CACD – DISCURSIVA 2012 – DIPLOMATA – LÍNGUA INGLESA –WRITING EXAMINATION

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❑ PROVA DE LÍNGUA INGLESA:

• DIPLOMATA-CACD-WRITING EXAMINATION-2012-CESPE/UnB.

❑ ESTRUTURA-PROVA ESCRITA (WRITING EXAMINATION):

• (1) TRANSLATION  | 20 pontos |
• (2)  VERSION  | 15 pontos |
• (3)  SUMMARY | 15 pontos |
• (4) COMPOSITION | China Daily | 50 pontos | 

1 - TRANSLATION:

Translate into Portuguese the following excerpt adapted from Isabel Hilton's review of The Opium Wars by Julia Lovell, published in The Guardian on 11th September 2011.

[value: 20 marks]

The Opium Wars were an inglorious episode on both sides. They were triggered by an upstart imperial power being snubbed and rebuffed in its quest for trade: there was nothing, the Chinese loftily told the British emissaries, which China needed or wanted from the West — not their goods, not their ideas, and definitely not their company.

In March 1839, Canton commissioner Lin Zexu, hot from arresting 1,600 opium smokers and confiscating a full 14 tonnes of the narcotic, ordered foreign merchants to hand over their stocks and undertake to bring no more. The British agreed to relinquish over 20,000 chests of premium Bengal-grown opium, assuring merchants all the while that the crown would make good their losses, thus transforming the dispute into an affair of state. Lin reported to Emperor Daoguang that matters had been satisfactorily concluded. Months later, somewhat to his amazement, the British gunboats arrived.

A motley cast of characters played their part in the ensuing tragicomedy: bungling officials, rogue merchants, unscrupulous politicians, muscular military imperialists and the dithering, bewildered emperor.

Internet: <www.guardian.co.uk>(adapted).

➽ TRADUÇÃO:

As Guerras do Ópio foram um episódio inglório para ambos os lados. Elas foram engatilhadas quando uma potência imperial ascendente foi esnobada e rejeitada em sua busca por comércio: não havia nada, os chineses disseram arrogantemente aos emissários britânicos, que a China quisesse ou de que precisasse do Ocidente – nem suas mercadorias, nem suas ideias e, definitivamente, nem sua companhia.
            

Em março de 1839, o comissão cantonês Lin Zaxu, incensado ao prender 1600 fumantes de ópio e confiscar nada menos que 14 toneladas do narcótico, ordenou a mercadores estrangeiros que entregassem seus estoques e tratassem de não trazer mais. Os britânicos concordaram m ceder mais de 20.000 baús de ópio cultivado em Bengala da melhor qualidade, garantindo aos mercadores nesse ínterim que a coroa compensaria suas perdas, transformando a disputa, assim, em um assunto de Estado. Lin reportou ao Imperador Daoguang que as questões haviam sido concluídas satisfatoriamente. Meses depois, um tanto para sua surpresa, as canhoneiras britânicas chegaram.
            

Uma trupe variegada de personagens fez seus papéis na tragicomédia que se seguiu: oficiais atrapalhados, mercadores fora-da-lei, políticos inescrupulosos, militares imperialistas musculosos e o vacilante, abismado imperador.

2 - VERSION:

Translate into English the following excerpt adapted from Maurício Carvalho Lyrio’s study “A ascensão da China como potência”

[value: 15 marks]

           

Historiadores e sinólogos convergem na avaliação de que a civilização chinesa impressiona não apenas por sua longevidade, mas também e principalmente por sua grandeza econômica e política ao longo de boa parte da história, quando comparada a outras civilizações antigas e modernas.
            

Francis Bacon observou que o mundo seiscentista se recriava pela pólvora, pela prensa e pelo ímã. Omitiu o fato, no entanto, de que todos os três foram descobertos séculos antes na China.
            

Malgrado seu status de economia mais pujante do mundo ao longo de três milênios, em 1829, já se vislumbravam os primeiros indícios da queda abrupta que apequenaria a economia chinesa diante das rivais europeias no século seguinte. Passadas sucessivas décadas de declínio relativo, a produção industrial chinesa era, nos anos 1930, menor do que a da Bélgica. Já sua produção de aparelhos e equipamentos não ultrapassava a de um estado do meio-oeste norte-americano.

M. C. Lyrio.A ascensão da China como potência:fundamentos políticos internos.

Brasília:FUNAG, 2010, p. 16-8.

➽ VERSÃO (Português→Inglês):

Historians and China specialists(1) agree on(2) the assessment that Chinese civilization is impressive(3) not only for its longevity, but also and mainly for economic and political greatness throughout a large part of(4)history, when compared to other ancient and modern civilizations.

            

Francis Bacon observed that the world in the 17th century(5)was recreated by gunpowder, the press, and the magnet. However, he omitted the fact that all three(6) were discovered centuries earlier(7) in China.

            

Despite its status as(8) the most powerful economy in the world throughout three millennia(9), in 1829, the first signs(10) of the sudden fall which would belittle the Chinese economy before(11) its European rivals in the following century were already visible(12). After successive decades(13) of relative decline, China's industrial production(14) was, in the 1930s, smaller than Belgium's (15). Yet , its production of machines and equipment did not surpass that of(16) a mid-west North-American state(17).
--------------------------------------------
TÉCNICAS DE TRANSLATION:

--------------------------------------------
*(1) Chine especialists = especialists on China = sinologist.
*(2) agree on= concordam em. No contexto, o verbo "to converg"(convergir) não é adequado, pois este transmite a ideia "come together" , ou seja, vir junto,mover/tender para um ponto.
*(3) A estrutura adequada é "is impressive"(é impressionante).

Estruturas como "amazes" ou "impressives" não são adequadas pois não estão na voz passiva. Lembre-se, "impressive" é adjetivo e, não é verbo.
*(4) A estrutura adequada é "a large part of" (uma grande/boa parte de).

No contexto, não são adequadas as estruturas "a huge part of"(uma enorme parte de),"a most part of"(a maior parte).
*(5) A banca examinadora não aceita "números romanos" em inglês, ou seja, a estrutura em português "século XVII" , em inglês fica:
"século XVII" → "seventeenth century" (forma extensa) ou apenas
"século XVII" → "17^th century". (na forma: número e subscrito do th).
*(6) Para "todos 3" → "all three" ou "all three of them" são estruturas adequadas no contexto.
*(7) Para "séculos antes" → "centuries earlier" ou "centuries before" são estruturas adequadas no contexto.
*(8) Para "status/condição de" → "status as" é a estrutura adequadas no contexto. A estrutura "status of" é inadequada.
*(9) Para "a economia mais pujante" → "the most powerful economy", ou ainda "the most striking...", "the most largest...", todas estão adequadas ao contexto.
*(10) Para "os primeiros indícios" → "the first signs" é a estrutura adequada no contexto pois transmite a ideia de sinal=indício. O substantivo  "signal"(sinal) na estrutura é inadequada.
👉Veja a diferença sutil entre "sign" e "signal":
👦Traffic sign: an advice, warning, etc 
👱Traffic signal: more likely refer to the traffic lights.
*(11) Para "diante de" → "before" é a preposição adequada.
*(12) Para "já se vislumbravam" → "were already visible" ou ainda "were already noticed".
*(13) Para "Passadas sucessivas décadas" → "After successive decades" é uma estrutura adequada, também são aceitáveis: "After several decades"(depois de várias décadas), "After decades in a row"(depois de décadas seguidas).
*(14) Para "Produção industrial da China
" → "China's industrial production" ou ainda "China's industrial output".
*(15) Para "menor do que a da Bélgica" → "smaller than Belgium's".
*(16) Após o verbo transitivo indireto "to surpass", a estrutura adequada é "that of"(a de) e não "that one of".
*(17) Para "um estado do meio-oeste norte-americano" → "a mid-west North-American state"(um estado norte-americano do meio-oeste) ou "a North-American mid-west state"(um estado norte-americano do meio-oeste).

3 - SUMMARY:

Write a summary, in your own words, of the following excerpt adapted from Michael Glosny’s 2010 Polity paper “China and the BRICs”. (Length: no more than 200 words)

[value: 15 marks]

           

Despite fundamental differences between the four countries and structural constraints of unipolarity that might have kept them from cooperating, the BRICs have surpassed most expectations in recent years in forming a nascent political grouping. On the foundation of other meetings between newly emerging powers, most importantly the trilateral Russia-India-China (RIC) arrangement, the BRIC foreign ministers began meeting in 2006. BRIC cooperation expanded to include two finance ministers’ summits, meetings of leaders, and a stand-alone BRIC leaders’ summit in June 2009, which produced a joint communiqué. Russia and Brazil have been the driving forces responsible for transforming the BRICs from an abstract financial concept into a genuine political grouping. However, the Chinese have also agreed to participate and cooperate. In a lengthy interview on the BRICs on the eve of the summit, Director-General Wu Hailong of the International Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs described the BRIC grouping as an “evolution from a hypothetical into a realistic platform for international cooperation.”
            

As the world’s second largest economy, a nuclear weapons state, a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, the largest holder of foreign exchange reserves, and a rising power whose influence is spreading across the globe, China has already been acknowledged as a superpower by the rest of the world. Having China as a partner has helped raise the profile of the other three BRICs partners, but China itself is less reliant on this association. However logical this cooperation may be, it is also costly and risky. As Chinese leaders’ time is limited and valuable, participation in meetings has an opportunity cost. Moreover, China also risks being perceived as participating in a political bloc designed to challenge and undermine the U.S. and the western liberal order.
            

For China, cooperation with the BRICs has occurred under the structural constraints of unipolarity, which provide it with an incentive to cooperate with the U.S. and ensure its behavior is not seen as a threat to which the hyper-sensitive hegemon might feel prompted to respond. However, China has benefited from its cooperation with the BRICs in significant ways. Looking forward, one of the major challenges for China in its engagement with the BRICs is how to maximize its benefits from cooperation while doing its utmost to make sure the U.S. does not perceive its cooperation with the BRICs as a threat. Zhao Gancheng, a researcher at the Shanghai Institute of International Studies, perfectly captures this dilemma in his analysis of BRIC cooperation. He argues that “[China’s] objective is through cooperation, to strengthen its position in the international system, but concomitantly to endeavor not to challenge the U.S. in a confrontational mode.” China does not see its cooperation with the BRICs as part of an anti-U.S. hard balancing coalition. Were anyone to attempt to move the BRICs in that direction, China would oppose the move, as would other member states. Despite the significance of BRIC cooperation, fundamental differences among the BRICs, the continued relevance of the U.S., and intra-BRIC competition and rivalry seriously limit the extent to which further BRIC cooperation can go. Looking to the future, as the U.S. declines and the BRICs continue to rise, it is very possible that intra-BRIC competition and rivalry will become fierce, further curbing cooperation among the member states.
            

U.S. policy is an important factor that could potentially overcome such limitations and push the BRICs toward more far-reaching cooperation. If the U.S. views limited BRIC cooperation as an anti-U.S. bloc and so adopts a more hostile policy towards this “alliance,” it may drive these countries closer together and thus create a self-fulfilling prophecy. Moreover, were the U.S. and other western countries to spurn BRIC demands for limited changes in the international order, the BRICs might well become disillusioned, see themselves as forced to mount a sweeping challenge, and seek to replace it with an order more suited to their interests. Thus far, this scenario seems unlikely. Western countries have started to show themselves to be more receptive to the idea of reforming the order and accommodating some of the BRIC demands. Although negotiation on reforming the international order is likely to be a drawn-out and difficult process, the willingness of western countries to entertain BRIC proposals should enhance the BRICs’ satisfaction with the international order, and so make them more likely to act as “responsible stakeholders.” That would put paid to the prospect of them challenging the status quo.
           

 Looking ahead, China’s power will likely provide a challenge to BRIC cooperation and the BRICs as a grouping. Although the other three powers have garnered prestige by their association with the rising Chinese juggernaut, analysts have begun to suggest that China’s overwhelming power relative to the other three will eventually undermine the BRICs as a coherent grouping. For instance, recent unofficial calls for a Sino-American G2 designed to address global challenges and manage the global order suggest China is no longer an emerging power or a developing country. However much this may raise concern for BRIC coherence, China is already much more powerful than the other BRICs by most measures. Moreover, its advantages have not hobbled the positive momentum of BRIC cooperation. Besides, although foreign analysts may call for a G2, Premier Wen Jiabao and most Chinese experts have criticized the concept as inappropriate and unworkable, arguing that China is too weak to shoulder such responsibility whilst recognizing that endorsing the idea would harm China’s diplomacy, isolating it from the developing world. In fact, rather than being eager to be seen as part of a G2 leading and managing the world, China’s leaders are more than glad to continue to keep a relatively low profile as a developing country, to cooperate with other emerging powers, and to benefit from this cooperation, all the while studiously avoiding being seen as standing up to the United States.

Michael A. Glosny. China and the BRICs:

a real (but limited) partnership in a unipolar world.

In: Polity, v. 42, n.º 1, January 2010, 100-29. Internet:<www.palgrave-journals.com> (adapted).

➽ RESUMO EM INGLÊS:           

Exceeding expectations, the BRICs has evolved from an abstract concept into a political group, mostly thanks to Brazilian and Russian efforts. However, China also acknowledges its importance as a means for international cooperation.
            

China’s economic, military and political clout characterizes it as a superpower. Whereas this is advantageous for its BRIC partners, it is a risk for China. Considering the structural constraints of unipolarity, China’s challenge is to keep profiting from the BRICs to reinforce its international position and, concomitantly, to avoid confronting the United States.
            

BRIC cooperation is limited by differences between its members, the US relevant international role and intra-group competition – which may intensify if the US declines. Conversely, if the US adopts an hostile policy towards the group, this would foster cooperation in the bloc. Western countries have recently shown interest in accepting BRICs demands for change in the international order lest the bloc feels forced to radicalize its stance.
            

Analysts suggest that China’s power will undermine the BRICs, and call for a Chinese-American alliance. Chinese disparage this possibility for they want to keep cooperating with developing countries, while avoiding competition with the US.

4 - COMPOSITION:

Taking due account of the text above and of China’s strategic objectives, comment on how its participation in the BRICS might fit into this framework.

[Length: 400-450 words]

[value: 50 marks]

            

In the joint declaration at the conclusion of the 4th BRICS Summit, the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa vowed to enhance mutual cooperation and contribute to world development and prosperity. The summit has come at a crucial moment, as the global economic recovery is still dragging its feet, entangled by fragile financial systems, high public and private debt, high unemployment and the rising price of oil. Pressing issues, such as climate change, food security and energy security also pose grave challenges. “BRICS cooperation now stands at a new starting point,” declared President Hu Jintao, adding that the five emerging economies need to build on current cooperation and blaze new trails so as to inject vitality into their mechanism and so usher in a more just, fair and reasonable international political and economic order.

China Daily, 30th March 2012. Internet: <www.chinadaily.com> (adapted)

➽ REDAÇÃO EM INGLÊS:            

While many Western countries still look hopeless trying to wade out of the economic morass into which they began to sink after the 2008 world crisis, the BRICS further their cooperation in order to address the most pressing issues today. Among them, China stands out as the most important emerging power of our times. Due to its singularity, it has three strategic objectives, which may benefit from BRICS cooperation: to achieve the appropriate level of development, necessary to grant its huge population a dignified life; to protect its territory against separatism; to make sure its ascend as a global superpower will be peaceful, i.e., that it will not entail confrontation with the US.
      

China is an ancient civilization, an Asian colossus, with a rich 5000-years history and a huge population. During most of its history, China has been an empire, but in the nineteenth century it fell prey to widespread corruption, internally, and was subjected to dreadful onslaughts by Western imperialism. As a result, its population has suffered severe hardship since then and only recently has China managed to begin its recovery. However, even today most part of the Chinese population still fights poverty and its under-development remains a cause for concern. Given that, China perceives the BRICS as a paramount forum, by means of which global economic governance may be reformed, so as to help, or at least not to hinder (as Araújo Castro would say) the development of the emerging powers and the rest of the Southern countries. 
      

Moreover, cooperation with the BRICS may also be of the utmost importance for China with respect to its territorial integrity. Throughout its history, and even today, Chinese leaders have always been cautious to prevent separatism from gaining momentum. Within the BRICS, China is able to establish closer links with two of its neighbors, India and Russia, thus neutralizing possible reasons for border issues, or being more capable of addressing them, were problems to emerge.
      

Furthermore, it can be said that Chinese culture is embedded in a notion of harmony. It does not want its inevitable rise as a superpower to be perceived as a threat by the “hypersensitive hegemon”, as Michael Glosny describes the US. China wants to emerge in a harmonious and peaceful way. Considering the jittery conditions of current international relations, the best way to avoid an aggressive North American reaction is to become closer to countries such as Brazil and India, which are commonly considered by the Western superpower as non-confrontational.
      

Given that there is no fundamental contradiction between China´s objectives and those of the other BRICS partners, it is reasonable to expect that China will continue to cooperate within the BRICS framework, in order to achieve its goals with respect to development, territorial integrity and peaceful coexistence with the US. 

CACD TPS 2012 – DIPLOMATA – LÍNGUA INGLESA

www.inglesparaconcursos.blog.br

❑ PROVA DE LÍNGUA INGLESA:

• DIPLOMATA-CACD-TPS-2012-CESPE/UnB-CONCURSO DE ADMISSÃO À CARREIRA DE DIPLOMATA-APLICAÇÃO 25/03/2012.

❑ ESTRUTURA-TESTE DE PRÉ-SELEÇÃO:

• 06 TFQs (True False Questions) / 4 Options Each Question.
• 06 MCQs (Multiple Choice Questions) / 5 Options Each Question.
• Texto (1) – | Godzilla’s grandchildren | www.economist.com |
• Texto (2) – | Can a planet survive the death of its sun? | www.time.com |
• Texto (3) – | Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, an American slave.|
• Texto (4) – | Darkness and light |

❑ TEXTO 1:

01-EEEC, 02-A, 03-A, 04-ECCC, 05-EEEC

06-E, 07-D, 08-ECCC, 09-EECE

10-CECE, 11-E, 12-A

➧ TEXT I: This text refers to questions from 01 through 03.

Godzilla’s grandchildren

            

In Japan there is no kudos in going to jail for your art. Bending the rules, let alone breaking them, is largely taboo. That was one reason Toshinori Mizuno was terrified as he worked undercover at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear-power plant, trying to get the shot that shows him in front of the mangled third reactor holding up a referee’s red card. He was also terrified of the radiation, which registered its highest reading where he took the photograph. The only reason he did not arouse suspicion, he says, is because he was in regulation radiation kit. And in Japan people rarely challenge a man in uniform.

Mr. Mizuno is part of ChimPom, a six-person collective of largely unschooled artists who have spent a lot of time getting into tight spots since the disaster, and are engagingly thoughtful about the results.

It is easy to dismiss ChimPom’s work as a publicity stunt. But the artists’ actions speak at least as loudly as their images. There is a logic to their seven years of guerrilla art that has become clearer since the nuclear disaster of March 11th 2011. In fact, Noi Sawaragi, a prominent art critic, says they may be hinting at a new direction in Japanese contemporary art.

Radiation and nuclear annihilation have suffused Japan’s subculture since the film Gojira (the Japanese Godzilla) in 1954. The two themes crop up repeatedly in manga and anime cartoons.

Other young artists are ploughing similar ground. Kota Takeuchi, for instance, secretly took a job at Fukushima Dai-ichi and is recorded pointing an angry finger at the camera that streams live images of the site. Later he used public news conferences to pressure Tepco, operator of the plant, about the conditions of its workers inside. His work, like ChimPom’s, blurs the distinction between art and activism.

Japanese political art is unusual and the new subversiveness could be a breath of fresh air; if only anyone noticed. The ChimPom artists have received scant coverage in the stuffy arts pages of the national newspapers. The group held just one show of Mr. Mizuno’s reactor photographs in Japan. He says: “The timing has not been right. The media will just want to make the work look like a crime.”

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

01. (CESPE-CEBRASPE-2012-MRE-DIPLOMATA-1ª FASE)

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

(1) Toshinori Mizuno was more concerned with the radiation he was exposed to while he was at the nuclear-power plant than with the fact that his art challenged the Japanese established rules.
(2) Some Fukushima Dai-ichi employers have turned into political activists after the accident of 2011.
(3) The Japanese in general are enthusiastic about artists who get in trouble for breaking the traditional dogmas prevalent in the artistic milieu.
(4) Mr. Mizuno believes the radiation kit protected him from more than the radiation in the area.

02. (CESPE-CEBRASPE-2012-MRE-DIPLOMATA-1ª FASE)

The words “mangled” (R.6) and “suffused” (R.23) mean respectively
A) ruined and permeated.
B) mutilated and obscured.
C) subdued and covered.
D) humongous and imbued.
E) torn and zeroed in on.

03. (CESPE-CEBRASPE-2012-MRE-DIPLOMATA-1ª FASE)

Based on the text, it is correct to say that ChimPom

A) adopts some artistic-political stance which is being largely ignored by the Japanese media nationwide.
B) produces art which is dissonant with its members’ attitudes.
C) is unique in mixing art with political protest.
D) is a large group of untrained artists whose work blend art and political activism.
E) creates art which is avant-garde, and is setting the path of modern art in Japan.

➧ TEXT II: This text refers to questions from 04 through 34.

Can a planet survive the death of its sun?

Scientists find two that did.           

            

Natalie Batalha has had plenty of experience fielding questions from both layfolk and other scientists over the past couple of years — and with good reason. Batalha is the deputy principal investigator for the spectacularly successful Kepler space telescope, which has found evidence of more than 2,000 planets orbiting distant stars so far — including, just last week, a world almost exactly the size of Earth.
            

But Kepler is giving astronomers all sorts of new information about stars as well, and that’s what an European TV correspondent wanted to know about during an interview last year. Was it true, she asked, that stars like the sun will eventually swell up and destroy their planets? It’s a common question, and Batalha recited the familiar answer, one that’s been in astronomy textbooks for at least half a century: Yes, it’s true. Five or six billion years from now, Earth will be burnt to a cinder. This old news was apparently quite new to the European correspondent, because when she reported her terrifying scoop, she added a soupçon of conspiracy theory to it: NASA, she suggested, was trying to downplay the story.
            

It was not a proud moment for science journalism, but unexpectedly, at about the same time the European correspondent was reporting her nonbulletin, Kepler scientists did discover a whole new wrinkle to the planet-eating-star scenario: it’s apparently possible for planets to be swallowed up by their suns and live to tell the tale. According to a paper just published in Nature, the Kepler probe has taken a closer look at a star called KOI 55 and identified it as a “B subdwarf”, the red-hot corpse of a sunlike star, one that already went through its deadly expansion. Around it are two planets, both a bit smaller than Earth — and both so close to their home star that even the tiniest solar expansion ought to have consumed them whole. And yet they seem, writes astronomer Eliza Kempton in a Nature commentary, “to be alive and well. Which begs the question, how did they survive?”
            

How indeed? A star like the sun takes about 10 billion years to use up the hydrogen supply. Once the hydrogen is gone, the star cools from white hot to red hot and swells dramatically: in the case of our solar system, the sun’s outer layers will reach all the way to Earth. Eventually, those outer layers will waft away to form what’s called a planetary nebula while the core shrinks back into an object just like KOI 55.
            

If a planet like Earth spent a billion years simmering in the outer layers of a star it would, says astronomer Betsy Green, “just evaporate. Only planets with masses very much larger than the Earth, like Jupiter or Saturn, could possibly survive.”
            

And yet these two worlds, known as KOI 55.01 and KOI 55.02, lived through the ordeal anyway. The key to this seeming impossibility, suggest the astronomers, is that the planets may have begun life as gas giants like Jupiter or Saturn, with rocky cores surrounded by vast, crushing atmospheres. As the star expanded, the gas giants would have spiraled inward until they dipped into the stellar surface itself. The plunge would have been enough to strip off their atmospheres, but their rocky interiors could have survived — leaving, eventually, the bleak tableau of the naked cores of two planets orbiting the naked core of an elderly star.

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

04. (CESPE-CEBRASPE-2012-MRE-DIPLOMATA-1ª FASE)

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

(1) The recent discovery of a planet with some features very similar to those of the Earth is one of the interesting finds of the Kepler space telescope.
(2) The European TV correspondent reported a scientific find that had been long known as if it were a recent breakthrough.
(3) The researchers seem baffled by the recent find of the probe, since they did not expect planets to survive their sun’s expansion and subsequent shrinkage.
(4) The article mocks the European TV correspondent’s disinformation about astronomy.

05. (CESPE-CEBRASPE-2012-MRE-DIPLOMATA-1ª FASE)

According to the text, judge if the items below about Natalie Batalha are right (C) or wrong (E).

(1) She is the chief researcher of the space project that involves the Kepler telescope.
(2) She was taken aback by the European TV correspondent’s ignorance about the natural process of a star’s living cycle.
(3) Natalie Batalha demonstrated how planets can survive the death of the star they orbit.
(4) Natalie Batalha is used to talking about her research to specialists and non-specialists alike.

06. (CESPE-CEBRASPE-2012-MRE-DIPLOMATA-1ª FASE)

Each of the options below presents a sentence of the text and a version of this sentence.

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

A) “A star like the sun takes about 10 billion years to use up the hydrogen supply” (R.35-36) / It would take a sunlike star around 10 billion years to supply the necessary hydrogen.
B) “Eventually, those outer layers will waft away to form what’s called a planetary nebula while the core shrinks back into an object just like KOI 55” (R.39-41) / Eventually, those outer layers will spew away to shape what’s called a planetary nebula while the core shrinks back into an object just like KOI 55.
C) “Natalie Batalha has had plenty of experience fielding questions from both layfolk and other scientists over the past couple of years — and with good reason” (R.1-3) / Natalie Batalha was quite adept at discerning which questions were made by layfolk or by other scientists over the past couple of years — and with good reason.
D) “at about the same time the European correspondent was reporting her nonbulletin, Kepler scientists did discover a whole new wrinkle to the planet-eating-star scenario” (R.21-24) / at about the same time the European correspondent was reporting her nonbulletin, Kepler scientists did stumble pon a whole new crease to the planet-eating-star scene.
E) “This old news was apparently quite new to the European correspondent, because when she reported her terrifying scoop, she added a soupçon of conspiracy theory to it” (R.16-19) / This old news was apparently quite new to the European correspondent, because when she reported her terrifying scoop, she added a dab of conspiracy theory to it.

➧ TEXT III: This text refers to questions from 07 through 09.            

While on their way, the slaves selected to go to the great House farm would make the dense old woods, for miles around, reverberate with their wild songs, revealing at once the highest joy and the deepest sadness. (...) They would sing, as a chorus, to words which to many would seem unmeaning jargon, but which, nevertheless, were full of meaning to themselves. I have sometimes thought that the mere hearing of those songs would do more to impress some minds with the horrible character of slavery, than the reading of whole volumes of philosophy on the subject could do.           

I did not, when a slave, understand the deep meaning of those rude and apparently incoherent songs. I was myself within the circle; so that I neither saw nor heard as those without might see and hear. They told a tale of woe which was then altogether beyond my feeble comprehension; they were tones loud, long, and deep; they breathed the prayer and complaint of souls boiling over with the bitterest anguish.

           

Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains. The hearing of those wild notes always depressed my spirit, and filled me with ineffable sadness. I have frequently found myself in tears while hearing them. The mere recurrence to those songs, even now, afflicts me; and while I am writing these lines, an expression of feeling has already found its way down my cheek.

To those songs I trace my first glimmering conception of the dehumanizing character of slavery. I can never get rid of that conception. Those songs still follow me, to deepen my hatred of slavery, and quicken my sympathies for my brethren in bonds. If any one wishes to be impressed with the soul-killing effects of slavery, let him go to Colonel Lloyd’s plantation, and, on allowance-day, place himself in the deep pine woods, and there let him, in silence, analyze the sounds that shall pass through the chambers of his soul, and if he is not thus impressed, it will only be because “there is no flesh in his obdurate heart.”

Frederick Douglass.

Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, an American slave. Charleston (SC):Forgotten Books, 2008, p. 26-7 (adapted).

07. (CESPE-CEBRASPE-2012-MRE-DIPLOMATA-1ª FASE)

To state that the songs “told a tale of woe” (R.14)

means that the songs

A) were accounts of intertribal warfare.
B) were hyms praising God.
C) were delusions of grandeur of an African idyllic time.
D) had to do with grief and sorrow.
E) had the purpose of keeping slaves’ minds away from their hard work.

08. (CESPE-CEBRASPE-2012-MRE-DIPLOMATA-1ª FASE)

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

(1) The music produced by the slaves had the power to incite them to rebel against their appalling condition.
(2) The author of the text ascribes his nascent political awareness regarding slavery to the tunes he heard the slaves sing.
(3) The narrator believes that his fellow slaves managed to translate their dire predicament into moving tunes.
(4) To outsiders, the music sung by the slaves would probably sound like babbling.

09. (CESPE-CEBRASPE-2012-MRE-DIPLOMATA-1ª FASE)

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

(1) The fragment “quicken my sympathies for my brethren in bonds” (R.28) means that the narrator is fast when it comes to forging emotional and spiritual bonds with his own real family through music.
(2) In “than the reading of whole volumes” (R.9-10), the omission of the definite article would not interfere with the grammar correction of the sentence.
(3) The relationship the word “within” (R.13) bears with “without” (R.14) is one of opposition.
(4) Although the slaves’ songs touched the narrator’s heart, the uncultured quality of their music sometimes annoyed him, as shown in the fragment “The hearing of those wild notes always depressed my spirit” (R.19-20).

➧ TEXT IV: This text refers to questions from 10 through 12.

Darkness and light

           

Caravaggio’s art is made from darkness and light. His pictures present spotlit moments of extreme and often agonized human experience. A man is decapitated in his bedchamber, blood spurting from a deep gash in his neck. A woman is shot in the stomach with a bow and arrow at point-blank range. Caravaggio’s images freeze time but also seem to hover on the brink of their own disappearance. Faces are brightly illuminated. Details emerge from darkness with such uncanny clarity that they might be hallucinations. Yet always the shadows encroach, the pools of blackness that threaten to obliterate all. Looking at his pictures is like looking at the world of flashes of lightning.

Caravaggio’s life is like his art, a series of lightning flashes in the darkness of nights. He is a man who can never be known in full because almost all that he did, said and thought is lost in the irrecoverable past. He was one of the most electrifying original artists ever to have lived, yet we have only one solitary sentence from him on the subject of painting — the sincerity of which is, in any case, questionable, since it was elicited from him when he was under interrogation for the capital crime of libel.

When Caravaggio emerges from the obscurity of the past he does so, like the characters in his own paintings, as a man in extremis. He lived much of his life as a fugitive, and that is how he is preserved in history — a man on the run, heading for the hills, keeping to the shadows. But he is caught, now and again, by the sweeping beam of a  earchlight. Each glimpse is different. He appears in many guises and moods. Caravaggio throws stones at the house of his landlady and sings ribald songs outside her window. He has a fight with a waiter about the dressing on a plate of artichokes. His life is a series of intriguing and vivid tableaux — scenes that abruptly switch from low farce to high drama.

Andrew Graham-Dixon.

Caravaggio: a life sacred and profane.New York – London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2010 (adapted).

10. (CESPE-CEBRASPE-2012-MRE-DIPLOMATA-1ª FASE)

Based on the text,

judge if the following items are right (C) or wrong (E).

(1) In the second paragraph, the author suggests that information collected under duress is not reliable.
(2) The text is built on images associated with darkness, which suggests that Caravaggio’s life, as well as the quality of his art, was shadowy and shady.
(3) The author provides the opening paragraph with a cinematic quality for he attempts to create dynamic scenes.
(4) From the passage “He is a man who can never be known in full because almost all that he did, said and thought is lost in the irrecoverable past.” (R.14-16) it can be correctly inferred that the author is of the opinion that the study of history is a futile attempt to reconstruct events from the past.

11. (CESPE-CEBRASPE-2012-MRE-DIPLOMATA-1ª FASE)

In line 5, “at point-blank range” means

A) in a cold-blooded manner.
B) summarily.
C) without intention.
D) fatally.
E) within a short distance.

12. (CESPE-CEBRASPE-2012-MRE-DIPLOMATA-1ª FASE)

In the last paragraph of the text, the cause for Caravaggio’s disagreement with the waiter was

A) the sauce served with the artichokes.
B) the inartistic appearance of the food.
C) the unaffordable price of the plate.
D) the frugality of the dish.
E) the lack of freshness of the artichokes.