CESPE-2013-MRE-DIPLOMATA-1ª FASE-LÍNGUA INGLESA - CONCURSO PÚBLICO - MINISTÉRIO DAS RELAÇÕES EXTERIORES.

Welcome back to another post!

➧ PROVA DE LÍNGUA INGLESA: CESPE/UnB-2013-MRE-DIPLOMATA-OBJETIVA-1ª FASE, aplicação em 04/08/2013.

➧ BANCA/ORGANIZADOR: CEBRASPE-Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisa em Avaliação e Seleção e de Promoção de Eventos.

➧ GABARITO:

01-X, 02-E, 03-E, 04-EXEC, 05-B

06-C, 07-B, 08-EECC, 09-E

10-EEEC, 11-EEEC, 12-C

➧ TEXT I: This text refers to questions from 01 through 04.

It is one of the most pressing questions of our time: what is the relationship between financial and environmental meltdown? Are the two crises the same thing, needing to be dealt with together? Or do we, as even some business leaders suggest, have to fix the environment before we can fix the economy? A slew of books, ebooks, pamphlets and journals are tackling this thorny question.

You might expect a strong “yes” from the greens to fixing the environment ahead of the economy. And in The Environmental Debt: The hidden costs of a changing global economy, long-time Greenpeace activist Amy Larkin does make a cogent argument for this. The high costs of coping with extreme weather, pollution and declining resources are, she says, catching up with capitalism. Our carefree attitude to the “externalities” of wealth generation has run up an environmental debt that is loading unsustainable financial debt on us all.

But environmentalists are not the only ones making the link. In Wall Street and the City, there is similar talk that the worst fears of environmentalists are coming to pass. As shortages of natural resources push up prices, a looming resource crunch is manifested in market meltdown.

Paul Donovan and Julie Hudson, economists for the Swiss bank UBS, agree. They argue that “there is a second credit crunch”, an environmental one. By ransacking global resources and enfeebling ecosystems, the authors say, we are drawing down environmental credit as surely as reckless spending on a credit card draws down financial credit. The two crunches have “a symbiotic relationship”, they argue: “The party has to stop.”

The synergies between financial and environmental crunches may be complex, but at root, many economists argue that reckless consumption, driven by easy credit, helped fuel financial crisis. Environmentalists agree that the same consumer binge drove up environmental debt.

F. Pearce. What do we fix first – environment or

economy? Newscientist. July 8th, 2013 (adapted).

01. (CESPE-CEBRASPE-2013-MRE-DIPLOMATA-1ª FASE)

According to the text,

A) both environmentalists and economists agree that consumption is at the heart of the current financial and environmental crises.
B) the need to understand the current capitalist crisis is urging environmentalists and economists to launch publications on the issue.
C) financial and environmental debts have been primarily affecting wealthy countries due to their reckless consumption attitude.
D) business and finance experts had warned Greenpeace activists about the financial consequences of natural resource shortages.
E) the synergetic link between economy and environment points to the need to tackle financial issues ahead of environmental ones.

👍  Gabarito  + 

02. (CESPE-CEBRASPE-2013-MRE-DIPLOMATA-1ª FASE)

Based on the text, choose the correct answer.

A) The expression “consumer binge” (L.35) is used as an antonym for the expression “reckless consumption” (L.33).
B) The word “cogent” (L.12) suggests that the argument put forward by Amy Larkin is ill-founded.
C) If the verb “catching up with” (L.14) is replaced by stemming from, the meaning of the sentence remains unaltered.
D) The word “looming” (L.21) is used as a synonym for unlikely.
E) The words “crunch” (L.22) and “crunches” (R.29) are used as synonyms for crisis and crises, respectively.

03. (CESPE-CEBRASPE-2013-MRE-DIPLOMATA-1ª FASE)

The sentence

“By ransacking global (…) credit card draws down financial credit” (L.25-28)

means that,

A) by ignoring the need to protect the environment, our society is increasingly focused on profit rather than quality of life.
B) due to our reckless behavior towards the environment, less financial support has been assigned to nature-saving projects.
C) due to the scarcity of environmental fund-raising actions, mankind is making the exploitation of natural resources financially unviable.
D) by tampering with the world biomass, we are affecting investments in the area as much as economic problems affect us.
E) by destroying nature, we are reducing our environmental funds just like too many debts reduce our financial credibility.

04. (CESPE-CEBRASPE-2013-MRE-DIPLOMATA-1ª FASE)

Based on the text, judge if the items below are right (C) or wrong (E).

(1) Wall Street and the City experts foresee a complete market breakdown.
(2) As far as the main issue of the text is concerned, the two economists of the Swiss bank are of the same opinion as the ecologist-author.
(3) Several bank owners claim the economic crisis should be solved first.
(4) Amy Larkin believes the worldwide scarcity of resources is affecting the world’s economy.

➧ TEXT II: This text refers to questions 05 and 06.

The leaders of the G8 are convening in Northern Ireland for the 39th G8 Summit. The backdrop for this two-day meeting of the globe’s preeminent economic powers is a world facing multiple global crises, all of which demand that summit participants engage in constructive dialogue that leads to measurable progress. Despite that need, the annual G8 Summits are known more for eliciting empty political promises and saddling host cities with exorbitant costs.

The baby boomer generation presidents and prime ministers at the G8 Summit are facing increasingly frustrated populations. With economic instability entrenching in the West, a still teetering world financial order, and escalating tensions in the Middle East, an entire generation of young people is growing up without opportunity, and with few prospects for change. But persistent unemployment, declining standards in health care and education, and environmental degradation are also driving growing numbers of young people to demand sophisticated and coordinated global action.

From this mess, two significant questions arise: are the boomer generation leaders simply incapable of consensus-driven international cooperation, one that sets aside national interests for the collective good of humanity? And if this is the case, are tomorrow’s Facebook generation leaders doomed to inherit the quagmire of their political predecessors?

R. Onley. The future of global

diplomacy. June 17th, 2013 (adapted).

05. (CESPE-CEBRASPE-2013-MRE-DIPLOMATA-1ª FASE)

Based on the text, choose the correct statement.

A) The cities that host G8 summits generally profit from the presence of presidents and ministers.
B) The reasons for young people’s frustrations include political, financial and economic issues.
C) In the 39th G8 Summit meeting, empty promises will give room to debates on the global crises.
D) Young people are planning demonstrations to show their dissatisfaction to the G8 Summit leaders.
E) The actions taken for international cooperation are condemned by the new Facebook generation leaders.

06. (CESPE-CEBRASPE-2013-MRE-DIPLOMATA-1ª FASE)

In the text, “that need” (R.6)

refers to

A) convening in Ireland.
B) measuring progress.
C) engaging in dialogue.
D) facing global crises.
E) making promises.

➧ TEXT III: This text refers to questions 07 and 08.

The Oxford Learner’s Dictionary defines diplomacy as “(…) the management of relations between countries (…) art of or skill in dealing with people; tact (…)”. Indeed it is the art of convincing others to perceive things your way, or at least to have second thoughts about theirs. It is the combination of logic and science on the one hand with the gift of proper language packaging and presentation necessary to convince others.

The power of language rests on the fact that it contains ideas: and ideas are, according to Plato, more enduring, indeed more permanent than matter. Ideas can be suppressed, or go underground but unlike a statue or any other material things they cannot be shattered. They can only be met and dealt with by other ideas. Historically it is the magic of words that bewitched, enthralled and sometimes intoxicated people and led them to great or mean deeds. The language of diplomacy, often like poetry, has the ability to move people from mood to mood. Whether demagogy or whether giving expression to noble ideologies, theories, or even religious creeds, ordinary language or that of diplomacy has a momentum and an inner driving force that is ageless.

K.S. Abu Jaber, Language and Diplomacy. In:

J. Kurbalija; H. Slavi (Eds.) Language and

Diplomacy, p. 53. Malta: DiploProjects, 2001.

07 (CESPE-CEBRASPE-2013-MRE-DIPLOMATA-1ª FASE)

According to the author,

A) common language opposes poetry.
B) diplomacy is related to persuasion.
C) ideas last less than material things.
D) language is a demagogical expression.
E) ideologies require a proper language.

08. (CESPE-CEBRASPE-2013-MRE-DIPLOMATA-1ª FASE)

In relation to the pronouns shown in bold in the text above, judge if the items below are right (C) or wrong (E).

(1) The pronoun “that” (R.21) refers to “language” (R.20).
(2) The pronoun “theirs” (R.5) refers to “others” (R.4).
(3) The pronoun “It” (R.5) refers to “diplomacy” (R.2).
(4) The pronoun “they” (R.13) refers to “Ideas” (R.11).

 

➧ TEXT IV: This text refers to questions from 09 through 11.

Taking a Cue From Bernanke a Little Too Far

            

Financial advisers have been fielding calls from shaken investors in recent weeks, particularly retirees, who are nervous that a bond market crash is on the horizon.

You can hardly blame them. Investors have been fleeing bonds in droves; a record $ 76.5 billion poured out of bond funds and exchange-traded funds since June. That exceeds the previous record, according to TrimTabs, when $ 41.8 billion streamed out of the funds in October 2008 and the financial crisis was in full force.

But the rush for the exits really means one thing: investors are betting that interest rates are about to begin their upward trajectory, something that’s been expected for several years now.

Their cue came from the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben Bernanke, who recently suggested that the economic recovery might allow the central bank to ease its efforts to stimulate the economy. That includes scaling back its bondbuying program beginning later this year.

So the big fear is that interest rates are poised to rise much further, driving down bond prices; the two move in opposite directions.

A Barclays index tracking a broad swath of
investment-grade bonds lost 3.77 percent from the beginning of May through Thursday, according to Morningstar. United States government notes with maturities of 10 years or longer, however, lost an average of 10.8 percent over the same period.

Making a bet on interest rates is no different from trying to predict the next big drop in stocks, or jumping into the market when it appears to be poised to surge higher. These sort of emotional moves are exactly why research shows that investors’ returns tend to trail the broader market.

And it’s also why many financial advisers suggest ignoring the noise, as long as you have a smart assortment of bond funds that will provide stability when stocks inevitably tumble once again.

“It’s a futile game to base portfolio moves on interest rate guesses,” said Milo Benningfield, a financial adviser in San Francisco. “We don’t have to look any further than highly regarded Pimco manager Bill Gross, whose horrible interest rate bet against Treasuries in 2011 landed him in the bottom 15 percent of fund managers in his category that year. Investors should take a strategic approach designed around the reason they hold bonds — and then sit tight whenever hedge funds and other institutions shake the ground around them.”

    

The main reason longer-term investors hold bonds, of course, is to provide a steadying force. And though today’s lower yields provide less of a cushion — the 10-year Treasury is yielding about 2.5 percent — bonds still remain the best, if imperfect, foil to stocks.

“The role of bonds in a portfolio has always been to be a ballast or a diversifier to equity risk,” said Francis Kinniry, a principal in the Vanguard Investment Strategy Group. “And that is very true today. Yields are low, but this is what a bear market in bonds looks like.”

Internet: <www.nytimes.com> (adapted).

09. (CESPE-CEBRASPE-2013-MRE-DIPLOMATA-1ª FASE)

The words “poised” (R.19) and “yields” (R.47 and 53) mean, respectively,

A) etiolated and profits.
B) shaken and gains.
C) ready and risks.
D) bolstered and outlay.
E) on the verge and returns.

10. (CESPE-CEBRASPE-2013-MRE-DIPLOMATA-1ª FASE)

According to the text, judge if the following items are right (C) or wrong (E).

(1) According to at least one financial adviser, it’s naïve to correlate bonds with interest rates.
(2) The main contention of the article is that investors should be skeptical about Bernanke’s remark in relation to the effects of the American economic recovery.
(3) The bond market is in such a predicament due to misjudgment on the part of the American central bank’s chairperson.
(4) In general, bonds provide stability to an investor’s portfolio.

11. (CESPE-CEBRASPE-2013-MRE-DIPLOMATA-1ª FASE)

Regarding the text, judge if the items below are right (C) or wrong (E).

(1) The word “from” in the excerpt “Making a bet on interest rates is no different from trying to predict the next big drop in stocks, or jumping into the market when it appears to be poised to surge higher.” (R.27-29) may be replaced by the word then with no interference in the grammar correction of the sentence.
(2) In the sentence “Their cue came from the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben Bernanke, who recently suggested that the economic recovery might allow the central bank to ease its efforts to stimulate the economy.” (R.14-17) the relative pronoun “who” may be replaced by whom in more formal contexts.
(3) In the sentence “That includes scaling back its bondbuying program beginning later this year.” (R.17-18), the pronoun “its” refers to “economy”, in the previous sentence.
(4) In the sentence “United States government notes with maturities of 10 years or longer, however, lost an average of 10.8 percent over the same period.” (R.24-26), the adverb “however” may be moved to the beginning of the sentence without interfering in the meaning.

➧ TEXT V:  This text refers to question 12.

(…)
            

But the devotion of Minor’s whole strength was beginning to prove taxing. His kindly friend Doctor Nicholson retired in 1895 — still in pain from being attacked by a patient six years earlier, who hit him on the head with a brick concealed in a sock. He was replaced by Doctor Brayn, a man selected (for more than his name alone, one trusts) by a Home Office that felt a stricter regime needed to be employed at the asylum.
            

Brayn was indeed a martinet, a jailer of the old school who would have done well at any prison farm. But he did as the government required: There were no escapes during his term of office (there had been several before, causing widespread alarm), and in the first year two hundred thousand hours of solitary confinement were logged by the more fractious inmates. He was widely feared and loathed by the patients — as well as by Doctor Murray, who thought he was treating Minor heartlessly.
(…)            

One curious snippet of information came from the United States later that same year, when it was noted rather laconically that two of Minor’s family had recently killed themselves — the letter going on to warn the staff at Broadmoor that great care should be taken lest whatever madness gripped their patient turned out to have a hereditary nature. But even if the staff thought Minor a possible suicide risk, no restrictions were placed on him as a result of the American information.
            

Some years before he had asked for a pocket knife, with which he might trim the uncut pages of some of the first editions of the books he had ordered: There is no indication that he was asked to hand it back, even with the harsh Doctor Brayn in charge. No other patient was allowed to keep a knife, but with his twin cells, his bottles, and his books, and with his part-time servant, William Minor seemed still to belong to a different category from most others in Broadmoor at the time.
            

In the year following the disclosure about his
relatives, the files speak of Minor’s having started to take walks out on the Terrace in all weathers, angrily denouncing those who tried to persuade him to come back in during one especially violent snowstorm, insisting in his imperious way that it was his business alone if he wished to catch a cold. He had more freedom of choice and movement than most.
(…)

Simon Winschester. The Professor and the Madman – A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary. Harper Perennial, 2005, p. 182-3 (adapted).

12. (CESPE-CEBRASPE-2013-MRE-DIPLOMATA-1ª FASE)

Each of the options below presents an excerpt taken from the text and a version of the same excerpt.

Choose the one which has retained most of the original meaning found in the text.

A) “In the year following the disclosure about his relatives, the files speak of Minor’s having started to take walks out on the Terrace in all weathers, angrily denouncing those who tried to persuade him to come back in …” (R.36-39) / In the year after the revelation about his relatives, the archives show that Minor had started to take walks out on the Terrace during any kind of weather, angrily extolling people who tried to convince him to come back in…

B) “He was replaced by Doctor Brayn, a man selected (…) by a Home Office that felt a stricter regime needed to be employed at the asylum.” (R.5-8) / He was substituted by Doctor Brayn, a man picked over (…) by a Home Office who believed a more rigid regimen needed to be established at the asylum.

C) “Brayn was indeed a martinet, a jailer of the old school who would have done well at any prison farm” (R.9-10) / Brayn was really punctilious, a traditional jailer who would have been successful working at any prison farm.

D) “There were no escapes during his term of office (…), and in the first year two hundred thousand hours of solitary confinement were logged by the more fractious inmates.” (R.11-15) / No one escaped while he was in office (…), and in the first year of his mandate two hundred thousand hours of solitary confinement were registered by the more ingratiating prisoners.

E) “One curious snippet of information came from the United States later that same year, when it was noted rather laconically that two of Minor’s family had recently killed themselves…” (R.19-22) / One odd piece of information came from the United States later that same year, when it was noted rather verbosely that two of Minor’s relatives had recently killed themselves…