Questões de Vestibular
Comentadas sobre palavras conectivas | connective words em inglês
Foram encontradas 31 questões
– But mother, aren’t you oppressing me by ordering me to do this? (l. 8)
In the sentence above, the word but fulfills the function of:
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Disparity in life spans of the rich and the poor is growing
Sabrina Tavernise
February 12, 2016
Experts have long known that rich people generally live longer than poor people. But a growing body of data shows a more disturbing pattern: Despite big advances in medicine, technology and education, the longevity gap between high-income and low-income Americans has been widening sharply.
The poor are losing ground not only in income, but also in years of life, the most basic measure of well-being. In the early 1970s, a 60-year-old man in the top half of the earnings ladder could expect to live 1.2 years longer than a man of the same age in the bottom half, according to an analysis by the Social Security Administration. Fast-forward to 2001, and he could expect to live 5.8 years longer than his poorer counterpart.
New research released this month contains even more jarring numbers. Looking at the extreme ends of the income spectrum, economists at the Brookings Institution found that for men born in 1920, there was a six-year difference in life expectancy between the top 10 percent of earners and the bottom 10 percent. For men born in 1950, that difference had more than doubled, to 14 years. For women, the gap grew to 13 years, from 4.7 years. “There has been this huge spreading out,” said Gary Burtless, one of the authors of the study.
The growing chasm is alarming policy makers, and has surfaced in the presidential campaign. During a Democratic debate, Senator Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton expressed concern over shortening life spans for some Americans. “This may be the next frontier of the inequality discussion,” said Peter Orszag, a former Obama administration official now at Citigroup, who was among the first to highlight the pattern. The causes are still being investigated, but public health researchers say that deep declines in smoking among the affluent and educated may partly explain the difference.
Overall, according to the Brookings study, life expectancy for the bottom 10 percent of wage earners improved by just 3 percent for men born in 1950 compared with those born in 1920. For the top 10 percent, though, it jumped by about 28 percent. (The researchers used a common measure – life expectancy at age 50 – and included data from 1984 to 2012.)
(www.nytimes.com. Adaptado.)
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Genetically modified foods
Genetically modified (GM) foods are foods derived from organisms whose genetic material (DNA) has been modified in a way that does not occur naturally, e.g. through the introduction of a gene from a different organism. Currently available GM foods stem mostly from plants, but in the future foods derived from GM microorganisms or GM animals are likely to be introduced on the market. Most existing genetically modified crops have been developed to improve yield, through the introduction of resistance to plant diseases or of increased tolerance of herbicides.
In the future, genetic modification could be aimed at altering the nutrient content of food, reducing its allergenic potential, or improving the efficiency of food production systems. All GM foods should be assessed before being allowed on the market. FAO/WHO Codex guidelines exist for risk analysis of GM food.
(www.who.int)
BY ISAAC STONE FISH
ASIA IN THE CATEGORY of the world's sexiest politicians, China's dour communist apparatchiks1 would seem to be far behind America's legendary ladies' men presidents and Europe's bunga-bunga leaders. But a survey released in December by the All-China Women's Federation found that a Middle Kingdom mandarin is the top pick for an ideal partner among Chinese women.
What's the appeal? (It can't be the ill-fitting suits.) It's money, money, money. While government officials receive a modest salary – well under $1,000 a month- they can usually leverage their position for personal gain, often through shady means. A corrupt vice district head in Beijing was recently arrested for accumulating more than $ 6,5 million; in other cases the perks have reached into the hundreds of millions. And even for officials who aren't skimming off the top, a government job (and the attendant legal perks) provides a level of security that's quite desirable for China's marriage-minded ladies, especially compared with a less stable position at a state-owned or private company.
There's also the growing reputation of Chinese government officials as a particularly virile lot. China's state-owned press often titillates readers with tales of bureaucratic sex scandals: in one major story last year, a provincial tobacco-bureau chief's diary was leaked online, with page after page of prurient details about his trysts2 with young beauties (including fellow government employees). The public's reaction was generally sympathetic to the cad. One prominent blogger maintained the bureau chief was a good official because he managed to spend some time with his wife despite the womanizing, took less than $10,000 in bribes, and didn't visit prostitutes. In other words, a real catch. In a survey on the blogger's site, almost all the more than 100,000 respondents thought the official should keep his job. That's sex appeal – and popular appeal.
( Newsweek, February 7, 2011.)
apparatchiks1 : burocratas do partido comunista chinês
trysts2 : encontros secretos
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I started to run because I felt desperately unfit. But the biggest pay-off for me was – and still is – the deep relaxation that I achieve by taking exercise. It tires me out but I find that it does calm me down. When I started running seven years ago, I could manage only 400 meters before I had to stop. Breathless and aching, I walked the next quarter of a mile, alternating these two activities for a couple of kilometers.
When I started to jog I never dreamt of running in a marathon, but a few years later I realized that if I trained for it, the London Marathon, one of the biggest British sporting events, would be within my reach. My story shows that an unfit 39-year-old, as I was when I started running, who had taken no serious exercise for twenty years, can do the marathon – and that this is a sport in which women can beat men. But is it crazy to do it? Does it make sense to run in the expectation of becoming healthier?
My advice is: if you are under forty, healthy and feel well, you can begin as I did by jogging gently until you are out of breath, then walking, and alternating the two for about three kilometers. Build up the jogging in stages until you can do the whole distance comfortably.
(Headway Intermediate – Student’s Book. Oxford University Press.
Adaptado.)
40.
Text 2
Because of the bright lights of the modern cities, when we look up at the sky we can see no more than 100 stars. But from dark parts of the Earth, the naked eye can see more than 5,000! And modern telescopes tell a very different story.
With the help of some of the world’s most powerful instruments to measure the brightness of all the galaxies in one sector of the cosmos, Australian astronomers say it is probable that there are 70 sextillion stars in the visible Universe. In other words and numbers, seven followed by 22 zeroes, a really astronomical figure.
That is more than the total number of grains of sand in all the world’s beaches and deserts, and that is only the visible Universe within range of our telescopes.
Dr. Simon Driver, of the Australian National University, has a theory that some of them probably have life. Dr. Driver’s theory is not exactly new, and those planets are so distant, he says, that there is no real possibility for us to see or contact anyone living on them.
Retirado do livro “Inglês série Brasil”, p. 8, 2008
GOOGLE TV: BOOM OR BUST
By: Tim Bajarin (10.18.2010)
The industry has been trying to bring IPTV to your TV since 1997. What makes Google and its partners think they'll be successful?
I have a question for you. Do you want to view the Internet on your TV? With all of the activity in IPTV these days, this is one of the key questions that is at the heart of whether IPTV eventually succeeds or fails. Since TVs were invented, we have been trained to sit in front of them and consume not interact with them. And only recently have we had to multitask with our TV. Even though we've had picture in picture for years, it took news scrolls at the bottom of our TV screens to train our brains. So, how will consumers integrate the new and even more complex IPTV features into their TV viewing experience?
One of the traits of consumers that has emboldened the IPTV crowd to push forward is the fact that many people sit on their couch and use their laptops or tablets while watching TV. They reason that if they multi-task in this fashion, they may be willing do it on the bigger screen. While I accept the fact that people may want Internet content, such as movies, TV shows, YouTube, etc. on their TV screens, it is quite a leap to assume that people also want to read their newspapers and magazines or view Web sites on a big-screen TV.
Source: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2370894,00.asp, accessed on November 4, 2010.
A TOOL FOR SPIES
When Iran’s opposition protesters used Twitter and other forms of social media last year to let the world know about their regime’s brutal post election crackdown, activists praised Twitter as the tool of revolution and freedom. But now Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has figured out how to twist this tool into one of repression. Though as recently as this past January Chávez was decrying Twitter as a weapon of terrorists, he’s since turned into an avid Twitterer himself ( his account, the country’s most popular, boasted more than half a million followers at press time ), as well as a devoted Facebook user and blogger.
Far from embracing the democratic spirit of the Web, though, the Venezuelan strongman is using his accounts and blog to exhort people to spy on each other. At the launch of his Twitter account, Chávez enjoined the Boliviarian faithful to use it to keep an eye on state enemies, namely the wealthy. My Twitter account is open for you to denounce them, “ Chávez announced on his television program. El Presidente has hired a staff of 200 to deal with tweeted “requests, denunciations, and other problems,” which have resulted in actions against allegedly credit-stingy banks and currency speculators. He’s now considering going a step further and ruling that all Venezuelan Web sites must move from U.S.- based servers to domestic ones - which would, of course, make them far easier to control. Big Brother would be proud.
(Newsweek – June 14, 2010. By Mac Margolis and Alex Marin)
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