Read the text.

E.U. Lawmakers Call for End to Visa-Free Travel for Americans

BRUSSELS — The European Parliament has passed a nonbinding resolution calling for the reintroduction of visa requirements for American citizens, raising the stakes in a long-running battle over the United States’ refusal to grant visa-free access to citizens of five European Union countries.

In the vote on Thursday, European lawmakers played tit-for-tat in their dispute with the United States, demanding restrictions on American travelers unless the Trump administration lifts travel requirements for citizens of Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Poland and Romania.

Read the text and answer question.

Hijacked jets destroy Twin Towers: a creeping horror
[1] The horror arrived in epsodic bursts of chilling disbelief,
signified first by trembling floors, sharp eruptions, cracked
windows. There was the cruel sight of bodies helplessly
tumbling out, some of ________ in flames.
[5] Finally, the high and impressive towers themselves were
reduced to nothing. Dense plumes of smoke raced through the
downtown avenues, coursing between the buildings, shaped
like tornadoes on their sides.
Every sound was cause for alarm. A plane appeared
[10] overhead. Was another one coming? No, it was a fighter jet.
But was it friend or enemy? People scrambled for ________
lives, but ________ didn’t know where to go. Should people go
north, south, east, west? Stay outside, go indoors? People hid
beneath cars and each other. Some contemplated jumping
[15] into the river (…).
Fonte:The New York Times, Sep. 12, 2001.

GLOSSARY
chilling disbelief – incredulidade assustadora
trembling floors – o tremor dos andares
to scramble – lutar

Answer the questions based on the text below.

The Brazilian government has ratified its participation in the Paris agreement on climate change, a significant step by Latin America’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases that could spur other countries to follow suit.

With a landmass larger than the continental US, Brazil emits about 2.5% of the world’s carbon dioxide and other polluting gases, according to United Nations data.

“Our government is concerned about the future,” said President Michel Temer during a signing ceremony in Brasilia. “Everything we do today is not aimed at tomorrow, but rather at a future that preserves the living conditions of Brazilians.”

Temer said Brazil’s ratification would be presented formally to the UN later this month.

The Paris agreement will enter into force once 55 countries representing at least 55% of global emissions have formally joined it. Climate experts say that could happen later this year.

Countries set their own targets for reducing emissions. The targets are not legally binding, but nations must update them every five years. Using 2005 levels as the baseline, Brazil committed to cutting emissions 37% by 2025 and an “intended reduction” of 43% by 2030.

In the last decade, Brazil has achieved significant emissions cuts thanks to efforts to reduce deforestation in the Amazon and increase in the use of energy from hydropower and other renewable sources including wind, solar and biomass.

The Paris accord got a boost earlier this month when the US president, Barack Obama, and China’s President, Xi Jinping, sealed their nations’ participation.

“Brazil is now the next major country to move forward. It will add even greater momentum,” said David Waskow, director of the International Climate Initiative at the Washington, DC-based think tank the World Resources Institute.

TEXTO:

Serious injury could occur if the following safety precautions are not observed:

Do not use any equipment in any way other than designed or intended by the manufacturer.
Keep all extremities clear from moving parts to avoid injury. Use appropriate positioning, speed and controlled
movements.
Do not use any equipment that is damaged and/or has worn or broken parts.
[5] Obtain a medical exam prior to beginning an exercise program.
If at any time during exercise you feel faint, dizzy or experience pain, stop and consult your physician.
Children must not be allowed to operate these machines. All minors and those with known physical limitations
must be supervised.
SERIOUS injury could occur if the following safetyprecautions are not observed. Disponível em: <http://www.marpokinetics.com/pdf/vmx_manual.pdf>. Acesso em: 19 mar. 2017. Adaptado.

Read part of Adele’s song “Million years ago” and answer the Question.

I know I'm not the only one
Who regrets the things they've done
Sometimes I just feel it's only me
Who can't stand the reflection that they see
I wish I could live a little more
Look up to the sky not just the floor
I feel like my life is flashing by
And all I can do is watch and cry
I miss the air, I miss my friends
I miss my mother, I miss it when
Life was a party to be thrown
But that was a million years ago

Read the sentences with the verb wish.

I. I wish to reserve a table for eight o’clock, please.
II. The customer is wishing to see the manager immediately.
III. I wish I spoke German.
IV. I wish I would give up eating meat.
V. She wishes tomorrow is Friday.
VI. His parents wish he would study engineering.

Read the text below to answer Question.

Explaining the Placebo Effect

^1. Studies of new drugs traditionally involve at least two groups of people. The people in one of those
groups are given only what they think is the drug. Really they get a placebo - an inactive substance. The drug
is proven effective if it performs better than the placebo.
^2. Some researchers do not think drug studies should use placebos. They say it makes more sense to
compare new medicines to drugs already on the market. Then people would know if a new drug is any better.
^3. "Placebo" is Latin for "I shall please." It may contain nothing more than sugar.
^4. Yet some people who are given a placebo experience improvements in their health. This is called the
placebo effect.
^5. Some doctors use the placebo effect in their treatments. An influential study published in nineteen
fifty-five said placebo treatments made patients feel better thirty-five percent of the time.
^6. But in two thousand one, Danish researchers reported that they had examined more than one hundred
studies. They found little evidence of healing as a result of placebos.
^7. Still, there is continued belief in the placebo effect.
8^. A Swedish study published last year suggested that a placebo can reduce the emotional effects of
unpleasant experiences. The study involved people who looked at images of dead bodies and other unpleasant
pictures. The findings appeared in the journal Neuron.
^9. The researchers said the effects in the brain were similar to those seen when placebos have been used
as a pain treatment. In both cases, they said, expectations of improvement are a major influence.
^10. But more than expectations might explain why placebos appear effective sometimes.
^11. Researchers led by Scot Simpson at the University of Alberta, in Canada, just had a report published
in the British Medical Journal. They examined twenty-one studies. These compared death rates between
patients who always took their medicine and those who did not.
^12. Even patients who took placebos had better results than those who did not follow doctor's orders.
The researchers see this finding as support for the idea of a so-called healthy adherer effect. That is, a person
who takes a drug treatment as directed may also do other things to live a healthy life.

TEXTO:

More than 300 years after sinking with a cargo of

200 tons of gold, silver and precious stones (which would

amount to some US$ 10 billion in current values), the

Spanish ship San José has just been located off the coast

[5] of Colombia and has become the target of a diplomatic

dispute between Colombia and Spain.

The fortune which has been at the bottom of the

ocean since 1708 came from the mines that the Spanish

Empire exploited in Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador. Along with

[10] the treasure, the bodies of 600 sailors are likely to be in

the ship. “It is Colombian patrimony and it belongs to the

Colombian people. Now many people will say that they

are the owners of the ship, but it belongs to Colombia,”

says President Juan Manuel Santos, who has announced

[15] the plan of a museum in Cartagena to exhibit the objects

found in the ship as soon as they are recovered.

The Colombian government says the shipwreck is

in “very deep waters.” It has not estimated how long it

will take to recover its contents. The Spanish government,

[20] however, says it will not give up recovering the ship. “The

ship belongs to the Spanish government – it is not a

private vessel. There is government ownership wherever

it is,” says Spanish Chancellor José Manuel García

Margallo.

[25] The San José galleon was sunk after an ambush

by the English Navy to stop the shipment from reaching

and serving Philip V of Spain in Bourbon in a war for the

succession of the Spanish throne. The ship was loaded

at a port in Panama and was approaching Cartagena for

[30] a stopover. From there it would leave for Havana, Cuba

and later sail to its final destination, Cádiz, Spain. Near

Cartagena, however, the San José was ambushed by

ships under the command of Captain Charles Wager.

Eventually the Spanish were defeated after a two-day

[35] naval battle and the San José sank on June 8, 1708.

'Post-truth' named word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries

In the era of Donald Trump and Brexit, Oxford Dictionaries has declared “post-truth” to be its international word of the year.

Defined by the dictionary as an adjective “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief”, editors said that use of the term “post-truth” had increased by around 2,000% in 2016 compared to last year. The spike in usage, it said, is “in the context of the EU referendum in the United Kingdom and the presidential election in the United States”.

Contenders for the title had included the noun “alt-right”, shortened from the fuller form “alternative right” and defined as “an ideological grouping associated with extreme conservative or reactionary viewpoints, characterised by a rejection of mainstream politics and by the use of online media to disseminate deliberately controversial content”. First used in 2008, its use “surged” this spring and summer, said the dictionary, with 30% of usage in August alone.

But the increase in usage of post-truth saw the term eventually emerge ahead of the pack. “We first saw the frequency really spike this year in June with buzz over the Brexit vote and Donald Trump securing the Republican presidential nomination. Given that usage of the term hasn’t shown any signs of slowing down, I wouldn’t be surprised if post-truth becomes one of the defining words of our time,” predicted Oxford Dictionaries president Casper Grathwohl.

“It’s not surprising that our choice reflects a year dominated by highly-charged political and social discourse. Fuelled by the rise of social media as a news source and a growing distrust of facts offered up by the establishment, post-truth as a concept has been finding its linguistic footing for some time.”

Susan Calvin had been born in the year 1982, they said, which made her seventy five now. Everyone knew that. Appropriately enough, U. S. Robot and Mechanical Men, Inc. was seventy-five also, since it had been in the year of Dr. Calvin’s birth that Lawrence Robertson had first taken out incorporation papers for what eventually became the strangest industrial giant in man’s history. Well, everyone knew that, too. (…)

She went back to her desk and sat down. She didn’t need expression on her face to look sad, somehow.

“How old are you?” she wanted to know.

“Thirty-two,” I said.

“Then you don’t remember a world without robots.

There was a time when humanity faced the universe alone and without a friend. Now he has creatures to help him; stronger creatures than himself, more faithful, more useful, and absolutely devoted to him. Mankind is no longer alone. Have you ever thought of it that way?”

“I’m afraid I haven’t. May I quote you?”

“You may. To you, a robot is a robot. Gears and metal; electricity and positrons. Mind and iron! Human-made! If necessary, human-destroyed! But you haven’t worked with them, so you don’t know them. They’re a cleaner, better breed than we are.”