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➧NESTE POST: PROVA de INGLÊS da FGV-ECONOMIA/SP-2014-VESTIBULAR 1º SEMESTRE, aplicada em 01/12/2013.
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➧PADRÃO/COMPOSIÇÃO DA PROVA:
• Questões: 15 do tipo (A,B,C,D,E).
• Questões: 15 do tipo (A,B,C,D,E).
• Textos: 02.
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➧Agora vamos à PROVA!
• TEXTO 1: Read the article and answer questions numbers 76 through 90.
The road to hell
1
Bringing crops from one of the futuristic new farms in Brazil’s central and northern plains to foreign markets means taking a journey back in time. Loaded onto lorries, most are driven almost 2,000km south on narrow, potholed roads to the ports of Santos and Paranaguá. In the 19th and early 20th centuries they were used to bring in immigrants and ship out the coffee grown in the fertile states of São Paulo and Paraná, but now they are overwhelmed. Thanks to a record harvest this year, Brazil became the world’s largest soya producer, overtaking the United States. The queue of lorries waiting to enter Santos sometimes stretched to 40km.
(2)
No part of that journey makes sense. Brazil has too few crop silos, so lorries are used for storage as well as transport, causing a crush at ports after harvest. Produce from so far north should probably not be travelling to southern ports at all. Freight by road costs twice as much as by rail and four times as much as by water. Brazilian farmers pay 25% or more of the value of their soya to bring it to port; their competitors in Iowa just 9%. The bottleneck at ports pushes costs higher still. It also puts off customers. In March Sunrise Group, China’s biggest soya trader, cancelled an order for 2m tonnes of Brazilian soya after repeated delays.
(3)
All of Brazil’s infrastructure is decrepit. The World Economic Forum ranks it at 114th out of 148 countries. After a spate of railway-building at the turn of the 20th century, and road- and dam-building 50 years later, little was added or even maintained. In the 1980s infrastructure was a casualty of slowing growth and spiralling inflation. Unable to find jobs, engineers emigrated or retrained. Government stopped planning for the long term. According to Contas Abertas, a public-spending watchdog, only a fifth of federal money budgeted for urban transport in the past decade was actually spent. Just 1.5% of Brazil’s GDP goes on infrastructure investment from all sources, both public and private. The long-run global average is 3.8%. The McKinsey Global Institute estimates the total value of Brazil’s infrastructure at 16% of GDP. Other big economies average 71%. To catch up, Brazil would have to triple its annual infrastructure spending for the next 20 years.
(4)
Moreover, it may be getting poor value from what little it does invest because so much goes on the wrong things. A cumbersome environmental-licensing process pushes up costs and causes delays. Expensive studies are required before construction on big projects can start and then again at various stages along the way and at the end. Farmers and manufacturers spend heavily on lorries because road transport is their only option. But that is working around the problem, not solving it.
(5)
In the 1990s Mr Cardoso’s government privatised state-owned oil, energy and telecoms firms. It allowed private operators to lease terminals in public ports and to build their own new ports. Imports were booming as the economy opened up, so container terminals were a priority. The one at the public port in Bahia’s capital, Salvador, is an example of the transformation wrought by private money and management. Its customers used to rate it Brazil’s worst port, with a draft too shallow for big ships and a quay so short that even smaller vessels had to unload a bit at a time. But in the past decade its operator, Wilson & Sons, spent 260m reais on replacing equipment, lengthening the quay and deepening the draft. Capacity has doubled. Land access will improve, too, once an almost finished expressway opens. Paranaguá is spending 400m reais from its own revenues on replacing outdated equipment, but without private money it cannot expand enough to end the queues to dock. It has drawn up detailed plans to build a new terminal and two new quays, and identified 20 dockside areas that could be leased to new operators, which would bring in 1.6 billion reais of private investment. All that is missing is the federal government’s permission. It hopes to get it next year, but there is no guarantee. (6)
Firms that want to build their own infrastructure, such as mining companies, which need dedicated railways and ports, can generally build at will in Brazil, though they still face the hassle of environmental licensing. If the government wants to hand a project to the private sector it will hold an auction, granting the concession to the highest bidder, or sometimes the applicant who promises the lowest user charges. But since Lula came to power in 2003 there have been few infrastructure auctions of any kind. In recent years, under heavy lobbying from public ports, the ports regulator stopped granting operating licences to private ports except those intended mainly for the owners’ own cargo. As a result, during a decade in which Brazil became a commodity-exporting powerhouse, its bulk-cargo terminals hardly expanded at all.
(7)
At first Lula’s government planned to upgrade Brazil’s infrastructure without private help. In 2007 the president announced a collection of long-mooted public construction projects, the Growth Acceleration Programme (PAC). Many were intended to give farming and mining regions access to alternative ports. But the results have been disappointing. Two-thirds of the biggest projects are late and over budget. The trans-north-eastern railway is only half-built and its cost has doubled. The route of the east-west integration railway, which would cross Bahia, has still not been settled. The northern stretch of the BR-163, a trunk road built in the 1970s, was waiting so long to be paved that locals started calling it the “endless road”. Most of it is still waiting.
(8)
What has got things moving is the prospect of disgrace during the forthcoming big sporting events. Brazil’s terrible airports will be the first thing most foreign football fans see when they arrive for next year’s World Cup. Infraero, the state-owned company that runs them, was meant to be getting them ready for the extra traffic, but it is a byword for incompetence. Between 2007 and 2010 it managed to spend just 800m of the 3 billion reais it was supposed to invest. In desperation, the government last year leased three of the biggest airports to private operators.
(9)
That seemed to break a bigger logjam. First more airport auctions were mooted; then, some months later, Ms Rousseff announced that 7,500km of toll roads and 10,000km of railways were to be auctioned too. Earlier this year she picked the biggest fight of her presidency, pushing a ports bill through Congress against lobbying from powerful vested interests. The new law enables private ports once again to handle third-party cargo and allows them to hire their own staff, rather than having to use casual labour from the dockworkers’ unions that have a monopoly in public ports. Ms Rousseff also promised to auction some entirely new projects and to re-tender around 150 contracts in public terminals whose concessions had expired.
(10)
Would-be investors in port projects are hanging back because of the high chances of cost overruns and long delays. Two newly built private terminals at Santos that together cost more than 4 billion reais illustrate the risks. Both took years to get off the ground and years more to build. Both were finished earlier this year but remained idle for months. Brasil Terminal Portuário, a private terminal within the public port, is still waiting for the government to dredge its access channel. At Embraport, which is outside the public-port area, union members from Santos blocked road access and boarded any ships that tried to dock. Rather than enforcing the law that allows such terminals to use their own workers, the government summoned the management to Brasília for some arm-twisting. In August Embraport agreed to take the union members “on a trial basis”.
(11)
Given such regulatory and execution risks, there are unlikely to be many takers for either rail or port projects as currently conceived, says Bruno Savaris, an infrastructure analyst at Credit Suisse. He predicts that at most a third of the planned investments will be auctioned in the next three years: airports, a few simple port projects and the best toll roads. That is far short of what Brazil needs. The good news, says Mr Savaris, is that the government is at last beginning to understand that it must either reduce the risks for private investors or raise their returns. Private know-how and money will be vital to get Brazil moving again.
(www.economist.com/news/special-report. Adapted)
_____________________________________________________________________________👉 Questão 76 :
The core issue discussed in the article is:
(A) Brazilian government should use public funds to build more airports, roads, and railways.
(B) Soya output in Brazil is now larger than that of the United States.
(C) Private ports work much more efficiently than public-owned ones.
(D) Brazil needs a lot of private investment to overcome its infrastructure problems.(
E) Santos and Paranaguá are too far south to handle soya exports.
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👍 Comentários e Gabarito D
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👉 Questão 77 :
The metaphor developed in the first paragraph – a journey back in time – is linked to the fact that
(A) both Santos and Paranaguá are ports used more than a century ago to receive the immigrants to Brazil.
(B) most roads in Brazil were built around the middle of the 20th century and little more was done afterwards.
(C) it was only in the 1990s that the Brazilian government began to privatize part of its infrastructure.
(D) inflation was so high in the 1980s that the Brazilian government stopped developing new projects for roads.
(E) there is a major contrast between the farms producing the crops and the outlets used for their export.
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👍 Comentários e Gabarito A
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👉 Questão 78 :
Expressions used in the article such as – cumbersome environmental-licensing process (4th paragraph), the hassle of environmental licensing (6th paragraph), all that is missing is the federal government’s permission... but there is no guarantee (5th paragraph) – clearly show a bias pointing at the position of The Economist magazine
(A) against government interference in private initiative.
(B) towards favoring soya exports from the United States.
(C) for the Brazilian government of the 1990s.
(D) in relation to the privatization of some Brazilian airports.
(E) of praise towards the planned auctions of some ports and toll roads.
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👍 Comentários e Gabarito A
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👉 Questão 79 :
The second paragraph indicates that the Chinese business Sunrise Group decided to cancel its purchase of soya from Brazil because
(A) it would pay a higher price than it could pay for American soya.
(B) the soya they had bought couldn’t be shipped within the expected time.
(C) the Brazilian product becomes too expensive because it is shipped by road.
(D) it takes so long for the product to get there that most of it is spoiled on the trip.
(E) they wanted it to be shipped from northern, rather than southern ports.
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👍 Comentários e Gabarito B
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👉 Questão 80 :
According to the third paragraph,
(A) since the 1980s Brazilian engineers have been leaving the country and few are left for the work needed.
(B) Brazilian GDP is not big enough for all the infrastructure investments needed in the next 20 years.
(C) the value of Brazil’s infrastructure is way below that of countries similar to it in economic importance.
(D) urban development in Brazil has been over its planned budget for many years in a row.
(E) most infrastructure Brazil is outdated because it was built aroin und one century ago.
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👍 Comentários e Gabarito C
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👉 Questão 81 :
According to the fourth paragraph,
(A) roads are in such poor conditions that farmers end up spending a lot on lorries.
(B) the price of engineering studies for projects should be lowered so as to help improve infrastructure.
(C) the amount of money that goes into infrastructure in Brazil is far from being well invested. (D) environmental-licensing is a way to work around the main infrastructure problems.
(E) the main problems in infrastructure will only be solved when new roads are built.
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👍 Comentários e Gabarito C
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👉 Questão 82 :
The first word used in the fourth paragraph – moreover – carries an idea of
(A) contrast.
(B) conclusion.
(C) finality.
(D) addition.
(E) time.
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👍 Comentários e Gabarito D
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👉 Questão 83 :
The fifth paragraph, as a whole, points out that
(A) in order to be effective, ports should be entirely managed by private initiative.
(B) private investment can be very effective in building and improving a country’s infrastructure.
(C) telecom firms can be managed by private corporations as well as by government-owned enterprises.
(D) oil prospecting is too large and too strategic to be left in the hands of private investment only.
(E) government-owned ports can be leased to private corporations so as to bring the country good profit.
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👍 Comentários e Gabarito B
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👉 Questão 84 :
In the sentence fragment from the fifth paragraph – But in the past decade its operator... – the word its refers to
(A) Wilson & Sons.
(B) equipment.
(C) capacity.
(D) customers.
(E) the port in Salvador.
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👍 Comentários e Gabarito E
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👉 Questão 85 :
The sixth paragraph states that, in the last ten years, there has been a tendency towards
(A) halting the number of concessions for public ports to be operated privately.
(B) requiring a carefully-controlled environmental licensing process for private projects.
(C) only auctioning infrastructure projects that are environmentally friendly.
(D) allowing mining companies to build railroads as needed for cargo shipment to ports.
(E) granting concessions to the highest bidder, regardless of final project costs.
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👍 Comentários e Gabarito A
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👉 Questão 86 :
The seventh paragraph leads the reader to conclude that
(A) the Growth Acceleration Programme (PAC) is still being carried out without private capital as originally planned.
(B) roads and railways cannot be efficiently built by public administrations alone unless they are aided by private enterprise administration.
(C) only public money can give farming and mining communities the access they need, within costs they can afford, to ports.
(D) the initial project of President Lula’s administration to do without private investment in infrastructure didn’t work out as planned.
(E) railways are one of the most expensive kinds of infrastructure to build and that is why they are often late and over budget.
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👍 Comentários e Gabarito D
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👉 Questão 87 :
As regards Brazilian airports, the text states in the eighth paragraph that
(A) they are quickly being remodeled to receive fans arriving for the World Cup in 2014.
(B) most projects to remodel them are well over budget and won’t be completed in time.
(C) most will be privately-run by the time the football World Cup happens in 2014.
(D) only the important ones will be auctioned by the government before 2014.
(E) they are poorly run by the government-owned company in charge of them.
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👍 Comentários e Gabarito E
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👉 Questão 88 :
As regards infrastructure auctioning as mentioned in the ninth paragraph, the current Brazilian President, Dilma Rousseff,
(A) has decided to fight lobbying groups that are against some of it.
(B) is basically following on the footsteps of her predecessor, President Lula.
(C) picked a big fight with Brazilian Congress, in order to privatize roads and railways.
(D) seems to support wishes expressed by the dockworkers’ unions in most of Brazil.
(E) will turn some 150 privately-run ports back to public administration.
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👍 Comentários e Gabarito A
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👉 Questão 89 :
The sentence from the tenth paragraph – Rather than enforcing the law that allows such terminals to use their own workers, the government summoned the management to Brasília for some arm-twisting. – illustrates the fact that
(A) the government will not carry out their part in infrastructure projects in time.
(B) investing in port projects can be risky due to unexpected government interference.
(C) projects can take much more time to complete than originally planned.
(D) building private terminals within public-owned ports can be too expensive.
(E) cost and time overruns are more common in public than in private ports.
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👍 Comentários e Gabarito B
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👉 Questão 90 :
In the sentence fragment from the last paragraph – it must either reduce the risks for private investors or raise their returns – the use of either ... or indicates an idea of
(A) negation.
(B) similarity.
(C) alternative.
(D) comparison.
(E) opposition.
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👍 Comentários e Gabarito C
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