the restructuring (accounting for 93% of the debt) to ransom. The main problem is that a clause in the restructured bonds prohibits Argentina from offering the hold-outs better terms without paying everyone else the same. Since it cannot afford to do that, it says it had no choice but to default.
Yet it is not certain that the clause requiring equal treatment of all bondholders would have applied, given that Argentina would not have been paying the hold-outs voluntarily, but on the courts' orders. Moreover, some owners of the restructured bonds had agreed to waive their rights; had Argentina made a concerted effort to persuade the remainder to do the same, it might have succeeded. Lawyers and bankers have suggested various ways around the clause in question, which expires at the end of the year. But Argentina's government was slow to consider these options or negotiate with the hold-outs, hiding instead behind indignant nationalism.
Ms Fernández is right that the consequences of America's court rulings have been perverse, unleashing a big financial dispute in an attempt to solve a relatively small one. But hers is not the first government to be hit with an awkward verdict. Instead of railing against it, she should have tried to minimise the harm it did. Defaulting has helped no one: none of the bondholders will now be paid, Argentina looks like a pariah again, and its economy will remain starved of loans and investment.
Happily, much of the damage can still be undone. It is not too late to strike a deal with the hold-outs or back an ostensibly private effort to buy out their claims. A quick fix would make it easier for Argentina to borrow again internationally. That, in turn, would speed development of big oil and gas deposits, the income from which could help ease its money troubles.
More important, it would help to change perceptions of Argentina as a financial rogue state. Over the past year or so Ms Fernández seems to have been trying to rehabilitate Argentina's image and resuscitate its faltering economy. She settled financial disputes with government creditors and with Repsol, a Spanish oil firm whose Argentine assets she had expropriated in 2012. This week's events have overshadowed all that. For its own sake, and everyone else's, Argentina should hold its nose and do a deal with the hold-outs.
(http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21610263. Adapted)
Cristina Fernández argues that her country's latest default is different. She is missing the point.
Aug 2nd 2014
ARGENTINA'S first bond, issued in 1824, was supposed to have had a lifespan of 46 years. Less than four years later, the government defaulted. Resolving the ensuing stand-off with creditors took 29 years. Since then seven more defaults have followed, the most recent this week, when Argentina failed to make a payment on bonds issued as partial compensation to victims of the previous default, in 2001.
Most investors think they can see a pattern in all this, but Argentina’s president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, insists the latest default is not like the others. Her government, she points out, had transferred the full $539m it owed to the banks that administer the bonds. It is America’s courts (the bonds were issued under American law) that blocked the payment, at the behest of the tiny minority of owners of bonds from 2001 who did not accept the restructuring Argentina offered them in 2005 and again in 2010. These “hold-outs”, balking at the 65% haircut the restructuring entailed, not only persuaded a judge that they should be paid in full but also got him to freeze payments on the restructured bonds until Argentina coughs up.
Argentina claims that paying the hold-outs was impossible. It is not just that they are “vultures" as Argentine officials often put it, who bought the bonds for cents on the dollar after the previous default and are now holding those who accepted the restructuring (accounting for 93% of the debt) to ransom. The main problem is that a clause in the restructured bonds prohibits Argentina from offering the hold-outs better terms without paying everyone else the same. Since it cannot afford to do that, it says it had no choice but to default.
Yet it is not certain that the clause requiring equal treatment of all bondholders would have applied, given that Argentina would not have been paying the hold-outs voluntarily, but on the courts' orders. Moreover, some owners of the restructured bonds had agreed to waive their rights; had Argentina made a concerted effort to persuade the remainder to do the same, it might have succeeded. Lawyers and bankers have suggested various ways around the clause in question, which expires at the end of the year. But Argentina's government was slow to consider these options or negotiate with the hold-outs, hiding instead behind indignant nationalism.
Ms Fernández is right that the consequences of America's court rulings have been perverse, unleashing a big financial dispute in an attempt to solve a relatively small one. But hers is not the first government to be hit with an awkward verdict. Instead of railing against it, she should have tried to minimise the harm it did. Defaulting has helped no one: none of the bondholders will now be paid, Argentina looks like a pariah again, and its economy will remain starved of loans and investment.
Happily, much of the damage can still be undone. It is not too late to strike a deal with the hold-outs or back an ostensibly private effort to buy out their claims. A quick fix would make it easier for Argentina to borrow again internationally. That, in turn, would speed development of big oil and gas deposits, the income from which could help ease its money troubles.
More important, it would help to change perceptions of Argentina as a financial rogue state. Over the past year or so Ms Fernández seems to have been trying to rehabilitate Argentina's image and resuscitate its faltering economy. She settled financial disputes with government creditors and with Repsol, a Spanish oil firm whose Argentine assets she had expropriated in 2012. This week's events have overshadowed all that. For its own sake, and everyone else's, Argentina should hold its nose and do a deal with the hold-outs.
(http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21610263. Adapted)
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