Read text and answer question.

Text

Lawyers say they can’t find the parents of 545 migrant children separated

by Trump administration By Julia Ainsley and Jacob Soboroff

WASHINGTON — Lawyers appointed by a federal judge to identify migrant families who were separated 2 by the Trump administration say that they have yet to track down the parents of 545 children and that 3 about two-thirds of those parents were deported to Central America without their children, according to 4 a filing Tuesday from the American Civil Liberties Union. 5 The

Trump administration instituted a “zero tolerance” policy in 2018 that separated migrant children 6 and parents at the southern U.S. border. The administration later confirmed that it had actually begun 7 separating families in 2017 along some parts of the border under a pilot program. The ACLU and other 8 pro-bono law firms were tasked with finding the members of families separated during the pilot program. 9 Unlike the 2,800 families separated under zero tolerance in 2018, most of whom remained in custody 10 when the policy was ended by executive order, many of the more than 1,000 parents separated from 11 their children under the pilot program had already been deported before a federal judge in California 12 ordered that they be found.

[...]

Read the definitions of the words ideal, idle and idol:

[…]
Idle means something is not in use, empty or doing
nothing.

[…]
Idol is a noun. It means an object that represents a
deity. It is also used to say that you excessively admire
someone.

[…]
Ideal means something that is in its perfection or
something that is most suitable.
[…]

Complete the sentences below with ideal(s), idle(s) or idol(s):

I - You may use this room, it is ________________ for the next six weeks.
II - People normally worship their ________________ as gods.
III - Keep calm and answer cordially are the _________________ things to do when someone hurts you.
IV - We are justsitting ________________ because we don’t have anything to do.
V - For many people, the morning time is ________________ to study and learn.
VI - Mom is normally the daughter’s ________________.

TEXTO PARA A QUESTÃO

As astronomers gaze into the depths of space, they do so with
unease: They don't know precisely what the universe is made of.

Surprisingly, no one knows the stars' exact chemical
composition: how many carbon, nitrogen and oxygen atoms
[5] they have relative to hydrogen, the most common element.

These numbers are crucial, because they affect how stars
live and die, what types of planets form and even how readily
life might arise on other world's.

Twenty years ago, astronomers expressed confidence in the
[10] numbers they had been working with. Now, not so much. The
problem lies not in the far corners of the cosmos, but much
closer to home. Astonishingly, scientists don't know exactly
what the sun is made of. As a result, they don't know what the
other stars are made of, either.

[15] “The sun is a fundamental yardstick,” says Martin Asplund,
an astrophysicist at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, in
Germany. “When we determine the abundance of a certain
element in a star or a galaxy or a gas cloud anywhere in the
universe, we use the sun as a reference point.”

[20] The sun's location in the Milky Way also makes it a good
representative of the entire galaxy. Most stars reside in giant
galaxies like the Milky Way, which makes the sun a touchstone
for the entire cosmos.

For nearly a century, astronomers have judged stars normal
[25] or not by seeing whether their chemical compositions match the
sun's. Most stars near us do; some don't.

“There Will Come Soft Rains” (Sara Teasdale)

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white;
Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

Aquestão referem-se ao texto destacado a seguir.

Since from August 1914-to November 1918 Great Britain and her Allies were fighting for civilization it cannot, I suppose, be impertinent to inquire what precisely civilization may be. “Liberty” and “Justice” have always been reckoned expensive words, but that 'Civilization” could cost as much as I forget how many millions a day came as a surprise to many thoughtful taxpayers. The story of this word's rise to the highest place amongst British war aims is so curious that, even were it less relevant, I should be tempted to tell it [...].

“You are fighting for civilization”, cried the wisest and best of those leaders who led us into war, and the very soldiers took up the cry, “Join up, for civilization's sake”. Startled by this sudden enthusiasm for an abstraction in which till then politicians and recruiting-sergeants had manifested little or no interest, I, in my turn, began to cry: “And what is civilization?” I did not cry aloud, be sure: at that time, for crying things of that sort aloud, one was sent to prison. But now that it is no longer criminal, nor unpatriotic even, to ask questions, I intend to inquire what this thing is for which we fought and for which we pay. I propose to investigate the nature of our leading war-aim. Whether my search will end in discovery and — if it does — whether what is discovered will bear any likeliness to the Treaty of Versailles remains to be seen.

THE THINGS THAT MAKE US WHO WE ARE

Our cultural values get baked into the materials we create, changing humanity along the way

Humans spend a lot of time and effort making stuff. At last count, humanity has created more than 100,000 different materials from which we build our cities, our clothing, our smartphones, our world. Without our stuff, we would be naked, vulnerable, and, arguably, not very human. The question of how much of our humanity is due to this material wealth and how our cultural values are baked into the materials we create is the subject of Ainissa Ramirez’s fascinating new treatise, The Alchemy of Us.[…] The book’s central thesis is that we make materials and materials make us. […]

Ramirez’s meditation on the materials that have facilitated community (“share”) is particularly illuminating. Here, she writes about the phonograph’s impact on how music was enjoyed. The ability to record music meant that the experience of listening to it no longer had to be a communal one. […] – but it also opened up uncharted horizons. The recordings allowed a cross-fertilization of musical culture between jazz, blues, and rock and roll, even as the musicians themselves remained segregated by race politics.

On the subject of race and racial discrimination, Ramirez argues that a society that is racist will reflect racism in the substances that it makes. For example, photographic film, she writes, was largely developed by white people for white people. Because dark skin absorbs more light than white skin, early photographs of black people were often underexposed, rendering images that were barely recognizable. […]

Ramirez is particularly keen to debunk the idea that materials arise from flashes of insight experienced by extraordinary individuals, instead painting a picture of a diverse range of people from all walks of life driven by love, passion, and intellect. The culture of innovation, she maintains, does not belong only to privileged elites, it can be found in all those who care enough to reinvent the material world and, as a result, themselves.

TEXT

Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes... the ones who see things differently -- they're not fond of rules... You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things... they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.

"A square peg in a round hole", or "the round pegs in the square holes" as used in the advertisement, are examples of idiomatic expressions. Alike these expressions, the meaning of many other English idioms are easily understood just by analysing their words and establishing a relation with the context in which they are inserted.

Why do we buy into the 'cult' of overwork?

By Bryan Lufkin, 9th May 2021

Although many of us associate overly ambitious workaholism with the 1980s and the finance industry, the tendency to devote ourselves to work and glamourize long-hours culture remains as pervasive as ever. In fact, it is expanding into more sectors and professions, in slightly different packaging. Overwork isn't a phenomenon exclusive to Silicon Valley or Wall Street. People work long hours all over the world, for many different reasons

In Japan, a culture of overwork can be traced back to the 1950s, when the government pushed hard for the country to be rebuilt quickly after World War Two. In Arab League countries, burnout is high among medical professionals, possibly because its 22 members are developing nations with overburdened healthcare systems, studies suggest. Reasons for overwork also depend on industry. Some of the earliest researchers on burnout in the 1970s asserted that many people in jobs geared toward helping others, like employees in clinics or crisis-intervention centers, tended to work long hours that led to emotional and physical exhaustion – a trend which is shown up in the pandemic, too. But millions of us overwork because somehow, we think it’s exciting – a status symbol that puts us on the path to success, whether we define that by wealth or an Instagram post that makes it seem like we're living a dream life with a dream job. Romanticization of work seems to be an especially common practice among "knowledge workers" in the middle and upper classes. In 2014, the New Yorker called this devotion to overwork "a cult".

According to Anat Lechner, clinical associate professor of management at New York University. "We glorify the lifestyle, and the lifestyle is: you breathe something, you sleep with something, you wake up and work on it all day long, then you go to sleep. Again, and again and again."

TEXT A

Since Barack Obama was elected in 2008, the price of solar energy has fallen 78 percent, and the cost of wind energy has also fallen by 58 percent, thanks largely to technological advancements and economies of scale. In isolation, these numbers are not impressive. But what makes the differ ence is that the global economy grew by 3 percent in 2014 while world emissions remained flat. Cheaper alternative energy is the best hope the world has left. People are not willing to fundamentally change their lives for problems far off in the future, even ones as potentially catastrophic as climate change. To avoid the worst effects of climate change, alternative energies need to become as cheap and reliable as their carbon-emitting counterparts, and quickly.

TEXT B

The thoroughly modern phenomenon of cybercrime and economic espionage is estimated to cost the world more than $445 billion every year. And while it hasn’t happened yet, the fear that cyberattacks can spill over and trigger real-world conflicts remains an ongoing concern. A decade ago, the Pentagon had a stockpile of fewer than 50 drones; today it has an arsenal of about 7,000. The Pentagon estimates that China will build nearly 42,000 drones by 2023. Others will follow suit. Technology has given terrorist groups like ISIS an unparalleled platform to spread their messages of hate. The knowledge needed to build bombs in the comfort of your own home is now just a few short clicks away. Technology is capable of empowering every single individual in the world, even the worst of us.

Much of today’s news coverage focusses on technological advancements and on how they might impact society. According to the Text A and Text B, we can state that

I. we should spend our time figuring out how to live without technology.

II. both texts A and B indicate we should learn how to live in this new world.

III. the main idea in these texts is that technology is neither good nor bad.

IV. text A focuses on how technology can help us save the planet.

V. text B introduces arguments on negative aspects of technology.

Leia o texto para responder à questão.

The problem of rising ocean plastic pollution such as plastic bags, discarded fishing nets and microplastics has received increased attention in recent years. But other pollutants such as oil and gas, pesticides, antibiotics, heavy metals and industrial chemicals are also severely impacting the world’s oceans, says a new report from the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy (Ocean Panel).

“Even though plastic is a hot topic, it is unfortunately just the latest major pollutant to enter the ocean,” says Ellie Moss, an ocean plastic expert and co-author of the report. “I think one of the things that differentiates it from most of the other pollutants is that you can see it. In the other cases, it’s sort of these invisible pollutants that we don’t even recognise as being there. That’s a huge problem.”

The new report, commissioned by the Ocean Panel which is convened by 14 heads of state, outlines a range of ways to reduce these different ocean pollutants. Part of the solution is exploring how materials can be recaptured and recycled, the report says, preventing them from seeping into the ocean as pollutants and instead keeping them circulating in the economy. Developing more eco-friendly materials and chemicals is another important part of the picture. In many cases, strategies can tackle more than one type of ocean pollutant at once, the report says. “You really do have to look for opportunities to address as many of these pollutants at once as you can,” says Moss.

But there is also a need to simply use resources more efficiently in the first place, the report adds, such as through zero-packaging supermarkets, eliminating single-use plastics and exploring new business models which incentivise more efficient use of pesticides.

“A lot of people think about ‘how do we clean up the ocean’ and that’s the wrong question,” says Moss. “The question is not how do we clean it up, it’s how do we stop befouling it in the first place.”